Writing The Tides

Metanoia (n.)

Keith sat in his creative writing class with a tense mood. He'd been the first one to show up, asides from one other girl and the teacher, which was nothing new, and it gave him time to worry about the upcoming year.

He got out a sheet of paper and a pencil. As he stared at the blank void, he sighed uneasily.
Why is this so hard, he thought to himself. As he traced his name onto the paper, his thoughts went back to the previous semester.

"These are...umm, a bit depressing", Mr. Sennar, his teacher, had told him. They'd been reviewing their semesters' work, trying to limit their weaknesses for their semester final, which was to submit a completely free ranged piece of literature.

"Not really", Keith argued.

"Keith, you kill off every single character you create", his teacher debated.

"Nuhuh", Keith denied, Mr. Sennar raised his eyebrows. "I didn't kill off the cat..."

Mr. Sennar sighed.

"They're me", Keith stated bluntly, he'd knew his works were a bit emotionally heavy, but he wouldn't go as far as say they were depressing. And besides, art was supposed to reflect how they felt, and Keith's life was far from sunshine and rainbows.

"They're who you think you are", his teacher told him, "Keith, you are so much more capable than this. You're limiting yourself. Stop it".

The pale boy avoided his eyes, he wasn't sure what to say. He'd planned on writing his final piece as quickly as possible, just to avoid Mr. Sennar's disappointment. 

As he faced the same teacher now, Keith felt uneasy. He'd recieved decent grades all semester only to barely pass the final with a 71. Keith had no idea know why, the piece he'd submitted wasn't even bad, and he didn't even kill everyone off this time.

I'll do better this year, he thought, I'll show him. 

As the once empty classroom now filled up, the bell sounded for class to begin. Mr. Sennar got up to welcome his students back from the break.

"Welcome everyone, I hope you had a nice vacation. As you know, second semester is not gonna be any easier than first semester. In fact, harder", whiney groans erupted from the class, the teacher continued, "you're going to now, not only, have prompt based homework due every other week, as well as class assignments, but I'm assigning your final today".

Keith's eyes widened, they hadn't even come back a single day before the pressure was setting in.

"I know, I know, strange but I hope by giving you the maximum amount you can give your absolute best work. I'm even assigning you words to base your work off of, so that we can really challenge your creative talents.."

'Great', Keith thought sarcastically, 'just what I needed'. 

"I've chosen random nouns and such for you each to draw out of a hat, we'll be going in alphabetical order.."

Keith's nerves were sky rocketing. 'A single word', he wondered, 'could make or break me'. 

Mr. Sanner continued calling out names from the roll, some students returned to their desks with gleaming faces of relief, while others held a cloud of demise over their heads. Keith bit his nails, a terrible habit he'd had since forever, in concern for himself. 'I wonder if it's too late to drop out...'

"Keith Kogane", Mr. Sennar called out, smiling.

The pale boy gulped, rising from his seat nervously. 'Okay, this can't be that bad, you're just gonna get a random ass word and you'll bullshit it into the story somehow' he reassured himself, as he reached into the bag.

He ran his fingers through the scraps of paper anxiously, praying that he'd get a somewhat decent word. 

He pulled out a single scrap, holding his breath as he undid the wrinkles.

His eyes fell on the single word scribbled with black ink, and his heart stopped.

'Fucking shit'.