Ordinary chair, Unordinary girl

An empty chair is ever so depressing.

Luckily, there was no such thing in our classroom, perhaps there had been one before but now no such sorry sight scourged the room. If there was to be one, I would imagine it to be in the corner of the room nearest the window and furthest from the door. I suppose you can already picture the type of seat I mean, a seat in which any protagonist might make their home, the abode of the ’ordinary’ student who is embroiled in something far from ordinary due to a cursory glance from that window.

Someone was seated there, although I imagine she most certainly wasn’t ordinary and for some odd reason despite this class being an oh so ordinary and tedious one, she did not take a single cursory glance out of that window. A magical notebook might have flown by, a dead body could fall at high velocity yet the girl who sat in that ‘ordinary’ chair would never bat an eye as those eyes focused solely on the front of the classroom without so much as a break in constitution.

The girl didn’t blink. That’s rather creepy in and of itself but what remained weirder was that she did not turn to me whatsoever. Humans have the innate ability to be able to tell when they’re being observed, it likely derives from evolution, many animals possess such an ability in order to flee from predators. Of course, we as a species no longer needed it and over time it has dulled to the point where having such a feeling might be brushed off as paranoia. Make no mistake however, someone staring directly at you in your peripheral vision is likely to catch your attention and the temptation to return the glare is almost fatal.

That was what was weird about the girl, she was unnatural, abnormal if I were to use a particularly cruel vernacular. She was unfit for the role of someone who sat on the ordinary chair, perhaps she was a deconstruction of the trope, one who looks unordinary on the outside yet upon further inspection might just be a normal girl trying to focus on her studies and ignoring some weirdo staring at her.

That was a more likely scenario, that I cannot help but admit. The wind blew in from the open window and her hair, short and black, as uniform as her clothing did not move one single inch, no, not one single millimetre. Rigid, fixed, static, unmoving, stationary; no number of synonyms would help to express how still her hair and posture remained. Anyone normal would have had their hair all ruffled and complained about it becoming unkempt or the wind being just a little too breezy. That was why the girl wasn’t normal, not because she denied any law of reality but simply because she didn’t act like the ordinary

A booming voice- I was to be scolded, I wasn’t paying attention

“What could be so interesting about the corner of the room that it distracts you from content that will be on the test?”

Or words to that effect, I was still zoned out after all, or rather focused on someone else. I didn’t answer, it was an atmosphere that didn’t allow one, the palpable feeling of a teacher’s authority was one that loomed over me forcing me into silence.

“Jeez, students really would do well to focus their attention on more important things than an empty desk, if you want to move there so badly at least do it without disrupting my class”

Move there? No, no, no I couldn’t move to a desk with someone already sat there, much less displace someone clearly more diligent than I. The desk was empty and bare of any stationary or paper of course, that came with the girl being unordinary I suppose but the chair certainly wasn’t she was sat right there, after all…

An empty chair would be ever so depressing.