The viscid fog drifted along the suburb, mysterious and reassuring. I was hard-pressed by forthcoming tension, by uncertainty and had little to no knowledge how to handle both.

“Darn, it feels wrong!”

I kept mumbling curses savagely throughout the Sunday night, snuggled up in a fleece blanket, back arching, tensing up and shivering uncontrollably. Eyes forcefully closed, yet somewhat conscious. I couldn’t recall the last time I felt much of anything, until that particular night, as if virtually every cell was energy-drained and stamina-zapped.

Needless to say, I ended up skipping the largest portion of sleep, constantly holding onto illusions so that I didn’t have to face and be ruined by the astonishing facts of Monday morning reality.

“I gonna go this day alone and try to survive. Darn everything,” I grumbled. Packed my bag and left for school early.

It was a day like any other day. It was everything from negative to neutral and back to negative. Ten-inch Simplex siren resonated across the high school disftrict slowly fading away into nothing. The indoor six-inch bell was also manufactured by Simplex; the control unit was rather ungainly mounted next to rusty, green patinated Federal Vibratone 450 fire alarm horns that were feebly protruding from the convex grilles. The bell intermittently produced a single-stroke gong – a ghastly blast, trapped above the hissing lobby noise.

I walked cautiously onward toward the entrance hallway, devoured by impending frustrations, whilst being continuously hesitant to withstand the ultimate agony of the abrasive steel clanging.

“Darn it. I knew something was wrong with me.”

I felt run-down overthinking, rethinking, replaying scenarios, drowning myself in what ifs, should haves and would haves. I just stood there and picked at s***, picked at everything that hurts. It's literally as if I picked scabs.

“Fools.” I muttered with irritation, timidly approaching the crammed freshman hall.

Later on, an ever-present stifling gag-inducing odor of ammonia and feces that was hovering over the building and its shabby corridors, along with concentrated chlorine bleach vapors knocked me down straight away. Even though I gave up on the stench and gradually started off cultivating a miasma myself, Parosmia overtook.

“Fart. All we inhale is fart. All we exhale is fart. Darn it!” My eyes went water, I sneezed and nearly coughed up my lunch.

Next day wasn’t a day like any other day. It was everything from neutral to positive. It was the day when I woke up late, the day when I was done with school and packing my bags, the day I smelled Dove instead of Lysol, the day I stopped questioning questionable things and people, quit complaining, blaming, judging, imitating, resenting. Euthymia overtook and I could care less.

“I graduate tomorrow! Darn, it feels good at last. Darn, it feels right.”