8:20. 5 minutes left.

I step out into the warm sun. A barren parking lot greets me. When the sky was just a single degree darker, the lot was swarming with students. Not anymore.

I pull the handle for a routine check. It’s locked. Good. Now no mysterious parking-lot burglars can steal the day-worn masks stuffed in the cup holders, or the week-old water bottle under the driver’s seat. Assuming such things would interest them.

A quick time check before I precariously tuck my phone in my backpack.

8:21. 4 minutes left.

Now my phone is out of commission, and I don’t wear a watch. Which means that from the car to the double doors, time is just a figment of my imagination. 

Regardless, I walk purposefully down the lot. I adjust my step length to pass between two drop-off cars with relative ease —  a real life Frogger.

The sidewalk wounds around a lonely section of grass. Shadows of the awning envelop my hunched one as I approach. I pull the double doors open with the last remaining strength I have stored for morning duties, and step inside.

Now the time continuum has solidified again, and not in my favor.

8:23. 2 minutes left.

It really took that long to cross the parking lot? Would I have been faster if I’d parked closer? Or if I hadn’t spent so long checking my phone for the time? Or if I’d put my seatbelt on quicker? Or woken up earlier? Or — 

“Get to class!”   

Any chance of success is fleeting, but my mind grabs onto a hope I didn’t know I had. My legs take off running.

My backpack bounces out of sync with my clomping feat as I run. Yet the hallway remains unending. The cafeteria gates taunt me with their unnervingly stationary bars, getting farther the closer I approach.

A kid several yards ahead of me gradually shifts into a determined run. Suddenly, we are one, they and I, zooming around the corner into the lunchroom, weaving through students like we’re connected by an invisible string. 

In the corner of my eye sits the cafeteria clock. 

8:24. 1 minute left.

Almost there —  just around the arch that wraps the Pit. Good. Now a streamline dash for the doors to the history hallway. Good. Very good. Getting there. Almost there — 

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. 

8:25. Zero minutes left.

We slow to a stop as the assistant principal unhooks the door lock. The towering wooden doors swing shut, just a few steps from where we stand. Breathing heavily in my mask, the cloth flapping in and out, I fumble for my ID as they whip out a scanner.

“I am right here. I am right here,” the kid insists. 

That’s right. Tell ’em.

“Let me see your ID,” the AP responds.

Worth a shot.

I walk into first period with a bright orange tardy pass in my hand, still playing the blame game with all the actions I took until now. It was a matter of seconds that spelled my lateness, so should I not have braked at that yellow light? Or slept earlier the night before? Maybe a shorter breakfast would have sufficed. 

Or maybe living on the edge, aiming my arrival time minutes before the bell, is where my flaw lies. Maybe shifting my schedule by a few minutes earlier so that I’m not scrambling into my clothes and tossing my uncombed hair in a tangled bun last minute — maybe that’s more efficient. 

You know what? Hundreds of students arrive at school in a timely manner every single day. If they can do it, maybe I can too.

Or next time, I can just start running once I’m in the parking lot.

by Medha Sarin