The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

54 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 3 The Bitter Taste in My Mouth Lynnaea Myers Lynnaea Myers is a Sophomore Industrial and Innovative Design major. Her interests include talking, playing her cello, kayaking, water skiing and generally anything adventurous involving friends and family. Shianne declared, “You’re not supposed to be reading during recess. You’re not allowed to sit alone and read.” “I’m allowed to read if I want. You can’t say I’m not allowed,” I said with fierce smugness. I was eager to defy Shianne and show her I could decide to not play with her or anyone else whenever I wanted. I was a passive- aggressive force to be reckoned with among my friends. I sat in the corner of the schoolyard, my bum slowly growing cold and numb on one of the big concrete window sills that sat two feet off the ground. My back was against the pane of three-inch thick, yellowed plastic that I guessed had not been replaced once since the ugly, factory-of-a-school had been built in the seventies. From where I sat, all sound bounced off the massive façade of the brick building and off of me. The thumpity-thump of kids landing half-way down the slide; their sneakers hitting the plastic before the rest of them with a hollow sound. The swing set chiming its high, clear notes. I was away from the other kids, but still plainly visible. The other kids could look up from their games and see that I was not taking part. I was different than the rest of them. I didn’t raise my head frommy favorite book, TaranWanderer, by Lloyd Alexander. I wanted to write stories like this someday; stories that would win the Newbery Medal. I was immersed in the more real, more significant world of Prydain where Taran was a lost soul, trying to discern his identity and purpose in life. I was groaning along with him in his hard and weary search for truth. And, what I thought was every once in a while, but which was probably much more often, I would peer up through my bushy