The moment of glory that had been built up by everyone around me, the second that an instant before the people behind me had been giggling about in ecstasy, but walking down that path paved by the piercing stares and the bright light of expectation placed on me, it all felt so surreal, so pathetic,  so meaningless. 

     It felt as if walking in a monotonous dream where the time had been stretched past its measure and into the eternity, where everything lost its worth where the struggle to move forward was forgotten but not the suffering, it felt as if all that time had been spent as nothing more than a fawn wobbling and falling down without going anywhere, only wasting effort, being abandoned by even its own mother for its uselessness.

    And For what tangible evidence did we endure this 

All these years of bullying, All these years of struggle, All these years of headaches from trying to understand something the way someone else did, All these years of comparing each of the betta fish that swam in our small bowl. All these years of ‘education?

    All these years of the hell, and what was our reward?

Blind from the attention that was drawn to me, I couldn’t see what lay before me, the robes weighing me down, becoming damp due to perspiration caused by the heat drawn by their color underneath the attention on my pedestal. Atop my head, a pedigree of my years, but it was almost like all those years didn’t belong to me as they tipped to and fro as if almost ready to fall from my crown. Nearly see through the threads that slipped on my arms and legs attempting to flow away from me whispering in the slide of it against me, that I was not worthy of those clothes, I would never be adequate. Those whispers that slipped across my skin began to chafe and leave a rash, one that may perhaps take more time to heal than any other wound,

   My eyes searched,  they reflected no familiar faces, the only ones I knew were the ones watching from that tossing dark sea in which not a single person had the light of attention on them, from where I stood it all seemed the darkest shade a thing could take but still somehow moving, breathing, alive as a single wave from the oceans fo expectation moved it to and fro.

   But shaken from my thoughts at that moment the lady in clothes that seemed to be woven from the robes of hades, all hidden by the smile on her thin white mask, the voice of the fates seemed to speak through her monotone words as if telling me I had not much longer. just the same as when she had called me forward she spoke, but now only one word, 

   "Congratulations" 

She handed me a small sheet that could fit in an envelope, so delicate it could tear with just a quarter or perhaps even just a nickel. 

   I couldn’t help but imagine the weight of the years suddenly being pressed upon it, utter oblivion I thought, that was all it would be then.

    Sure enough, it was framed by a grand lining, the edges of the dark leatherback, each edge coated in a gold sheet, and placed in with the ribbon and a plastic sheet covering it to protect it, But in reality underneath It All, 

What had we done for that fragile piece of paper?