The first thing I noticed was the door. Thick, polished wood, like it had something to prove. It wasn't just a school gate. It was a warning. A border. A checkpoint between whatever childhood had been before and whatever was about to begin. The kind of door that didn't just open, it let you in reluctantly. Like it already knew you wouldn't belong.
Two stone pillars flanked it, carved with just enough care to remind you that money lived here. Not joy. Not warmth. Just money, structured, silent, watching. Parents stood outside holding their kids' hands like they were walking them to a courtroom. You could almost hear the verdict already: guilty of being too soft, too loud, too strange. I was guilty of all three.
When I stepped in, the tiles beneath my feet clicked with every move. Not loud, but sharp, like each step was being logged somewhere. The sound bounced off the cold, cream-colored walls, echoing back just enough to make me feel like I wasn't alone, even though no one was talking to me. The silence wasn't peace, it was surveillance. Like the school had eyes but no mouth.
The uniforms were ironed within an inch of their lives. The kids moved like chess pieces, programmed and polite. Teachers didn't walk, they glided, heads high, clipboards tight. And somewhere between the polished floors and the motivational posters peeling at the corners, I understood what Beacon House really was:
A machine.
It wasn't about learning, it was about shaping. Carving down rough edges. Smoothing out the "difficult ones." And I... was difficult. Quiet. Awkward. Foreign, even in my own country. I didn't fit into the mold, and I knew that the moment I stepped past that wooden gate.
That was the thing about Beacon House. It looked clean on the outside. Modern. Disciplined. But inside, it carried a kind of clinical coldness, the kind that doesn't hit you all at once. It seeps in slowly. With every "yes, sir," every red pen slash, every teacher's eyebrow raised too high. It teaches you how to shrink. How to nod when you want to scream. How to survive by forgetting who you are.
No one screamed at me that day. No one bullied me or hit me. That would've been easier. Instead, they smiled. Gently corrected my posture. Adjusted my shirt collar. "Chin up, beta." "Be brave." "Make your parents proud." All said with warmth that didn't touch their eyes.
And in that moment, standing in a hallway that smelled like disinfectant and polished shoes, I reMumtazzed something: this place didn't need to break you with force. It just needed time.
The door closed behind me with a dull, final sound.
Game on.
The first thing that hit me when I stepped into the foyer, before the teachers' eyes flicked over me, before the murmurs of students filled the air, before even the faint, lingering stink of Dettol mixed with dry sweat, was the board.
It was enormous. Not carve d with any elegance or artistic pride. Not adorned with colors or friendly fonts. It was just there, solid, unyielding, a heavy slab of wood that looked like it had been torn straight from some Cold War bunker. Mounted above us like a silent sentinel, it bore the weight of a thousand unspoken threats. It wasn't there to welcome. It was there to remind everyone exactly where they stood. And that place? The bottom.
Across its broad face, three words were painted in a sharp serif font, so precise and clean they seemed to slice through the air:
"PUNCTUMUMTAZTY. POSTURE. POLITENESS."
That was it. No flowery school motto. No quote from Rumi, no hint of Iqbal's poetry to inspire hearts or minds. No warmth. Just that stark, brutal little trinity of control. The message was clear, and it didn't even try to soften itself.
Be on time. Sit straight. Keep your mouth shut, unless it's to smile.
It wasn't a suggestion. It was an order.
Every morning, kids passed beneath it like soldiers clocking in, their faces tight with the effort to comply. Some didn't even glance up anymore, too practiced, too resigned. Others lingered with their eyes locked on the board, reading and rereading, as if by memorizing those words perfectly, they might somehow become the "good kids" the school demanded, those well-oiled little robots in blue and white uniforms.
Me? I didn't look. I couldn't. Instead, I felt the board like a splinter lodged deep in the back of my mind, a dull, constant ache beneath everything else. A low hum of judgment that clung to my skin and never left.
It wasn't the words themselves that got to me. Anyone could recite "punctuMumtazty" or "politeness" and nod along. No, it was the tone. The absolute certainty behind those three words. The way whoever had painted that board believed with ironclad faith that these were the holy keys to building "respectable citizens." Like if you just made it on time every morning, your parents wouldn't fight in the evenings. Like sitting perfectly upright would somehow straighten the chaos tangled inside your chest. Like flashing the right smile could hide any kind of brokenness beneath.
And there I was, thinking:
What if I'm none of those things?
What if I'm late because mornings feel like dragging my whole soul through broken glass?
What if I slouch because I'm exhausted from carrying the weight of pretending everything's fine?
What if I don't smile because I'm too busy trying to survive inside a body that feels like it's been folded and forgotten?
But no one asked.
You didn't ask questions in that place.
You didn't dare.
You just read the board.
You obeyed.
You lined up.
You learned how to shrink, how to fold yourself into the smallest shape possible, all without making a sound.
The board never changed.
It didn't have to.
Because it wasn't just a sign.
It was a constant, cold presence, a reminder that no matter how hard you tried, you were never quite enough.
Every classroom had one. Those ugly little plaques nailed high on the wall, just out of reach, like silent sentinels watching over every move, every breath. They looked like afterthought warnings, scribbled hastily in shaky handwriting that wobbled between faded ink and careless chalk smudges. Some were neat, as if someone had tried to make them look official, but most looked like they'd been penned by a teacher who'd lost patience halfway through, tired of reminding restless kids of the same rules over and over again.
No matter the style, the message was the same etched into those plaques like a cold decree rather than guidance. The words didn't offer help or encouragement. They were a list of shackles, designed to bind, to control, to remind you how small you should stay.
I remember one plaque I stared at so long my eyes blurred. The faded letters were smudged from years of careless elbows brushing past, maybe even the occasional tear, but those rules still burned clear in my mind:
"No running. No talking back. No creativity during work time."
Simple. Clear. Crushing.
No running, because freedom was a threat, a spark that could ignite chaos in their orderly halls.
No talking back, because questions were defiance, and defiance was punishable.
No creativity during work time, because thinking outside the box was dangerous, a rebellion disguised as imagination.
When I read that, I didn't just see words. I felt iron chains tighten around my wrists. Not a helpful set of instructions, but shackles meant to keep me small, quiet, invisible. To lock my thoughts away, fold my wild ideas neatly into a box no bigger than the cracked plastic of my desk.
I wanted to scream at the teachers, at those rules, at the whole system that treated curiosity like a crime and punished the light inside me. But screaming only invited more punishment, more judgment, more isolation. So instead, I swallowed the frustration whole, tucked it deep into a place I hoped no one would ever find. I became a ghost in those halls, present but unseen, a shadow moving silently past rows of desks and stern faces.
It wasn't just a list of rules. It was a blueprint of what I wasn't allowed to be. The real message whispered behind every line was loud and clear: Don't stand out. Don't speak up. Don't be yourself.
That's the lesson you learn fast when you grow up inside those walls. Survival means invisibility. It means folding yourself smaller and smaller until you fit, until you disappear.
But every rule felt like a noose tightening around the part of me that just wanted to breathe freely, to run wild, to shout back. The part of me that was stubborn and fierce and refused to be caged.
Still, you learn to move through it. You learn to survive the suffocation, one quiet step at a time.
Mrs. Burrae was like a drill sergeant dropped straight out of some war movie into a school hallway. The first thing you noticed were her mirrored sunglasses , even indoors, even in a dim classroom , reflecting everything and nothing at once. You never saw her eyes, just that cold glass, like she was hiding a secret or maybe just didn't want you to see what she was really thinking. Those sunglasses made her feel untouchable, like a force field around her, a wall you couldn't get past no matter how hard you tried. Her voice was clipped and sharp as the snap of a whip, slicing through the chatter, silencing the restless kids before they even had a chance to breathe. She had this habit of planting herself just inside the classroom door, arms folded tight across her chest, standing like a sentry guarding some fortress that wasn't meant to be breached. Every single day, no matter the hour, she'd peer out as if daring any kid to try slipping past her watchful gaze. No one dared. No one wanted to be the one caught.
There was something about her that wasn't just strictness or discipline, it was something colder, a kind of silent menace that sat heavy in the air like a thick fog you couldn't escape. You knew she wasn't there to teach you how to think or how to be; she was there to remind you how small you were, how disposable. You could feel her eyes behind those glasses, burning holes through the back of your head even when you thought she wasn't looking.
Then there was Mr. Carbi, the Watchful. If Mrs. Burrae was the fortress gatekeeper, Mr. Carbi was the hawk circling overhead, always scanning, always hunting. He had this way of sitting on the corner desk with his legs crossed, like he owned the place. His gaze wasn't casual; it was predatory. Before you even touched your pencil, he'd already counted your fingers, weighed your intentions, judged the exact angle of your focus. His eyes were cold, calculating, as if every tiny distraction you had was a crack in your armor, a weakness he could exploit. You could feel that gaze crawling under your skin, settling in your bones, a constant reminder that you were never really alone in that room. You weren't free to mess up, to breathe, to exist without scrutiny. Every move you made was logged, judged, marked.
To me, those two weren't just teachers. They were jailers dressed up in academic robes, their authority a mask for control and power. They didn't care about growth or discovery, about questions or mistakes. Their presence was a daily reminder of the rules you had to obey, the invisible lines you weren't allowed to cross. They weren't there to guide us or help us learn; they were there to make sure we stayed small, quiet, contained, like animals pacing in a cage.
Sometimes, I'd catch myself watching them, not out of respect or admiration, but out of this strange mix of fear and fascination. How could someone live like that, behind those mirrored shades, hidden behind cold, unblinking eyes? Did they ever remember what it felt like to be a kid? To have messy, wild thoughts that spilled out like fire? Or had they buried that part of themselves so deep, they forgot it even existed?
I hated them. I feared them. But more than anything, I hated that I needed to. That surviving meant learning how to shrink, to disappear under their gaze, to obey the rules that felt like shackles on my wrists and chains on my mind. Because sometimes, when the classroom emptied out and the doors slammed shut behind the last kid, I could almost hear those rules whispering: You don't belong here. Not really. Just follow the rules and maybe you won't break.
But I did belong. Even if no one wanted me to.
The day at Beacon House was stitched together by little watch points, tiny threads of control that wrapped around you, tightening almost without notice, like a noose slowly closing. You didn't reMumtazze how trapped you were until the walls began to press against your skin. It started with the ticking clocks in every classroom. That relentless tick-tock wasn't just the passage of time; it was a countdown, a drumbeat to your own failures. The second hand scraped around the face like a judge circling its prey, cold and unforgiving. Each tick was a warning: don't blink, don't breathe too loudly, don't get caught slipping. You could almost feel its eyes, sharp and unforgiving, counting every second you lost to distraction or hesitation.
Then there was the intercom, the ultimate reminder that you were never truly alone. It pierced through the silence like a jagged knife, jarring and unpredictable. One moment you might be scribbling half-hearted notes or steMumtazng a glance out the window at a bird that dared to fly free. The next, that voice cut through the classroom, cold and mechanical. Sometimes it was announcements: reminders about assemblies, rules about punctuMumtazty, or blunt instructions to "stay on task." Other times, it was less clear, more like an intrusion meant only to snap you awake, to remind you that the eyes in the building were always watching. That sharp "Attention!" would make you jump in your seat, heart pounding, like a cornered animal caught off guard.
Pop quizzes were the worst. No warnings. No mercy. Like hidden traps lying beneath the floorboards, they sprung up from nowhere, designed to catch you off guard, to expose every crack in your preparation, every foggy corner of your mind. One moment you were safe, lost in the blur of numbers or half-remembered facts, and the next you were staring down a paper that felt less like a test and more like a sentence. No time to breathe. No space to think. Just raw, ruthless pressure. You knew that one wrong answer could unravel you, peel away whatever confidence you'd mustered.
Even the lavatories, places that should have been safe havens, were under siege. Those plain wooden doors hid tiny peep holes, little eyes that watched while you tried to find a sliver of privacy. Privacy here was a myth. Every step you took, every breath you drew, every restless shuffle of your feet was monitored. It was like living inside a fishbowl, except the water was cold and those eyes were always hungry, always judging. You tried to escape into silence but found none.
At first, I told myself it was all part of the game. A price to pay for being at Beacon House, a place that promised discipline and order. I was curious, trying to figure out the invisible lines, testing boundaries, wondering what freedom looked like inside those walls. But day after day, the watch points tightened, and the curiosity curdled into something thick and bitter in my chest, a slow, choking claustrophobia that wouldn't let go.
The walls didn't just close in around me physically; they sank into my skin and wrapped tight around my mind like chains forged from silence and fear. I stopped looking up. I stopped asking questions. I learned to keep my head down, to move like a shadow in the corner, quiet, invisible, and small. Because the more you tried to stand out, to be yourself, the tighter the watch points closed, leaving less and less room to breathe.
By the end of each day, the ticking clock was no longer just time passing. It was a cold reminder that every second was counted, every mistake etched into memory. The intercom's cold voice echoed like a warning, a ghostly command to conform. And the pop quizzes? They were the traps that kept me locked inside a prison built from fear, control, and the relentless, unblinking gaze of everyone watching. I wasn't just a student. I was a target.
I remember the exact second it happened, when I forgot to take off my cap in class. It wasn't some rebellious move, just a careless slip. Maybe I was lost in my own head, thinking about something else entirely. The cap felt like a shield, a little armor against the dull, endless drone of Mrs. Carrington's lecture. It sat there, stubborn and heavy on my head, like a silent protest I didn't even mean to make.
Then came the sharp snap of her voice, cutting through the stale air like a whip. "Amir, remove your cap now." It wasn't a request. It was a command laced with something colder, disapproval, maybe even disgust. The words hung in the room, ringing out louder than I wanted them to. In that instant, the classroom fell into a sudden, suffocating silence. All eyes flipped toward me, like I'd just blown a secret or done something unforgivable.
The weight of their stares pressed down hard. My cheeks flared bright red, like I'd been branded. That heat spread fast, crawling from my ears down to my neck and chest. My throat felt like it had a lump lodged in it, too big to swallow, too heavy to ignore. My hands trembled, fingers curling into tight fists under the desk, trying to hold myself together, but barely managing. It was like my body had betrayed me, broadcasting every bit of shame and fear I was desperate to hide.
I reached up slowly, pulling the cap off like I was stripping away a part of myself, something that had kept me safe for just a little while. The silence lingered even after the cap hit the desk, thick and sticky, as if the room was holding its breath, waiting to see if I'd crumble or fight back. But I just sat there, heart hammering, wishing I could disappear into the cracks of the floor.
That moment, so small, so simple, felt like a crack in the armor I'd been building. It wasn't just about a cap. It was about being exposed, judged, and found lacking. Like the rules didn't just live in books or plaques on the wall, they lived inside me now, making me smaller, quieter, less. And all I could do was sit there and take it.
Lunch at Beacon House always felt like a slow-motion panic attack, sunlight too bright, benches too stiff, and the air thick with the smell of curry and quiet desperation. Everyone was performing. Not for each other, really, but for her, Mrs. Carrington. She sat at the edge of the courtyard with her thermos and her tight little smile, pretending not to watch us while watching everything.
It was weird how fast the other kids adapted. They moved like chess pieces, calculating every gesture. One girl straightened her posture before walking past her. Another offered to pick up some wrapper that wasn't even hers, whispering, "Cleanliness is discipline," like she was reciting from scripture. And the worst part? It worked. Carrington would nod, just once, and that nod was gold. It meant protection. It meant you wouldn't be next.
I was halfway through my sandwich, dry bread, one lonely slice of cucumber, when I glanced over at Arham, the kid who always sat two spots from me. He was the type who never got into trouble, always raised his hand at the right time, never looked too happy or too sad. Just... appropriate. I figured if anyone had Carrington's approval locked in, it was him.
"You think she actually believes all that code-of-conduct stuff?" I asked. My voice came out quieter than I meant, like even I wasn't sure I was allowed to question it.
He looked up from his tiffin box, chewing thoughtfully. "She doesn't have to believe it," he said. "She just needs us to."
I blinked. That wasn't the answer I expected. "You really think she'd notice if someone, like... just didn't care?"
"She'd notice," he said, calmly. "She always notices. She's just waiting."
"For what?"
He shrugged. "For you to slip."
He went back to eating, like he hadn't just handed me a small existential crisis with his curry. I looked around again. The kids laughing too loudly were already on borrowed time. The ones too quiet were probably next. And me? I was somewhere in the middle. Invisible, mostly. But not safe.
Because at Beacon House, favor was a currency. And everyone was broke, just waiting to be fined.
I wasn't exactly starting a revolution, but I did draw a tiny, winged flame in the corner of my maths book. Tucked it right next to the problem where we were supposed to be solving for x, except I was solving for something else entirely. Something like… escape.
It was small. Just a crooked little flicker with wings, the lines shaky because my hand wouldn't stop twitching. Not from fear, exactly. More like adrenMumtazne wrapped in a school uniform. The kind of buzz you get when you're doing something stupid and quiet, like shoplifting a thought.
Every time Mrs. Carrington stalked past my desk, I'd slam my palm over it like it was a nuclear button. She didn't even glance my way, but I could feel the heat of her gaze two rows over, like a sniper waiting for movement. If she saw it, she'd probably hold it up like a smoking gun, ask me in front of the class whether I thought fire had a place in long division.
And I'd say no. Out loud, at least. But inside, that little winged flame was laughing. Burning just enough to stay Mumtazve without catching anything else on fire. A secret I carried between the margins.
That doodle meant nothing and everything. It wasn't art. It wasn't rebellion. It was… oxygen. The one part of my day that didn't belong to wooden rules or shrill commands or that dead-eyed silence they call "focus." It was my proof that I still had a pulse. That the part of me that made things, the messy, strange, almost dangerous part, hadn't been fully flattened by the rules.
It's funny how a two-inch scribble can make you feel like you've done something real. Even if no one ever sees it.
Especially if no one ever sees it.
The classroom after hours had this weird silence, like the room was holding its breath. No kids, no shrieking teachers, just the hum of the lights and the long shadows cutting across the desks. I stood there for a while, not moving, like I was trying to soak up the emptiness before it got filled again with rules and barking and the sound of chairs scraping like punishment.
The air smelled faintly of dry-erase markers and reheated chicken nuggets. Real ambiance. My little flame sketch hid beneath my notebook, curled like a secret. I hadn't been caught. Not this time.
That was the rhythm of it, day after day of control stitched together with tiny, invisible acts of rebellion. I didn't throw tantrums or break rules out loud. I just survived on the quiet stuff. A flick of the pencil. A stolen thought. An eye-roll I kept behind my forehead.
They watched us like we were cracked china. Ready to break. But none of them noticed the cracks were already there, just hairline fractures under the surface. And me? I was learning to live inside the fracture. To keep walking the line with my own version of balance, even if it was tilted and a little bit broken.
The walls of Beacon House were thick, but memory runs deeper. Before all this, before rules, before whispers, before I was a number in a hallway, I was just a kid. One year old. Still sticky with innocence and powdered milk.