A Rough Start

"Marianne." "Marianne!" Marianne naturally wakes up, all startled.

"Marianne," the teacher looked at her, superiorly with her crossed arms.

"Yes madam?"

"You feel this is a place to sleep?"

"Umm no madam."

"Then why did you feel it was appropriate to sleep while I was teaching?" With one of her brows raised, she honestly looked like the most terrific creature at the time. But Marianne was not one of those who were intimidated quite easily. On the contrary, this rowdy girl had anger issues. Under the irresistible impact of her adrenaline, her body language started to deform from a polite girl into a volcano brimming with magma.

She tried to control her anger, and said,

"I didn't purposely sleep madam. I was awake all night doin-"

"Is that any of my problem?" snapped the teacher. Marianne's bestfriend, Alya, was now scared, not for her friend but for the teacher. Marianne replied, tightening her fists,

"Then are the reasons for the French revolution MY problem?" The teacher was astonished! How could someone possibly talk to her like that?! Even her husband would shiver for an hour and think a thousand times before saying something so derogatory like that one. With a maddened rage, she shouted:

"How dare you talk to me like that? Don't you feel like you should have a code of conduct for speaking to a teacher? Is this the way? What do you think I am? Your mother who tolerates your nonsense?!"

"You are not worthy of being my mother. You don't deserve to be anyone's mother!"

"Out of my class! Don't show me your face again!"

"With pleasure miss!" said Marianne, waving away as she walked off with angry tears in her eyes. While she was sulking, standing outside in the corridor, Eric, her crush, suddenly popped out of the class.

Mary, as people would call her, or sometimes even Mars, was too emotionally entangled to get those butterflies in her stomach. She asked him why he came out, and he said he came out for her.

"Uh- not THAT way you know, uhh like"

"Yea I get it", Marianne said in a tone which showed she did not care, or rather she was tired of all the stuff going on, who knows?

"But, did you like, come out saying 'I gotta talk to Mars'? Am sure not." Marianne said.

"You're right. I said 'Madam, you shouldn't have scolded her like that' and she screamed with a 'Who are you to tell me what's wrong or right? If you want to stand up for her this desperately then go!' And thus I happily came out. But, what were you doing the entire night?" Eric said with an evil smirk and a nasty side glance, a look that conveyed a lot. Something that teenagers would easily understand.

"Oh lord can you please not?! Am I not visibly irritated?"

"Alright, alright. But honestly, what is it?"

"I don't know" Marianne paused. "I get this weird vision of several statues, all in a position seeming like they're trying to catch someone. Call out to someone who is going away but while they were running, all of them just..... petrified. And it felt like, they were calling.....ME."

"That was indeed a bad dream hon."

"A VISION," a special stress on the words with a superior look in her eyes.

"Whatever our astronaut desires" he said with a funny bow, smiling.

He really was something. Someone who knew how to make her laugh. Mary was different. She didn't give much importance to looks, though she wouldn't deny loving men with beauty, but that was subordinate. What she loved was a caring person, someone who'd make her laugh. Someone she can share everything with and someone she can rely on. Someone who also didn't have much to do with her looks and would embrace her for who she truly is. Wherever there was morphing in her soul-deep personality, that was a red flag. And Eric seemed to have no red flags whatsoever. But, he was not her dream man too. He didn't show much care towards her. He always friend-zoned her and she never felt a strong attraction for him. He was just infatuation, a...compromise.

The next day there was a camping trip, and Marianne was not the one to miss that. She loved traveling, it was her escape from reality. We all have experienced this. While we're on our holidays, we leave all our worries behind. The stress of studies, stress of jobs, stress of teachers, all of these are left stranded at the place of our residence. Probably, the absence of pain and stress is our perception of joy. The weird visions she kept having almost everyday already originated enough stress for her. And the events of the previous day were just cherry on top. Nothing could go wrong in her stress-buster trip, right? Wrong.