Imagine

4. Anger

Morning assembly was short and uneventful as expected. The first class of the day was English language and we were supposed to be learning about STRESS on words which is very much my least favorite topic in this subject. I mean, what could I possibly need the knowledge of stress for? As long as I can pronounce the word and my companion understands what I'm saying, end of discussion, right? Well, not right. School syllabus says we're supposed to learn when and where to stress some particular words. The lesson was supposed to last for just a period which was about 45 minutes so I figured I'd give it my attention and it'll be over before I knew it.

After four periods, maths being the fourth, it was break time. My classmates were being as rowdy and noisy as humanly possible mostly because of the angry teacher that had just left the class. The boys in my class had done it again. I don't know exactly what they were laughing at during the class but they were, and Mr Abubakr wasn't even saying anything funny at that time and they weren't trying to be subtle about it either.

Of course he ignored them at first but when he couldn't take it anymore, he snapped at them and told them to take their books and stand at the entrance of the class for what was left of his time. When his time was up, he rounded off the class and remembered his previous anger, embraced it totally and let it fuel his next words. He went on and on about respect, honour and other stuffs that I certainly don't remember because I completely tuned him out.

Don't get me wrong, he was very justified to be pissed but ranting about it in front of hormonal annoying teenagers is certainly not the way to go about it because my people might have appeared to be listening or even feeling remorseful but that doesn't mean they actually cared about whatever he was saying. They were merely paying attention not to aggravate him any further and to be able to commit his words, expression and body language to mind so that in their free time they could make fun of him, which was exactly what they were doing at the moment.

I was sitting close to the window with Saira next to me and Raina (a mutual friend) next to her. I scanned through the class laughing silently as I watched different imitations of the poor man and I thought to myself, 'that wasn't even anger, he didn't even hit anything'. I grinned, placed my head on my arms that were already arranged on my desk and pretended to sleep.

In my head tho...
I was still in school standing outside the classroom for reasons I don't know. A lot of my classmates were outside with me being their usual noisy selves...
No no no, I stopped my line of thought, I'm too much of a goody two shoes, I can't even imagine myself having some kinda violent angry breakdown within school premises... What now? I frowned in my head.

'goody-two-shoes my ass' my subconscious said.

I raised my imaginary eyebrows and wondered what the hell that was about then I remembered my first and only angry fit that happened in the hostel some years back...

I had just received an unexpected call from a lost friend, Amara in the night and I was excited. There was some kind of Q&A program going on at the time the call came in but I was excused from it. We had talked for what felt like hours even though it was less than an hour but it felt good to catch up with her, we were once roommates but something came up at home that her parents just had to move her to another school. After the call, I had taken a sheet of paper to write down her number so I could call her whenever I wanted to, most likely with a smuggled in phone. After the program, we went for night prayers and then started getting ready for dinner. That was when I noticed that the paper I had written her number on had been used to wipe some mess off the serving table.

Normally I wouldn't have reacted since I was good with numbers and it hadn't been that long so I could still remember the number and rewrite it in a safer place but I had gotten so angry I screamed at the culprit, who was a senior by the way, and repeatedly kicked the table while chanting 'stupid, stupid, stupid'. I don't know how long that lasted but I remember being dragged away with blood traces on the floor but I couldn't feel any other thing but anger. It took a while for my big toe to heal and I got in a little trouble with that senior.
Now that I relive that moment, I can't help but smile. It must have been very funny to whoever witnessed it. It was more of a tantrum than an expression of anger.

'I guess if you're really angry, hit something, huh?'. I grinned at the thought and opened my eyes in time for the announcement of the end of break time.

The rest of the day just dragged on till the end.

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Who else likes to hit things when they're angry?
I don't...