Pacific Duration

One gets used to the calm of familiarity. For three years, a child walks the halls of their Jr. High, their middle school, their high school prep. The waves of life, tranquil like the currents of an ocean. Time seems to fluctuate. Test. Homework. School. Friends. Repeat. Then the tides suddenly shift, the child, no longer is sheltered in its school of fish. It enters a coral reef bustling with all sorts of different colored, shaped, sized creatures. Confusion. Chaos. High school. Waters swirling. Sands disturbed below. The storm passes, the sea bottom settles. And slowly the fish, the child, is back to swimming swiftly. Darting through the waves.