Oddly Familiar | Teen Ink

Oddly Familiar

February 7, 2008
By Anonymous

I’m running down the endless hallway. It seems oddly familiar. My raven, curly hair covers my face matted with sweat as I turn my head from side to side looking for an explanation as to why I’m running. My Carolina-blue converse low tops suddenly stop dead in their tracks, along with the rest of my athletic, agile body. I’m looking around, still, for some kind of explanation. Now, my feet won’t budge so there’s no way for controlled exploring. I’m robotically spun around to face where I had begun running. I recognize what hallway I’m in. This is where my old Language Arts and Social Studies class was. I can’t check in on the class room because now not only are my feet stuck, but my back is completely stiff, almost like it was super glued to a broom stick. Suddenly my whole body begins to shake, as if preparing to give a speech in front of the world’s smartest people. Then I jump up as if being controlled as a marionette, into a karate position. Over the school’s loud speaker the song “Kung-Fu Fighting” begins. At the opposite side of the hall, a loud thudding begins, but it doesn’t match the tempo of the song. Suddenly the booms have a source and a giant sumo wrestler in full attire appears. The only odd thing about him (besides the fact that he’s at the opposite end of a hall from me in a school), is that he is painted head to toe in neon green. I begin to giggle, and raise my hand over my mouth so I don’t offend him. I now realize something of my hand. It’s immense, not to mention hairy! Oh good lord. I too am covered in paint, only I’m a lightning yellow. What’s this? Now I’m a sumo wrestler! I look up and see a man sitting in the middle of the hall, slouched in a wooden chair, wearing a tuxedo, sipping Sprite soda, as “Kung-Fu Fighting” continues to blast throughout the hallway. He just sits. Taking long slurps of his soda, blankly staring at the wall. I wave to him to see if I can get a reaction. Nothing…absolutely nothing. I guess he’s perfectly happy drinking his Sprite. My stomach then begins to shake and insecurely jiggle, and now I’m running again. The green sumo runs toward me, the man sits with his drink, and “Kung-Fu Fighting” still playing as it echoes through the hall. Slam! The green sumo wrestler and I collide with the man in between us. I thought for sure that this was going to end up with a murder case. Instead I look up and the once blank man is now joyously skipping away looking as gleeful as ever and just leaves without a word or gesture. The green sumo wrestler just vanished. I sit in the hallway alone and sad with my giant yellow self. Out of nowhere my name begins to ring louder than the ending song. I blink and now I’m, well, myself again. I stretch my stubby legs out in front of me to verify the truth. I see my lucky shoes and my flipper like feet. I jump up and realize my name is being trumpeted loudly through the hall now that the song has finished.

“Katelyn! Wake up!”

I’m buck in the dungeon-esque classroom with happy pictures of histograms and line plots covering the well-imagined blood stains.

“Come on, class. I’m not that boring!” snapped the bug eyed Mrs. Carter.

“Dude, you made Katelyn Ribbon ‘the straight A’s; Student of the Millennium’ fall asleep.” snorted Mike Walkon.

The rest of the class piped in, all sticking the needle in the balloon of Mrs. Carter’s ego.

“Man…I would give anything to be that sumo wrestler, right now,” I thought as I closed my eyes and began to wonder what it would be like to be in a trailer on a rocky mountain.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 1 comment.


nanax9 said...
on Sep. 23 2008 at 6:50 pm
What a wonderful imagination and vocabulary for one so young. She is definitely going places. Love reading her articles.