A young boy, a wallflower, went to a high school filled with many kids. He watched; he listened. He observed every single person there. All the kids should have been fascinating to watch, but they weren’t. In fact the boy couldn’t tell kid a part from kid. They were all the same inside and out. He didn’t understand why though. When he was in middle school he remembered there being many kids that he liked. The kids in middle school, they were fun to watch. Now it’s just like he’s in a fish tank at the pet store filled with the same old boring gold fish.
He remembered having a crush on this girl named Maria. She seemed to be the last personality filled person in the school. She would skip down the hallways, singing, laughing. Everyone would laugh at her; they would call her names. It didn’t appear that she was bothered by this though. Why then, could he not spot her out now in the fish tank? She must have cracked; finally hit that wall. What a shame, the boy thought.
One day the boy went to school just like he did every day. On this day though, he decided to wear a pair of red Converses. He saw this kid wearing them at school with a name he did not know. He wore them because he thought they actually looked cool, for once he like something in this society.
        “I will only allow myself to be compared to that kid through my shoes,” the boy told his parents. His parents just smiled; for they knew what happened to people who wore red Converses, it happened to them too.
When he went to school he decided to skip down the hallways singing and laughing, in honor of Maria, wherever she was. He laughed when people laughed and sang when things went quite in the hallway. Finally the kid who the boy copied the red converse look from came up to him. He told the boy that he couldn’t sing and skip and laugh while wearing those shoes. How strange, the boy thought. It wasn’t strange though that he couldn’t do all this, the boy figured out. It actually ended up being normal to not sing and skip and laugh. So the boy just shrugged and walked down the hallway not doing anything at all.
The next day the boy wore a flannel with his red Converses because that’s what people with red Converses did.
        “I’m not like them at all I simple like their sense of style,” the boy told his parents. The parents once again just smiled.        When he went to school he was pulled aside by a girl while walking down the hallway, doing nothing. The girl yelled at him. She said that he couldn’t hide his actually self and that he had to let his inner self shine through and just maybe he could save what high school has become.
       “Why don’t you let your inner self shine through?” The boy asked. The girl looked taken back. He didn’t recognize her. But then again how could he when everyone was the same fish.
“I tried, but I couldn’t handle it,” the girl sighed. “You though, your high schools only hope.” The boy was confused by this girl. How dare she yell at him for not letting himself show, when clearly he did. The boy looked himself over to make sure he was still himself. Then the boy examined the closest guy to him and then examined himself again. He couldn’t tell himself a part though from the other guy. Quickly the boy scanned the room to somehow find a difference between himself and everyone else. The boy looked back at the girl next to him puzzled.
        “Do you see what you have become?” The girl said. The boy didn’t understand what she meant though. He was completely normal. With that he walked down the hallway in his red Converses and flannel doing absolutely nothing.