Clash Of The Cadences

The Great Pow

  I had thought I wanted to kill myself that morning in California. 

 Sun out bright, blazing, and early. By the time my elder sister and I stepped foot onto campus - no, when I looked at the expansive campus - I wanted to go home. 

 I hated everyone; I tolerated them at most. The only thing keeping me there was the music program. Marching season is coming to an end and winter was fast approaching. Being in percussion, the transition stage between the two was meant to be boring and fruitless.

 My day went on like any other:
 First period was short, but definitely worth the nap time. 

 Going into second I was refreshed and thought the day was going to be decent. However, I ended up getting a severe hand cramp and again, the urge to kill myself returned.

 In third I debated on flinging myself out the third story window, it having been slightly cranked open do to the heat, and if I happened to live I would excuse the action as a test of one of Newton's Laws.

 Fourth could go fuck a cactus. Once again I got points deducted because my highlighter wasn't the teacher's patronized fluorescent yellow.

 I stared at sweaty Seniors all through fifth, wondering that, if sweaty now, how much they perspired beneath football uniforms during the games we preformed at.

 Sixth is where shit went down.

 I had asked Mr. Fuller, the one and only band director, if I should begin to extract the vast collection of percussion instruments. He said no, and stated were going to have a pow-wow that would last the whole period.

 I thought this was nothing until I noticed all of our other instructors standing at the front of the room looking worried. One looked as if they had been crying moments earlier.

 The late bell finished its demonic screech and all of sixth period was seated around the massive square podium at the front with Mr. Fuller standing anxiously behind it. The man looked around and in a low, foreboding tone began to speak.
 "We have been selected," he sighed, a slight quake in his voice, "to battle against three schools: Obsidian High School, Green Wire Academy, and Ash Valley High School."

 We all broke into giggles and bubbling excitement because, being a naïve West Coast school, we were under the impression that he meant competing in a competition as we always had in the past.
 Guard, in all their spunk, openly commented about 'showing them what we are made of'. It gave confidence to the rest of the band and broke some of the suffocating tension, until Matthew the battery instructor looked to them.

 I had never seen such bitchiness in a grown man's eyes.

 "This isn't a game." He snapped with flared nostrils, "None of this is a game. Do you have any idea what you have been selected for? Any idea at all?" Ranting then, Mr. Fuller raised his hand to hush the other man.
 "Our band has not been selected for just any invitational, guys...this is...literally a battle."

 "Don't sugarcoat it for them, Eugene!" Matt groaned, beginning on a warpath towards Mr. Fuller's office, "It's a fucking battle to the death. Only the best band is left standing." We then ignored the ranting man going back to listening to Mr. Fuller not wanting to believe what we just heard. Then the next thing we knew a battle axe was punctured into the front of the podium...