Title: Continents of experience
by Mina from Surrey | in writing, fiction
A gang of thuggish boys slouch around outside a house, generally kicking each other and being stupid. One eventually comes forward, butch and huge, slapping hands with the others before going inside the house. The others hang around outside, whilst the boy sneaks down the corridor, looking antisocial'
He glances out into a corridor and sidles into a room, avoiding nurses and doctors. Now he looms over the bed of a poor defenceless old man on a bleeping machine.
He checks that no one is watching, and pulls out a bouquet from his jacket and puts it in the vase.
GRANDPA: (Happy) Charles!
BOY: (In a hushed tone, but hurriedly, as though trying to get something painful over and done with) I want to do'A-levels.
GRANDPA: Ah.
BOY: I need to 'but I can't.
GRANDPA: You don't want to fry chips anymore then?
BOY: I want to be an archaeologist.
GRANDPA: Lots of travelling.
BOY: Yeah. The whole world' Like you?
GRANDPA: (Chuckles) America'I thought I'd never see a land so wonderfully balanced between madness and boredom.
BOY: Friends say that money on dictionaries might as well be money for shi- toilet paper.
GRANDPA: Ha! Well the furthest they've been I bet is the local telephone box!
BOY: (After a pause) Friends will all go if I do'them (can't say A-Levels).
GRANDPA: (He laughs) Is it to be Primark or Persia, Charles?
BOY: (They hear a firework go off) They're waiting.
GRANDPA: (After a pause) Let them wait a little longer.
A boy is the leader of the most notorious clique in his school, but he begins to think about the future. I got my inspiration when trying to choose my A-Levels, and then being sneered at in another lesson for answering something right. Somehow, it's really sad, but if you're just a little bit smart you become the butt end of all the jokes. It's really unfair. Then I thought about workers in places like McDonalds. Surely they couldn't have wanted to do that. But the pressure in schools is really tough - they make you choose you whole life at age 15!
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