Perspective

As I sit at the computer looking at the word perspective I think of deep and meaningful things I could write. But the thing about this word is, there is only one thing that I can think about when I see it. Second Year Art. The events of that class have forever destroyed the word and any other meaning it may have...

At thirteen years old I take the word geek to a whole new level. I enter the art class room with a gigantic school bag and equally mammoth  ring binder. The braces and massive glasses only add to the total nerd look. I'm as quiet as a mouse and am in absolute fear of the art teacher, Mr Reid. He is the stereotypical art teacher. Massive curly hair. Knitted tie.

As I sit at the desk with my friends I'm not really listening to him going on at the front of the classroom. We've been studying perspective drawing now for weeks. Months actually. Possibly the whole year. Lost in my own little world I pick up that  we're today putting our skills to use and are going to do a wall display. Half the class are to draw the Titanic, the other half write the word, using perspective.

I'm on the word side and I set to work. Writing out each letter with a ruler, it's a painstaking task. Eventually I finish. Before everyone else. I feel that I have arrived. At last I've understood what perspective is all about and more than that I'm faster than the rest of the class. I leave. Victorious.

The next week we return to that musty art room. As we enter I notice that our display adorns the wall. I sit down and suddenly from the other side of the room I hear roars of laughter coming from the 'in crowd'. A voice booms across the room "Who wrote Tinic, Who can't spell Titanic?!!!"

It dawns on me. I'm the one who can't spell it. I've left two letters out. No wonder I was finished first.

Humiliation abounds.

5 years later school is nearly over for good. I'm walking down the corridor and I hear someone call "Tinic". And I turn around. Again.