I have a scar on my cheek near my mouth. It’s a small semicircle shaped depression. It’s as much a part of me as my nose or my teeth and I don’t think about it. Yesterday I went to school and I walked to my locker. On the way, my hair got into my eyes. I didn’t realize how long it was but now I need to cut it. It curls at the very bottom but the rest is straight. I wish it were either all straight or all curly; right now it goes to my eyeballs and then curls right into them. Every time I shake my head, my hair pokes me in the eye. Opening my locker is difficult. The lock isn’t a problem; it opens every time. In fact, sometimes I know I did the code wrong but it opens anyway. The difficulty comes afterward. A latch in the locking mechanism catches on the frame and doesn’t come free until it wants to. I can kick and jiggle and cajole and shove and shake but the only thing that opens the locker is when someone helps me. I try and try but as soon as someone else comes along to help, it opens. Even if they just watch, it opens. I only have trouble when I’m alone.

            My first class is right across from the locker. The class is always empty when I arrive. The teacher is sometimes there but I’m always the first student. I sit on the inside by the door but you can’t see me from the hallway. The teacher doesn’t talk to me very much before class starts. I sit in my seat where you can’t see me and I take out my books. I take them out slowly so that I’m not bored before class starts. It doesn’t help. Soon more people come but no one looks at my spot near the door. Once the rest of the class comes, you can’t even see me from inside the class. I sit in the back and I look out the window across the room. By halfway through the class the sun rises and points through a space under a thick railing on the roof of the building outside the window and across the street. It starts under the building and I can’t see it but it gets lighter and lighter. The sun moves so slowly. It floats up and then peeks out a little bit. Sometimes I see it go back a little. Then it rises a little more and it’s there to stay. About half of it fits through the space under the railing so I never see the whole thing at once. That’s because when it rises above the railing I can’t see it from my window.

            It peeks out like a cat. It hurts my eyes a little to look but sometimes there’s a cloud in front. Those times are the best because I can look straight at the sun as it goes past the peephole. When it gets to the middle, that is, when the sun is centered on the peephole, nobody knows but me. Even if they put the shade down on the window, I know when it gets to the middle. Every time the sun is in that center spot, the people in the room act different. I’m the only one who can notice. First, I thought it was only me: I played with my hair more. One specific time I realized that I played with my hair more when the sun reached the center spot. Then I looked at everyone else. They were all moving around in some way. I focused on every person. Each one looked ridiculous, or normal. One tapped a foot. One rolled fingers. One scratched. One moved an elbow in an extraordinary way. By themselves, the movements were laughable and sad, but not out of place. When I let my eyes relax, I saw it differently. I took in the whole scene at once: the panoramic view. I saw everyone in a pulsing and irregular rhythm, which was at once ordered and disgusting. Nobody knew that they all moved with each other and against each other. Nobody knew or they all knew, nobody tried or they all pretended. The sun attained its center spot and continued onwards, slowly leaving the peephole.

            The light doesn’t cause the unrest. One day the shades were closed but the same thing happened at the same time as the day before, only a minute later. When the sun does leave the peephole completely the room gets a little darker, even though the day is older. The movements slow down and stop. Everyone is tired and a little sheepish. How is that possible? Do they know? I know, but they can’t see me. I wonder what would happen if I told everyone or even if I shouted: probably nothing. Afterwards I would taste the silence and wonder if noise had ever issued forth from my mouth, near my semicircular depression.