The Waiting Room [rewritten]

How Nell Began

"The afterlife is a controversial argument, and that is the reason that the school board has asked me not to teach it to my students. However, I will give you my unbiased opinion. Death has given everyone a reason to fear it. I mean, I'm pretty sure you kids saw this subject in the movies," he paused for a minute to wear a small smile. "In real life, it's no different. Almost everyone is afraid of death. Who wants to die?"

I frowned; was that a rhetorical question?

"Humans are afraid of what they don't know, and they don't know the afterlife. They don't know what happens when your heart finally stops beating. They know that it won't start again, but they don't know what happens to your soul. Thus, religion was created in an attempt to inform themselves of what happened," he paused again, shooting a glance around the class. "Now, I'm not saying this to offend anyone. I'm englobing the world's view as well as giving my own. So, what happens when you die? Anyone want to share their opinion?"

Hands shot up.

I rolled my eyes and stuffed my arms tighter against my torso.

"Yes, Lucy?"

"Well, sir, I believe we can all go to heaven," a small voice murmured from the front of the room.

"How about you, Thomas?"

"W-we remain constant. We j-just stay in the dark."

"Andrea?"

"We are reborn. I think I'd be a butterfly."

The room filled with small chuckles.

"Nicely said, how about you, Penelope?"

The room silenced.

I forced myself to pull away from the window and give a sharp look at the man in the front of class. His eyes were wide with curiosity and interest.  Honestly, I didn’t see the point of calling on someone who hadn’t raised their hand. I held back yet another eye roll; his emotions would not be indulged. He pulled his eyebrows together,

"Penelope, what do you think about death?"

I held his eye contact, and opened my mouth.

"Well I think it's all been said," I tightly smiled. Whispers engulfed the small classroom, encasing me.

"Penelope..." the teacher trailed, giving me a disapproving look. I scoffed a bit under my breath, but not too loudly. Sure I didn’t like the man, but I knew better than to confront a teacher. That just spelled out crazy.

"In my humble opinion," I started, watching how suddenly everyone turned to the back of the room with their eyes piercing through me, "death is a natural occurrence in life. I mean, in life there’s death and in death there’s… life?” Right, so now I knew for sure that I had no point in what I was saying. In any case, I cleared my throat in hopes to snuff the chuckles from the back of the classroom, and continued my ridiculous speech. “Yeah, so anyway to conclude death is death and it’s gonna get everybody."

I would be lying if I said I didn’t secretly enjoy the little gasp from the classmate next to me. What did she expect? To live forever with butterflies and unicorns? I frowned minutely. On the other hand, butterflies were actually quite terrifying and if she did believe that I would be more scared of her.

I then shot everyone a bright and obviously fake smile, and went back to staring out the dusty window.

The teacher cleared his throat awkwardly, and lightly clasped his hands together to signal his lesson was over.

The bell rang shrilly, and the class rose to their feet quickly and scrambled out of the room.

"Penelope?" a voice asked from the front. I slowly trailed my eyes from the desk to his awaiting eyes.