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Click Click (an autobiography of sorts) by Storm Grant (300 words)
"And the award for outstanding academic achievement goes to…"
Click, click. Click, click.
White plastic gogo boots tapped across the auditorium as she returned to her seat, shield-shaped bit of felt pinched between sweaty little fingers. Her friends shifted along the bench to make room for her—a lot of room. She gazed across the gap to where they fidgeted, staring straight ahead, their own much smaller badges scrunched out of sight.
They’ll shower me with praise and admiration, she thought, and we’ll be friends forever.
The following year of utter friendlessness did, indeed, see like forever as she walked to and from school alone.
Click, click. Click, click.
* * *
"Do you matriculate?" They giggled, teenage girls wise in their cluelessness, riffing off George Carlin’s "words that sound dirty but aren’t."
In the end, she didn’t, having traded high school for typing school, "most likely to succeed" for a quick escape.
She completed her typing exercises in record time, rewarded with a turn at the electric typewriter.
Click, click. Click, click.
* * *
"Sign here," said Parcells, the ironically named mailboy, plunking the cardboard cylinder in her in-basket.
"Ryerson University," the return address read.
"Oh," she mused, "my degree. Finally." A decade and a half after dropping out of high school, the importance of the faux-parchment had paled. She’d risen without it, only to find herself discontent although she’s fought hard enough to get there. She ignored the unopened mailing tube, busy at her computer.
Click, click. Click, click.
* * *
Later, when she swore off the sharky world of management and pursued a secretarial career again, she found the degree a hindrance. She was incapable, though, of striking it from her résumé.
Now, when the alumni association calls for donations, she hangs up.
Click.
End.