I walk through the debris-strewn hallway of the school, buffeted by memories. I am a bully and a victim, popular and a pariah, aiming for valedictorian and about to drop out. I see my friends and jog toward them with a wave and a shout. I hurry through the hallways with quick, anxious steps, head down, flinching when he looks toward me with a cruel smile. “He’s cute,” she whispers as we both stare towards him while trying to seem like we’re not.

Everyone has memories of school, good or bad, clear or faded. Not of this school, necessarily, but they’re all similar. There’s an odd familiarity to these long-abandoned hallways, where paint peels in sheets from water-stained walls and the rusted doors of lockers hang open. I pace the length of the decaying hallway and let the memories run free.

The best time of my life. Long days spent with friends. A source of constant anxiety, where I dreaded entering every day and counted the minutes until my escape. Laughing until I cried at in-jokes that made no sense, even with context. Staying up past midnight texting with friends about everything and nothing. Eating lunch while hiding in a bathroom. Working until three in the morning on an essay assigned weeks ago and untouched until yesterday, sleeping through class with my eyes open after turning it in. Faking my dad’s voice to call in sick and ditching with my friends.

I try to push open a door, marked 114, but find it immovable, rusted in place. I peer through the grimy window at the vague shapes of desks inside. The next one, 117, is also closed, but 102 is after that and open. Running back and forth across campus, I gradually learn its layout. There’s no discernable pattern to the room numbers, but the insane logic of their order begins to make sense to me.

The windows are shattered, the carpet rotting. A pulp of scattered papers and wind-blown leaves hides glass shards that crunch under my feet. Some desks have collapsed into heaps of metal rods and artificial wood. Others still stand, and I trail my fingers across the graffiti carved into their surfaces. Random patterns of scratches and holes. An octahedron. Scattered letters and numbers. An angular ‘s’ like a figure eight. Smiles and frowns. What might be Godzilla. A name, only half finished. Carving with pens, mechanical pencils, the pointed tips of compasses, and anything else I could find. Brushing the dust away with gray-stained fingers.

It is a strange thing, to be nostalgic for something you’ve never experienced. Something you could never experience. The desks would collapse under my weight, if I tried to sit in one. Not that I would even be able to fit. Such small, delicate things, built for such small, delicate creatures. And here I am, a foolish robot built for death, so confused I think I could almost be one of them.

I leave the classroom through one of the broken windows, my feet leaving tracks in the muddy ground outside. I don’t belong here. I flee through winding streets, out of the city, my long strides almost fast enough to outrun memory.