-Lament- ~ SWC 2023 March Writing Competition Entry ~ - 1312 words - Fan fi cabin ~~~~~ The school bell rang and we continue to stay in our seats. Mrs. Campbell only allows students to leave when she dismisses them, not the bell. So now I and around 20 others must watch Mrs. Campbell give us our homework she reserves to hand out in the minute after what was supposed to be the end of school for the day. I and the rest of the class watch Mrs. Campbell intensely to see what the work will be. My friend Cory taps my shoulder a few times with great excitement. “It looks like it isn’t on paper!” they try to sign with their hands but his gestures at the moment were jittery and he had also confused a word. Cory and I have been friends since elementary school and every day since around 3rd grade we’ve attempted to speak with each other using American Sign Language because we thought it was ‘cooler.’ Also, because in that time period, Cory’s younger sister started to learn sign language since she was partially deaf herself. Of course, me and him have always had issues when signing and have used wrong signs when trying to do so. So today Cory’s grand mistake while signing was that they signed school instead of paper because of how similar they looked in the language. Thankfully I’ve been accustomed to Cory’s constant error when trying to sign and got what he was trying to say. I look at Cory, shrug my shoulders, and go on to a more important matter: glaring at Mrs. Campbell menacingly and memorizing whatever homework she plans to give. After a few more seconds pass, Mrs. Campbell with no papers in her hand and a straight back stands up facing the class. “There shall be no paper work today nor work on canvas!” the professor’s voice across the entire class booms. “The only thing you need to do at home or rather outside of school hours is an act of kindness for a complete stranger that you must record with one of your phone cameras.” We all hunch over in annoyance, our excitement from the fact the assignment is not in writing disappears. “I don’t have a phone with a camera on it!” one high pitched student yells from the back of the room. “Lia, my dear, I know you have a phone with a camera on it. I’ve observed it so many times when I pick it up from your hands every week when you’re using it during my class. I know the case by heart!” The professor revolts back with a tone of authority. Lia shifts out of her chair arching down and with the rest of the class starts walking out. The door to Mrs. Campbell’s class closes and we are far from her class so she will not be able to hear us anymore. The members in our class who ride the bus start running rapidly towards the exit doors. Some people start shouting “Go Kevin!!” and others tease with “Bye bus kids, don’t come back tomorrow!” The commotion about the assignment now begins just like every other day after our last class ended. Cory and I hear the students groan about how they can’t cheat on the assignment since it has to be recorded. One boy in the back of the mob of teenagers suggests the idea that we use our parents as the people we’re doing the act of kindness for and just record that. Then a girl that is walking near Cory reminds us that Mrs. Campbell sees our parents every few months and would know they are not strangers. Cory and I match eyes. It is too loud to hear each other without yelling so Cory is signing out a few ideas of ways we could get out of doing the work correctly. They suggest for us to use siblings or friends from other schools to act out scenarios where we are being kind. I don’t want to cheat on this assignment though, it already sounds easy enough. Plus if we were to cheat it sounded like there would have to be a bribe involved and I’m already in enough debt! We stroll over to the right side of the hallway where there are less kids and start chatting. I tell him I don’t want to cheat and they become surprised.
“Why look at that! Georgy over here isn’t going to cheat on an assignment for once.” They exclaim across the hallway creating an echo of pride. I chuckle and he starts walking into the left corridor. I pause because I realize he’s walking the wrong and yell “Cory come over here, you’re going the wrong way you dumbo.” “I’m not coming with you. I’m going to tell my little sister to come outside and record me giving a piece of chocolate to her counting that as my act of kindness!” Cory shouts at me back. He comes a bit closer to me just to sign out that he wanted me to be kidnapped when I try talking to a stranger. I chuckle slowly looking downward and dash off to the sidewalk heading toward the direction of a store thinking I could just hand a toddler some candy I buy there. On my way over I notice a lady who was picking up a bunch of things she dropped. I throw my hand into my pocket, grab my phone, set it on video mode and start recording. I approach her and see all the papers and folders on the floor and start to smile. “Hello there!” I grin ear to ear, opening up my body widely enough to the point I felt like I looked friendly but not too wide to the point I wasn’t recording the situation the lady was in. “You look like you’re in quite a trouble, need some help picking up all those things there?” The lady then shifted her focus from the ground to my eyes and I saw her face. I flinched when I looked at the dark patches of skin she had all across her face. I opened my jaw, slouched down, and widened my eyes, when I saw how twisted she looked, my gaze switching from welcoming and positive to horrified. The lady just looked down and said nothing. I realized how I must’ve looked and feeling terrible I turned off the video, and started to help her pick up all her things and arranging it all into a neat pile. While organizing the mess I could see in the corner of my eye the lady was looking at me like she expected me to get up and run away. I continued to look down, cleaning everything. When I stood up and she started placing everything into her bag I said the only thing I could think to say. “Sorry!” I yelled looking at her yet she was still staring down. “I’m just not used to people looking like that.” I mumbled. I started to walk away hoping she would just forget about what I had done but then I heard a sob from behind me. It was the lady, she was crying. I turned around and sat down with her because I figured that listening at that moment was the best I could do unless she tells me to go away. After sitting there for a while her sobbing quelled. “The marks on my face are from a fire I was in.” she whispered, her eyes red and tears running down her cheek. “My son and I were both in the fire. My son died in the fire.” She sobbed. “When you walked up to me and I heard your voice I thought you were my son. You sound similar." I sunk my head. I've never had a loved one die before. I could only quietly listen.
