Braving the hallways of hell
Students fear for their very lives in the maelstrom of treacherous school corridors, claims Freya Drinkwater
Apparently, certain people’s natural ability to walk completely vanishes as soon as they enter a school corridor. Their pace suddenly reduces down to the painfully slow speed of tortoises. This always seems to happen when you’re in a rush. What makes it so infuriating is the sudden spurt of speed they gain as soon as you attempt to go around them. At first it feels like just an occasional annoyance but after experiencing it on several occasions, the mere expectation of it becomes so unbearable that you vow to never set foot in a corridor again… until the next lesson of course.
Make no mistake that once you enter these corridors, there’s no way out. From my experience, the best and most bearable way to survive the torture is by following closely behind someone, hiding in their slipstream. For some, common courtesy and manners cease to exist. It’s understandable that corridors are busy and it’s inevitable that you’ll get bashed into at some point (everyone has accidents) but how hard is it to follow the push with a quick “sorry” or smile? The lack of acknowledgement seems utterly rude, forcing the impervious pusher to unleash an anger within us all.
Walking through a busy corridor is much like following a queue of vehicle traffic: you follow the cars at a relatively fast pace and you absolutely cannot bang your brakes on unless you want to crash. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to realise this. Random stoppers probably just need shooting. They lack spatial awareness and feel it’s necessary to completely stop in the middle of the corridor, thereby causing everyone behind to suddenly fall back like dominoes. Can there be any possible reason why a sudden halt is needed? A sudden Eureka moment for solving world poverty might be acceptable… but no… Maybe the individual simply has a fascination with dominoes and wants to see a live-action version.
As well as the ordinary slow walkers, I’ve met those monsters who drag their feet with every step. The combination of rubber soles against the hard floor creates a repetitive thumping, scratching noise that makes your ears bleed. An already loud corridor becomes even louder! It makes you wonder how often they have to repurchase shoes; it must be every week at this rate. The more the dragging continues, the more intolerable it gets and the more your patience is destroyed. Last week, I was stuck behind someone dragging their feet for three full minutes. By the end of it I felt like completely ripping my ears off; I had to promptly exit the corridor, sending me in the opposite direction to my Art lesson.
We can all relate to being in a rush and most of us fashion a walk that is somewhere in between a fast walk and a jog, however sprinting down the corridor is extreme. If we all walked at a quick, steady pace I'm sure we’d all get to our destinations without sending our fellow travellers mad. For some unknown reason, sprinters think their method is much more successful than the rest of us. It’s almost as if their urgency is more important than anyone else’s. The urge to kick your leg out just as the person is sprinting past is almost overpowering yet, of course, we avoid deliberate cruelty in this case…
Corridor hogs are the ones I’d like to see expelled without appeal though - where students walk in rows as opposed to walking in single file. Usually these rows contain around four people taking up the entire width of the corridor, leaving absolutely no room to pass them. As you approach, you expect one will move behind to allow you through but that doesn’t seem to happen. You’d think we were playing a game of corridor Crossy-Road. You’re simply forced to squeeze up against a wall and, yet again, no remorse is shown. Instead you're left fuming and feeling totally embarrassed and praying that no one else saw the awkward encounter. Maybe we should be looking at the wider picture, corridors are designed for merely 50 people but in a school suddenly 30 times this number of students are battling through, corridor demons are bound to appear.
Maybe lockdown did have its benefits, for one thing I didn’t have to pass these corridor terrors everyday.
Freya Drinkwater, Y12
Apparently, certain people’s natural ability to walk completely vanishes as soon as they enter a school corridor. Their pace suddenly reduces down to the painfully slow speed of tortoises. This always seems to happen when you’re in a rush. What makes it so infuriating is the sudden spurt of speed they gain as soon as you attempt to go around them. At first it feels like just an occasional annoyance but after experiencing it on several occasions, the mere expectation of it becomes so unbearable that you vow to never set foot in a corridor again… until the next lesson of course.
Make no mistake that once you enter these corridors, there’s no way out. From my experience, the best and most bearable way to survive the torture is by following closely behind someone, hiding in their slipstream. For some, common courtesy and manners cease to exist. It’s understandable that corridors are busy and it’s inevitable that you’ll get bashed into at some point (everyone has accidents) but how hard is it to follow the push with a quick “sorry” or smile? The lack of acknowledgement seems utterly rude, forcing the impervious pusher to unleash an anger within us all.
Walking through a busy corridor is much like following a queue of vehicle traffic: you follow the cars at a relatively fast pace and you absolutely cannot bang your brakes on unless you want to crash. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to realise this. Random stoppers probably just need shooting. They lack spatial awareness and feel it’s necessary to completely stop in the middle of the corridor, thereby causing everyone behind to suddenly fall back like dominoes. Can there be any possible reason why a sudden halt is needed? A sudden Eureka moment for solving world poverty might be acceptable… but no… Maybe the individual simply has a fascination with dominoes and wants to see a live-action version.
As well as the ordinary slow walkers, I’ve met those monsters who drag their feet with every step. The combination of rubber soles against the hard floor creates a repetitive thumping, scratching noise that makes your ears bleed. An already loud corridor becomes even louder! It makes you wonder how often they have to repurchase shoes; it must be every week at this rate. The more the dragging continues, the more intolerable it gets and the more your patience is destroyed. Last week, I was stuck behind someone dragging their feet for three full minutes. By the end of it I felt like completely ripping my ears off; I had to promptly exit the corridor, sending me in the opposite direction to my Art lesson.
We can all relate to being in a rush and most of us fashion a walk that is somewhere in between a fast walk and a jog, however sprinting down the corridor is extreme. If we all walked at a quick, steady pace I'm sure we’d all get to our destinations without sending our fellow travellers mad. For some unknown reason, sprinters think their method is much more successful than the rest of us. It’s almost as if their urgency is more important than anyone else’s. The urge to kick your leg out just as the person is sprinting past is almost overpowering yet, of course, we avoid deliberate cruelty in this case…
Corridor hogs are the ones I’d like to see expelled without appeal though - where students walk in rows as opposed to walking in single file. Usually these rows contain around four people taking up the entire width of the corridor, leaving absolutely no room to pass them. As you approach, you expect one will move behind to allow you through but that doesn’t seem to happen. You’d think we were playing a game of corridor Crossy-Road. You’re simply forced to squeeze up against a wall and, yet again, no remorse is shown. Instead you're left fuming and feeling totally embarrassed and praying that no one else saw the awkward encounter. Maybe we should be looking at the wider picture, corridors are designed for merely 50 people but in a school suddenly 30 times this number of students are battling through, corridor demons are bound to appear.
Maybe lockdown did have its benefits, for one thing I didn’t have to pass these corridor terrors everyday.
Freya Drinkwater, Y12
