Talking, tapping, coughing, pushing, shoving, and so much of it. The teacher sat, marking papers and giving no mind to the chatter around her. “Quiet! Or more work!” she had yelled, but it was just an empty threat. Her words did not penetrate the noises of the wild animals. Boys raced across the room, wreaking havoc as they knocked down papers and binders. Girls laughed and chatted, gossiping about the latest news. They smiled with perfect white teeth and flawlessly painted faces. They liked to pretend that they were innocent, but I could see the look in their eyes. Even the quietest kid in the class was tapping his pencil on the desk, eyes glued to his mobile phone.

The senses that can drive a person insane are noise, smell, and touch. They are the things in life that are impossible to escape. All the noise made it impossible to think. The smell made my nose burn. The students attempted to hide their body odor with a mix of perfume and cologne, but it only made the smell so much worse. My overloaded senses made it feel like I was in the fiery pits of hell. The room was like a prison, and the other students were only there for the sake of torture.

I reached into my bag, feeling for the only thing that kept my head straight. My fingers felt for the thing that gives me life and sanity. The one thing that could melt away all stress of school life and silence the chaos going on around me. My fingers finally found what they were looking for. The object that I set on my desk looked ordinary to the untrained eye. But when you opened it up, it was anything but ordinary.

The outside of the book was beaten and bruised, yet it still managed to be perfect. Several pages were folded over and ripped, but it still managed to educate. The pages of inked and bonded paper had the power to change lives. By reading a few words, the book could make someone cry, smile, or change a person's whole thought process. They can transport you to the past, present, or even to lands of faraway places. The book that lay in front of me was my own kind of paradise. My safe haven.
Within a minute of opening the book, all the noise of the world dissipated. The world was silent once again. The time ticked by, but I paid it no mind. The page numbers did not matter, my mind was to fixate on the words to think of such trivial things. I was lost in the book for what felt like hours, days, weeks. How could such a simple thing be so hypnotizing?

A bell chimed somewhere in the distance, but I could not register its meaning.  My mind and soul were too far into the book too face the cruel reality. Eventually, I was forced to leave my book and take in my surroundings. The class was almost empty, and people were grabbing their school bags. The prison that we were locked in was now letting us go. The bell had signified the end of the other student’s torture, but it did not do the same for me. The bell had forced me too leave my precious words and come face to face with my own kind of torture.

The hallways were worse than the enclosed room. The students wanted only one thing, to get home. Everyone was shoving and yelling, trying to gather their things and get a taste of fresh air. To be honest, I couldn’t care less. After coming out of the book, everything was distorted. Reality felt like fiction, getting home felt trivial, and the faces around me were just sad. The faces looked so dull. None of these people will ever know the knowledge that I now hold. They will never understand the power of a book. Words, like the ones that I had just read, will never get the chance to make them feel safe and secure. They might never be able to break free from the truth of reality.