Public Speaking
I entered into the classroom full of unfamiliar faces and people I had not seen for the entire summer sprawled out in dull brown desks. I shuffled over to an open seat in the very back of the classroom hoping that nobody would even notice that I was there and slumped into my chair. I rummaged through my torn backpack for my black pencil marked with the imprints of my teeth. Beneath the black coating was oak wood that was now visible in the spots where I had chomped through it all last year. As I settled into my seat my finger was a magnet, instantly attracted to my hair. I rapidly twirled my hair into little curls and I sensed my legs beginning to bounce up and down like little rubber bouncy balls.
The teacher waddled into the room right when the alarming sound of the bell resonated through the school, instantly startling me. She stood up in front of the classroom with an overwhelming grin plastered on her elongated face. She stated that we were going to have to introduce ourselves to the rest of the class one-by-one in front of everyone. I immediately felt the blood rush to my head and I could sense the warmth of my rosy red cheeks radiating heat as she called on me to go first in sharing a little bit about myself.
I struggled to get off of my coarse chair and I slowly slouched up to the front of the classroom to where my plump teacher was standing. I meandered with my head hung and my brown raggedy hair shielding my face trying to not let anyone see the look of sheer horror that could have clearly been seen on my face at that very moment. I caught a whiff of her pungent perfume that left me with a nauseated feeling and then it all went downhill from there.
I peered out into the sea of classmates whose eyes were pointed straight towards me. My hands began to shake and my lips started to quiver as if I was in a frozen tundra. A whirlwind of thoughts came to my mind. I wondered about what would happen when I was talking and if I were to say the wrong thing. I kept telling myself that I couldn’t do this and that I was about to fail miserably. I opened my mouth but all that came out was the talk of a one-year old child; a bunch of non-sense and words that nobody could make out. “M-m-my name is S-Samantha,” I mumbled.
I pictured myself as some sort of comedian with the way that the others in the class were laughing hysterically at me as I continued to mess up my introduction. Their laughs were like a chorus of hyenas, piercing and powerful. I closed my eyes tightly to recollect my thoughts for a second and then attempted to start again. I clenched my shaking hands into fists to prevent the sporadic movements of my fingers and I began to gnaw on my dry, cracked lip until the metallic, salty flavor of blood flowed onto my tongue. I muttered through my presentation of myself trying hard to eliminate the vision locked in my mind of the beading eyes that were fixed upon me and my overly flushed face.
My legs were rocky mountains standing firm and tall, but under the slightest of pressure, would surely come tumbling to the ground in no time with a sudden boom. I managed to control myself and scurried through the rest of my presentation to get out of the terrifying situation that I was in. I never was good at speaking publicly, even if it was in front of a small group of people that I knew, and now the whole class knew this about me.
As I was wrapping my speech up, after what seemed like ten minutes but was really only about two, I noticed the lights that blanketed the ceiling were dulling. My nerves were getting the best of me and I sensed my body becoming weaker and I immediately became very light headed. I saw the room turn into a black hole, as I went crashing to the floor, with absolutely no place to escape. I was being sucked into the dark abyss, unable to see or hear anything around me.