That One Time In The Auditorium

Someone’s up on stage talking, the audience pretending to listen, shifting in their creaky seats. The projector’s a little off, the screen just slightly out of sync with the slideshow blinking across it.

I always end up looking at the ceiling in the boring parts; the big square lights divided into four like windows. Half the sections are dead, flat grey instead of yellowish dirty light.

My mouth is dry, my throat rusting.

The audience whispers and creaks and exists all around me. Watching them, listening is nice, but I always find myself hunching down and screaming silently, don’t look at me!

My throat is dry, my mouth rusting.

My backpack’s crammed on the floor between my shoes; I always keep it with me just in case, but what’s the point if I’m too scared to use it? I picture myself opening it again and again, sliding out my blue water bottle, unscrewing the lid.

What if it’s loud? What if people look? Am I supposed to have water in the auditorium? What if it goes down wrong and I get stuck in a coughing fit? That seems to happen a lot, in crowds, at the quiet parts in movies. I don’t even need a drink; I’ve figured out how to choke on my own saliva.

It’s a relief when the assembly’s over, and everyone’s moving and standing and getting up, talking and walking and paying more and less attention to everything, and I can go back to class to my spot at the back and take a drink where no one’s watching (not that they were watching anyway).