Everything in this room is white or some variation of it. Faded with age, dirt, and the broken hopes and dreams of students who once thought they were going somewhere in life. The cold, hard realization sets in, in this very class room, that no, you are a failure.
White walls, white linoleum floors, white board, white ceiling with those interchangeable tiles that are so cheap to replace and seem to inhabit every school and doctor’s office on the planet. The desk in front of me is a dismal shade of grey with the NY Knicks logo carved into it by some bored student, the letters slowly darkened over time as each student who sat there traced them with his pencil in some form of misplaced retribution against the school, the world, for not letting him succeed. And I am no different as my pencil trails the same path so many others have taken. The seat under me is a hard, thick plastic that is cold against the backs of my thighs and spine. The cold seeps through my jacket and under my skin. This room is far too devoid of life for there to be any real learning done here.
It is eight in the morning on a Saturday and I am taking the ACT, the SAT’s semi-retarded younger brother that everyone pretends is just as good, and just as difficult in order to humor it and make it feel better. My fingers are numb from gripping my number 2 pencil so tightly and filling in bubble after bubble after bubble of ridiculous questions I’m sure I could answer without a second thought if it weren’t so early on a Saturday morning. I should be in bed catching up on all the sleep I missed during the school week. The test is one small splash of color in a room full of teenagers wearing blacks and blues; a stark, painful contrast to the white of everything else. The answer sheet is written in blood red ink and I think maybe I am signing my life away to this test: let me go to a good college and I will forever serve you, oh great College Board, my lord and master.
My back hurts from slouching so far forward because the old desk with the carved letters and the gum stuck to the underside is attached to the chair and the chair is too far back for someone of my height to sit comfortably and actually reach the desk. The girl in front of me seems to be about six feet tall and is having the opposite problem with her knees hitting the underside of the desk, leaning back so her elbows aren’t sticking out into the aisle.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
The irritating timer set at the beginning of the section goes off and its pencils down and people shifting in their seats and letting out suppressed coughs and sneezes. The girl behind me, with dyed purple hair and a nose ring, turns to her friend and whispers that she didn’t finish and I wonder what that means: did she skip a few like I did simply because she lacked the time and energy to work through the math problem that she probably could have done if it weren’t some ungodly hour on a Saturday morning or did she genuinely not understand it? The tall girl in front of me shifts and I hear her spine crack as she moves it back into place.
The fluorescent lights cast not-quite shadows on the dirty walls and floor, their outlines like little ghosts feeding off the tangible feeling of misery in the room. I am positive now: this is where dreams go to die.
“The next section is reading comprehension, when I tell you to, open your test booklet to section three and begin…”