I was alone. Alone in the world, alone in my world. Yes, I was walking through reality and existence, but to me, I was alone in the world. And I loved it. That’s what made the mornings at school alone so amazing.

The sky would be a mesmerizing blue by the time I got there. The parking lot would be vacant, the hallways echoing with the emptiness. The classrooms were dark and the doors were closed. I walked casually, slouched and swinging my arms. I stopped in the middle of the stairs to adjust my jeans, then continued on. My fingers trailed the cool metal of the lockers, occasionally bumping into lockers or cracks in the locker doors. I kicked a rock in my way and it skittered across the rough cement. The rock fluttered around, trying to escape, until it finally found the edge of the balcony and fell off. I leaned over the edge dangerously just to see, and hope, if the rock hit someone. It almost did. I giggled subtly. Too soon, a movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I tilted my head just in time to see an administrator walk briskly in the opposite direction. I immediately stiffened up and put my hands in my pocket. I pretended to be on my phone texting. As soon as she disappeared from view, I switched off my phone, and continued strolling through the hallways, looking this way and that. My back was completely bent over, as I looked for another pebble.

As I passed a group of giggling girls, I straightened up again, and strode past them, as if I had somewhere to go. My face was set in a stern expression, eyebrows furrowed and lips turned down. I turned a corner, and yes, no one could see me again. My face relaxed, and my walk slowed. I sighed, and just as I was about to skip down the hallways, I spotted another one. This one was wearing a blue cardigan and a maroon scarf. Another classmate. My eyes avoided hers as she glanced my way. She moved on.

I decided to find another empty hallway, as this one seemed less isolated as some of the others. Yet as more and more people started filtering in, opening their lockers or talking to friends, there were less and less hallways where I was hidden from view. Every corner of the school had someone, whether it was a teacher, an admin, or worse, a student. I couldn’t stroll anymore, or kick rocks, or trail my fingers. Instead, I looked straight ahead, smiled politely at people I knew, and walked with more posture.

Suddenly, I realized that everyone else did the same. They walked the same way as I did. They smiled politely and waved subtly. They walked straight ahead with a straight back and brisk steps. But they wouldn’t if I wasn’t watching. They wouldn’t if they weren’t at school. They wouldn’t have if no one was looking their way. Just as I didn’t when I was alone in my world.

I am one of them. I am just another student at the high school. I blended into the sea of students. Because we’ve all been taught the same, we’ve all been through the same experiences. We all act the same and say the same things. Yet it’s not a bad thing. Society has brought us into uniform, and uniform we will always be. We are given a set of rules to obey. Of course, whether we do so or not is our choice, at least that’s what they say. But if we do decide to behave around others the same way we behave alone in our room, people start wondering. They judge, society judges. And then we are thought of as weird, and are out casted. Thus, we all obey those never ending set of unspoken, assumed codes and morals. They are always in place and will never have at time limit. Because that is what society has given us. And that is what has given society the structure and system that is in place now. So, we cannot do anything but obey those rules. Well, until we are once again in our own world, of course.