Beautiful Phantasma

“Finally!”

“Let’s get outta here.”

“I’m so hungry, God.”

“Jake, where is my—”

“Everyone, settle down! The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do!”

A collective groan, some curses in the back of the class, someone drops his backpack. Oh, how cliche.

“Let’s just finish this final paragraph, okay?”

“Fine. I’ll read it.”

“Then we’ll have this shit over with.”

“No cursing in my classroom!”

Snickers from the girls to your right, quick, mindless reading to your left, someone drops a pen. Didn't this happen yesterday?

“Very well done. Class is over, have a nice weekend.”

“But Ma’am, it’s only Thursday.”

“Oh. My bad. Then we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

Two dozens of bags get lifted from the ground, books and paper crammed into tight spaces, someone drops their smartphone. Yes, definitely deja vu.

“Shit!”

“Well done, Yena. I bet it’s cracked now.”

The slow turn of a delicate hand. Hundreds of scratches make the glass look like a spider’s uncarefully spread web. Someone cracks a laugh. Am I dreaming?

“I told you. Now, now, don’t cry. I’ll get you some ice cream, hm~?

Yena’s sobs and Chaewon’s coos can still be heard down the hallway. You shake your head in disbelief. Of course, this exact scenario didn't happen yesterday. It is as close to impossible as winning the yearly lottery daily, but your feeling of deja vu remains. The days blend into one another, nothing significantly changes.

The setting? The same. No one is going to paint over the old, dirty walls of this school to give them a new color, new life. They remain as a seemingly immovable constant, just like the yellow lights at the ceiling or the barely cleaned windows separating the outside from the classroom and the classroom from the floor. Maybe the weather changes, but at this point you’re even uncertain of that. Gray clouds lay on the world, an impenetrable layer that reeks of rain.

The time? The same. Your school's schedule is its most stable factor. The principal enforcing it is as certain as taxes and death. If too many teachers are missing to fill in the gaps, he himself will step in to ensure the absolute maximum of education, even if it’s 5pm. Part of this tyrannical precision is the teacher’s right to extend a lesson past the bell’s ring. It is utterly ineffective, as no one actually listens anymore, but it will never change.

The characters? The same. Not a day goes by where mostly bubbly Yena isn’t whining about something, be it the grandest of issues or a lost hair. Her best friend Chaewon is always on her side. With her calm, kind words and envious patience she is the perfect Yin to Yena’s Yang. Then there is Eunbi, the class representative, with amazing grades, amazing visuals and eyes colder than the arctis. Sakura is everyone’s crush, a girl who adores video games, looks absolutely beautiful and is a social magnet. Sadly for all the boys, she only has eyes for girls.

You could go on and on about all the other colorful characters in your class, friends, enemies, classmates, but it all leads to the same hole. The hole of repetitiveness. Not only the lives around you seem to be in an endless loop— you play along perfectly. Your thought processes all wander off into similar directions, your banter with Jimin and Chan is always about the same topics, hell, even your yawns during Mrs. Bae’s classes are perfectly timed. Day in day out, you always stay to your routine.

Isn’t it time to break out? To stand up and instead of going home, go to a friend's house? Walk through the park for another hour? Run downtown to eat some fresh churros? Your desire to break out grows, but it cannot overcome your rationale telling you:

Why am I concerned about this? Everyday life looks similar at times. So what.