Glass Jar

Barnaby – Year 7 Student

Editor’s Note: This is a beautifully uplifting piece of writing Barnaby submitted as part of the BBC Radio 2 500 Words 2020 competition. KSH

A year ago, I was in a classroom, collecting money for charity on the teacher’s desk. A month ago, I was storage for spare stationary. Today, I sit in the darkest closet, never to be opened. I always remember when Miss would tell them, “Give your charity money here!”…That was when I was useful, raising money for the people in need. Now I sit, having no use at all. Why have I been downgraded from first class to economy when I have the reason to be in first class? I need someone or something to open this damn closet, I haven’t seen the light of day for 3 weeks! For a flash of a second, I saw something more glorious than money or purpose, I saw the slightest light. While the slightest light flashed before my very glass, my life had a slight glimmer of hope that I wouldn’t become a hoover, gathering dust.

A week later I was still in the cupboard, eating the dust as it flies into the air like a fledgling eager to attempt to leave its nest. Then, as I was losing my mind to the wooden closet of nothingness, I heard a key turning, and the closet opened with no one there. It was as if the key had a conscience of its own, listening to me for the past month, finally letting me out of this torture. A teacher walked by and saw me, I expected them to just shut the closet back up again but no. They said to themselves “A glass jar? I’ve needed one of them for the past 2 weeks; there was just one here all along?” I internally screamed at the top of my lungs in happiness, realising I had been noticed by someone who needed me for an actual purpose. Then I had a second thought about who it was.

I thought to myself, “I recognise who this is. It sounds like someone I know, or knew.” They looked nothing like her but they sounded like someone had just cloned her. They took me into her class during a lesson and I heard someone say “Miss Woodloft”. Then I knew it’s the same teacher that I used to be in the hands of. She didn’t know but we had been reunited until someone put me back into a dark pit of sadness again. I saw the flowers on her windowsill chatting away and her walls staring at everything in the room. Every day was buzzing with excitement and interest as I taught myself a new lesson about life. That lesson is to never give up and don’t think you serve no purpose in life. I thought the same thing but eventually, I served a purpose. A good old phrase I know is ‘patience is a virtue’. If everything seems it is hopeless, wait until it gets better; it took me one month, but let’s not dwell about the past: look at the present and future.

Barnaby