I arrange my worksheets, registering the swooshes of paper against paper backed by a bland backdrop of music. Slipping them into my file, I see that geography test paper, which I've failed. I don't sigh because I'm not yet at the age where sighs rake away troubles and provide momentary relief. People just don't sigh when they're thirteen years old. It's not normal.
The mark is stated plainly, an eleven and a half over twenty-five, put down coldly like the marker couldn't really care. There's an air of indifference and nonchalance about it, acid disregard painted neatly and mechanically, written clearly within the margins of the paper.
I like geography. I can't really remember not liking it. I've always been fascinated with its scientific side, that is. The world we live in and its carelessly perfect contours splashed all over glossy pages in intricate dexterity, mesmerizing. One can hardly believe her luck at the rare nakedness of the earth, laid bare and raw and splendid in all its ancient glory.
Because they are not human but supernatural, not mortal but free.
And yet this test was failed. I wonder why. Maybe because I couldn't care less about the study of humans, how they were handled so carelessly like figures, numbers, statistics on nature's wood, how plain and normal they were, because I've always liked new pretty things.
Humans are not pretty and humanity is not kind.
We place too much faith in ourselves.
