THE SPARTAN

You inhale. During this time the instructor writes two words on the Smart Board with the red marker and underlines it. CRIMINAL MIND. The psychology book in front of you shows two big text book pages of fat paragraphs written in large font and pictures of prison life with little subtext underneath them. Most of the prison pictures are perfectly, racially profiled to show you the largest, scariest looking African American, completely disregarding the child molesting Caucasian next to him. Out of all the words on the page, only a few stand out. Murder. Suicide. Death. Killing. Rape. Violence. Your eyes only skim the page, tapping your pen in your free hand because the other stops your head from collapsing of boredom. Everyone, except for a select few, look up at the clock, a clock they haven't switched to digital because the school blows too much money on other useless things like premium made lunches crafted from real Alpo dog meat. They all watch five seconds go by, not nearly enough time for the class to end. The only ones not watching the clock is the kid in the soccer shorts texting his girlfriend three classrooms away about how he can't wait for psychology to end so they can skip next class together and go home and have sex while his parents aren't home. The girl behind you is looking in her cosmetic mini-mirror, reapplying her make-up for the fourth time today. The Asian kid in the front row, close enough to give the instructor a blowjob, has three perfectly organized pages of notes already with his fiesta of colored pens and three-ring binder color-coordinated for each subject. You only have the word “psychology” written with a doodle of Batman fighting the Joker in the corner of your page. To your left, this kid with greasy hair and glasses wearing high-water jeans and a videogame t-shirt is drawing a half-naked Japanese anime character that makes your Batman doodle look like the work of a child with a mild case of down-syndrome. He's going to go home and masturbate to it with his collection of World Of Warcraft merchandise and Lord Of The Rings action figures. You turn to the window and wonder, “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” You exhale and a furry of submachine gun bullets fly through the windows.