“Take a seat.”

To sit down.

To stand up.

A green chair, with shackles peeking from underneath isn’t my lot. So I stand, and happily. What freedom in your own feet, how joyful liberty from that chair and those shackles.

The bored man sitting scowling; “Take a seat.”

I glance down; look past the green chair. The shackles eye me up. I stare them down.

But still… I take a nervous step, towards the window. And the blue skies.

And the trees. To the birds. To the birds and their songs. And their joy; spring.

Spring beckons, but the scowling man scowls ever fiercer, and he shuts the curtains. Drags shut those curtains.

He looks me in the eye.

Like the man I am, I look away. Glance at the curtains where the light used to be. Something catches my eye, and I look again, through sunlight stained curtains I glimpse blue. I grin, grin at the scowling man.  I can see my blue skies, and they whisper to me still. They whisper loudly, louder than the scowling man as he shouts about low attendances, poor marks, offended teachers. Shouts about stuff he thinks I care about.

I laugh, in my head of course.

And whisper back, back to my skies. In my head of course. He sits down, sweat glistening on his flushed face, his bare, bald head. The stain on his once-white shirt matches the coffee spill seeping into papers on his once-white desk. Papers in a loose pile, Papers marked ‘COMPLAINTS’. Papers ignored; papers forgotten.

“Take a seat”

“I’d rather stand”

“Your choice, stand now, since you never get off your backside to get here”

“Yes sir”

He looks pleased at my usage of his self given title.

Even I’m surprised at myself. For complying, for bending to his will, for submitting.

I avert my eyes again as he begins the usual speech. I fall asleep listening to his droning. Awake of course.

“You can go now, I hope you got something from this.”

I look down, give the shackles beneath the green seat a defiant glare and walk out.

Silent, self-righteous, I walk out to my freedom.

I turn back for no good reason other than to spit, to spit on the plaque proclaiming ‘PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE’, and glance nervously in to make sure the scowling man has gone back to sleep.

He has.

All I can see is the top of his head, glistening. His face crushes the desk.

I turn away, no one is about; they must all be sleeping.

Lulled by lectures and dreary work, hoping to dream, to dream of a world outside.

Now, a choice.

The grey school buildings rising to my left; and the green fields, the green trees, the noisy birds and their spring. And their flowers. They call from my right.

A choice.

A choice I make every day.

Dare I choose?