We all sat in the gymnasium bleachers with our shoulders touching while we watched the principal speak with his hands resting rigidly atop an oak podium. He was telling us this: "You are graduating. You will do great things beyond these doors. But it saddens me that that means you will no longer do great things within these doors." He took a sip of some water. "If this school could speak— if its brick walls could hold memories, it would whisper to me through the vents and it would confess that it has been watching you all. And that it has seen that you have grown up. And that it is proud of you." He paused and smiled at the crowd. The crowd did not smile back. He kept smiling despite this. He looked younger and that made him look strange. He pressed his lips to the microphone and whispered, "the school has been watching over us. Have you not felt its gaze?" He stretched his arms out wide, and gazed up at the ceiling. "I know I have!" We all had. I had. One instance, I had been walking in the hallway, skipping class, and then I had a sudden sensation on the nape of my neck, as if someone was idling their fingers millimeters away from my skin. I turned slowly and saw that no one was behind me. I also saw that the boiler room door had opened, but not enough where I could see what was beyond it. It was beckoning me forward. I moved towards it...
The principal's voice was rising and getting deeper. "You are all my children, and children of the school, and I am glad to see that you are almost ready to be born." He paused "We will witness the miracle of life and the miracle of death," he whispered. The crowd was growing tense, rigid. We all felt a knot growing within our stomachs. I felt a hand grasp mine and slip a note into my fingers. I discreetly unfolded the note with my eyes fixed on the principal. I looked down, briefly, and read the note. It said: "WE RIOT THE NEXT TIME HE SIPS HIS WATER. WE MUST REALIZE THAT WE CAN OVERTAKE THE SCHOOL IF WE ARE UNITED." When I was finished reading, A soft voice whispered in my ear, telling me to pass the note on. I hesitated. The principal's voice echoed within my head, and I heard him say "Haven't you felt the gaze of the school?". I tightened my grip on the note. And before I could convince myself not too, I passed it on. I was overwhelmed with a sense of deja vu. The principal was still speaking. "...and without death, life is not, and therefore, life and death are the same and by being born you are dying..." He talked with his hands. "...and if by graduating we admit we are being born, then by graduating we are admitting we are dying..." I began to think about the boiler room. And what I had seen. And how when I had run to the door, the door had swung open and I was basked in light and my mouth had dropped open in awe as before me was a desert. A desert with dunes and an overcast sky complete with a hazy silver sun idling overtop it. And atop a distant dune was a boy with a backpack shuffling through the sand, as if the silver sun far in front of him was god and god was going to grant him immortality. And then the door swung shut. And the school blinked and for a brief moment I was freed and I wondered how many years I had been standing in that hallway and how many years had that boy been walking. I am imprisoned. The principal is still speaking.
"...in other words..." he took a sip of his water. The girl beside me grabbed my hand and squeezed. "..You die today..." He finished drinking his water. She loosened her grip on my hand, and withdrew. Outside, in the hallways, wind was blowing. The doors in the foyer had been opened. And seeping through them and onto the checkered flooring was a bright, unnatural light. As if beyond the doors a nuclear bomb had been detonated and the outside world was engulfed in whiteness.
"...you have grown up, and now it's time to grow up a little bit more..."
And we all stood up and walked out those blue doors and into everlasting summer.
