Sitting in the lobby, I can always feel it. The feeling of unseen and unwanted eyes penetrating my forehead. When I even bother to look up, their eyes flick away from my face in shame, like snakes' tongues darting in and out from their scaly lips. I smile at the analogy. How true it proves in many ways. Snakes are slimy creatures that spend their lives slithering around in the mud and duping naked people into being thrown out of paradise. I feel that there is no other animal in the entire world that could possibly explain them better. I watch through cynical eyes as the girls prance around in their Tommy Hilfiger Jeans and their Calvin Klein pea coats, feeding each other endless diets of recycled lies.
     The pain of the rejection of friends is immeasurable. I was only ten years old and it seemed as if I had broken some unspoken code between my friends and me. Being rejected because I would not conform was not an easy thing with which to come to terms. For so long I wanted the four of us to shed our new skins and return to third grade, second grade, first grade, where naptime was the best time of day, and we would all hold hands during recess. It took me five years to accept that being myself was far more important than succumbing to their conniving claws. Five years of dealing with nasty glances, whispers humming behind my tear stained face, absurd rumors and schoolyard banter.
     Things weren't always like this. Long before my expulsion, long before snakes took over my grade, there were four little girls. The very best of friends, they did everything together, knew everything about each other and could see each other's houses in their sleep.
     When the girls turned ten in fourth grade, things irreversibly changed. Three of the girls attempted to self propel themselves to maturity, aging months and years in a single week. The girls abandoned their former friend, because she wasn't trendy enough, she lacked their "maturity." That was the first of many paradoxes that would follow these girls. As they would physically grow older, their maturity would forever remain at the fourth grade level, because, alas, not everything can be forced. Their former friend, however, would surpass them by leaps and bounds, reaching higher levels of maturity they could only dream about.
     That maturity came about through a hardened view of the world, low tolerance for the garbage of my peers, and complete disregard for their deviant ways. They don't understand it. They don't understand how I can be a free thinker, how I can make my own decisions without consulting every member of my group. Flying high and solo among the trees armed solely with my infallible companion-my music-my colorful feathers remain unruffled by their pernicious ways. While slithering along in the mud, where they truly belong, they spew forth scathing remarks intended to disparage others and make themselves feel dominant over their supposed subordinates. Their social impotence makes it necessary that they travel in large herds, hooking tails in order to stay together. They tend to run with a group of idiotic primates who can only communicate by thrusting themselves upon the girls or beating each other senseless, therefore proving their masculinity. They lack the intelligence to perform simple motor tasks, and only get through school by using large reserves of their parent's money. Equally superficial to their counterparts, the guys dress themselves in many of the infamous brands that have now become simply names found on their mates. Tommy, Calvin, Ralph, they are all on a first name basis.
     They must travel together in large packs because if left alone, they might realize what they've become and melt, much like the reason the wicked witch of the west never owned a bathing suit. I think I might be giving them too much credit. They're never alone because they're afraid. By staying in large group they are comforted. They reflect each other's insecurities by feeding themselves lies in between praying to the gods of porcelain, booze and tobacco.
     Now, I could care less about who is dating whom, who hates whom and why the queen snake was crying at lunch. We now seem to peacefully coexist; they carefully keep to their part of the lobby, and I snicker at them once they turn away. They don't really know what to make of me, sitting in the corner doing homework or sleeping, blaring music drowning out all their choreographed moves. But I smile as I realize something they have not. This is the high point in their life. They are doomed to be Biff Loman, forever obsessing about the wonderful times in high school that they will never have again; the rest of their life will be constantly compared to the high pedestal upon which high school will be placed.