The Greatest Lie

A large group had gathered. The high school students crowded together, jocks next to chess geeks next to stoners, having forgotten, if only for a moment, the sin of mingling with someone of the wrong clique.  The woman scanned their faces.  Some had already grown bored with the proceedings, their own personal dramas reclaiming their attention.  But the ones she had come for, the ones who needed to hear her message, were still watching.  She saw confusion, fear, and sympathy in the eyes of a few of the students, but the majority of them still held the defeated, disinterested gaze of people who know that their lives are going to go on, as mind-numbingly monotonous as ever, as soon as this brief interlude was over.

Time was running out.  As the guard grabbed her arms, the woman made eye contact with a girl in the crowd.  One eye stared back, thickly outlined in black.  The other was obscured by a lock of limp, blond hair.  The girl was an almost perfect picture of indifference, the only betrayal of emotion her teeth nibbling on her plum-colored lips.  The woman struggled against the guard and stretched toward the girl.

"It isn't true," she said.  She raked her gaze across this gathered pack of teenagers.  She could see frustration and anger swirling around them like a pre-dawn fog.  She could smell the insecurities oozing from their pores.  She could practically taste the fear that they worked so hard to hide, posing and posturing like strange dogs vying for the alpha position.  She struggled harder and raised her voice.

"They will tell you that high school is the best time of your life.  It isn't true."  The guard renewed his iron grip on her arms and began hauling her toward the door at the end of the hall.

"It gets so much better than this!" she screamed, desperate to connect with as many of these confused, conflicted individuals as she could.  "They are lying!  It gets so much better!"

The girl with the black eye-liner watched the guard half-pull, half-carry the screaming woman away and turned to the tall boy next to her.  "Huh.  That was weird."

 - - - - - - - -

I am driving to work with my iPod set to shuffle, as usual, when Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" comes on.  "And he's plain ugly to me.  And I wonder if he's ever had a day of fun in his whole life."  Suddenly I am struck by the memory of a dream.  It is as vivid in my mind as the asphalt in front of my car.  For the remainder of the journey, I compose "The Greatest Lie" in my mind. 

I remember being a high schooler, hearing some adult say how much they longed to return to their high school years.  "Those were the greatest days," they told me.  Although I don't remember the rest of the conversation, I do remember my exact thoughts.  "God, I hope not."  I am almost 32 years old now, and I have many fond memories of my high school years.  But I have never once wished that I was reliving them.  To this day, I cringe when I hear people tell teenagers how good they've got it.  I tell my students, "You think life is good now, but you just wait.  It gets even better."