As you walk down the hallway, trying, failing, to skirt around the dozens of other students you get this creeping suspicion that maybe, no-- most definitely-- someone is scrutinizing you. Watching you and snickering at you from some distance away. For no particular reason, other than self-preservation, you lower your head a bit, tidy up your clothes, hike up your backpack and continue on. You are thinking to yourself, "if only I could get to the door." It's awkward when you get there. It's automatic, but with a nervous urge to slip away, you are far too impatient to watch the door open. Slowly, gravely, it silently opens the widening space yawning at you. All you want to do is get to where you're going. Orchestra. They call you an orc-dork. But even people who know the difference between band and orchestra call you a geek, "Yo, band-geek". Heading to said class you think to yourself, "they just call me that to make me admit it. To make me admit it out loud."

"Say it. Go on. Say it." You run into this tall strong wall, albeit fleshy, and are forced to stop.

"Say what?" You take a step back, trying to be offended, to show that you aren't afraid of this meaty wall, despite the fact that you certainly are. Yeah, as your eyes gaze at the force halting you, all you want to do is shrink away. Better yet, you want rescale your life to the size of one pica so that you can peacefully go unnoticed in the over-sized picture of a world around you. The meat wall sticks out one of its bricks and you can feel a sharp jab dig into your shoulder. A dirty, violating feeling washes over you.

If only I could get to the door...

"Haha, tell me."

"Band-geek." You mumble. It's a barely audible whisper. And as they crack up at your self-deprecation, self-loathing, you slink past. Down the hall, around the corner, into the orchestra hall. You're first chair. Your instrument isn't the best model, yet you make it sing like a canary. Even as you think these things to yourself, you can't help but to adjust your clothing, change your gait, hike up your backpack. You run a hand through your hair, refrain from whistling a tune from your favorite anime, and you make sure not to get caught at that awful automatic door again. Still, you have this undeniable feeling that someone somewhere has got tears running down their cheeks, simply laughing too hard, while you're the joke.

Most of the time they aren't, but you wouldn't even know. Bullies have a way of getting into your head. Why? You aren't sure what the answer could be even after the dozenth, hundredth, thousandth time you've asked. But you think to yourself as the day winds down from a bullying frenzy, "If I could just get. to the. door..."

And get the heck out of here.