Sixth Form

Sitting on a bench in a deserted sixth form common room, Pauli thought it might be time to reappraise where he was going in life. He watched the second hand on the clock tick round, going nowhere, just counting time. He was meant to be here to discuss his disappointing grades with his head of year, but that lazy good for nothing had forgotten their meeting, so Pauli was left with the cleaner, the ticking clock and his own thoughts for company. Pauli closed his eyes and tried to imagine where he'd be in 10, 15, 20 years time. And that was the problem! His mind was blank, he had no idea had no vision playing in his mind, just an empty screen filled with static. His friends talked about being doctors, journalists, teachers but Pauli had nothing. It wasn't that he lacked imagination, he had a fantastic imagination, he lived in it most of the time, it was just that he didn't know what he wanted to be.  His teachers thought that he didn't care, but it was just that he didn't have anything concrete to aim at. If Pauli tried really hard he could see himself as a photographer, or artist of some sort. But his teachers and parents between them had talked him out of doing art, told him it was not an academic subject for a bright boy like him. So convincing had their arguments been that it was impossible now for Pauli to pull the image of him with a paintbrush into his mind.

By the magic of coincidence Mr Jenkins the art teacher came into the room as he was thinking that.

‘What are you doing here Pauli?’

‘Waiting for Hoppo..er Mr Hopkins sir.’

‘Well he’s gone home I think. In trouble again?’

‘No sir, just bad results, struggling with Geography.’

Jenkins smile, tell me about it, I hated Geog. ‘What’s this?’

Jenkins picked up the pad that Pauli had been idly doodling on during his futile wait.

‘Nothing sir.’

Jenkins looked at the nothing, which transpired to be a rather impressive picture of the school clock with a self-portrait  of  Pauli as the second hand.  

‘This is really good, why didn’t you do art? You got good a GCSE didn’t you?’

Pauli nodded.  They chatted a while, well Pauli did, all the thoughts of the previous few minutes flooded out of him, and to his amazement Jenkins was a willing listener.

‘Come and see me Monday, Pauli, I’ll have a chat with Hoppo…Mr Hopkins and we’ll see what we can do. Now get yourself home.’

Pauli walked home with a feeling of weightlessness. Nothing was decided, nothing had changed but a weight had been lifted. It was as if he’d been rescued.