Left Undone

“I mean, that’s so unfair!  How can she expect us to write five pages just on our childhood experiences?”1

“I know!  Besides, that party’s this weekend.  There’s no way I’ll have time to write that stupid paper.”2

Alexandria passed by the girls in their tight pants and thick-heeled shoes, her books pressed safely against her body.  With her head hanging low, she watched the blur of colored, geometric shapes slip under her feet.  After entering her dorm room, she leaned against her door and closed her eyes.3

Looking at her was like watching someone blow up a stiff balloon.  It was as if she was struggling to fill the space of her body, as if she sometimes sucked more air out than she put in.  What she yearned for was to be one of those girls that complained about homework and wore tight pants.  But here she was, alone, in despair, in a quiet room on a campus that was anything but.4

Alexandria sat cross-legged on her bed with its Kool-aid stained Care Bear sheets.  A pencil sat perilously on the corner of her notebook, an empty piece of paper staring back at her.  She thought of her childhood, but it was as if a hurricane was tearing through her mind, her memories unreliably flailing about.  And then, like a leaf rocking back and forth before kissing the ground, one memory fell into place.5

“Get up!  Get up!” her mom was yelling at her.6

A sleepy child lifted her head up to the ceiling to meet the face of her screaming mother.7

“Now!  I said get up!”  And her mother grabbed her by the wrist as a teacher does when you are in trouble.  Forcing her petite, Velcro shoes onto her feet, Alexandria, disoriented, said nothing.  It wasn’t until she was buckled in the back seat of the car with her mother’s determined stare as she sped down the driveway that Alexandria was finally able to ask, “Where are we going?”8

From the upstairs window, through the dust-caked blinds, her father stood, staring down at the little car in the driveway.  His finger caressed the window.  Alexandria reached her hand out.  She thought that if she reached far enough, if she wanted it enough, that her hand would meet the caress of her father.  But it didn’t.  And he was gone.9

“Alexandria, where is your paper?”  Her teacher’s accusing eyes looked down at her.10

“I didn’t do it,” she replied, focusing on the obscenities etched into her desktop.11

“You really need to do your assigned work.”12

The class was dismissed, and Alexandria walked out of the classroom, hugging her books.  She heard the girls talking as she obliviously walked by.13

“Can you believe all the pages we have to read for next time?”14

“I know!  And I have nothing to wear when we go out tonight.”15

Alexandria closed the door behind her, into her empty room.16