A thin film of sweat coats my skin, trapping wisps of hair against my forehead, clinging to my school shirt. I turn my eyes away from the tiny carcasses and try to focus on the mass of quadratic equations on the board. At what point does a fly give up trying to escape through a closed window-do its survival instincts keep it going until it is physically capable of no more, or does it eventually learn after one crash too many that there is no way out? At what point do you decide that enough is enough? I wonder what it would be like to be shut up in this airless glass box, slowly baked for two long months by the relentless sun, able to see the outdoors-the wind shaking the green trees right there in front of you-hurling yourself again and again at the invisible wall that seals you off from everything that is real and alive and necessary, until eventually you succumb: scorched, exhausted, overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task. It is hard to believe that they were ever alive. I gaze at the small, crisp, burned-out black husks scattered across the chipped white paint of the windowsills.
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