Thrown Hammer

There was construction work being done at my workplace. Scaffolds were placed high up towards the rooftop. There was no work being done at the moment, so it was pretty quiet. The red brick walls stood still besides the scaffold as I walked past it. It all reminded me of a day way back in middle school.

I had attended school in Korea until the summer of 8th grade, and one weird habit I had grown just that semester was to arrive to school earlier than everyone. Instead of having a set student council, it was volunteered in rotation. One of the duties was to lock up the classroom and open it in the mornings. Naturally, in the week I had been in charge of the key, I arrived early to have the doors open. 

There was a certain peace in the classroom early in the mornings Now, I was no star student, and I had no business in enjoying time in school. However, the time alone in the classroom, before any movement, was rather magical. I guess I was drawn to that solitude before chaos ensued, so I started coming to school early. I had figured out a way to open the backdoor without a key, so I always managed to be the first in the class. 

One morning, I arrived early yet again. This time, there was an unfamiliar scenery outside. A tall iron scaffold stood past the windows. The classroom was on the third floor, so it was exciting to see something stand so ragged yet firm. As I was peering further out, I saw a lone hammer just lying on one of the steps of the scaffold. I knew better than to touch the belongings of others, but for some reason I slowly reached out for the hammer. I looked around to see that no one was around. I looked down to see that no one was below either, and in that instant, I let go of the hammer to see it fall down the scaffolds. 

It clinked and it clanked. Soon with a thud, it had reached its end of gravity. No one was hurt, the hammer was still within construction work area. The scaffold was solid as ever, and thus, no harm seemed to have been done. 

Couple hours later, however, I heard some gossip going around. Some students talked about a hammer that fell from the sky. They talked as if it had scared someone or even broken something. Many thoughts raced in my mind at the moment. I was sure that no one was around, but I guess younger students in the lower floors were perhaps present. My heart raced and skipped a bit. I still remember a student asking me about it, and with such a bold face I lied saying I knew nothing about it. 

It all ended as a mere happening. I guess people found it common to see stuff fall from construction sites all the time. I never got in trouble, and I had not thought about it until now. I guess it left decent mark in my heart, seeing as how a scaffold lying so quietly reminded me of a wrong I had once done.

Thankfully, I never acted so irresponsibly ever again. A little mischief here and there while in high school, but none deeming punishment. When I hit college, I had learned not to make any trouble either, especially in terms of not even touching personal belongings. 

Everything happened so quickly, but I always wondered why I had done such an act. In retrospect, I guess I was desperate for significance. The Korean school system is vastly different than that of the US. My middle school consisted of 7th, 8th and 9th grade students, all with more than 12 individual classes, each with at least 50 students. Since so many students were present, there was no rotation of students from class to class. The teachers moved around with each course. 

The concrete school walls all decorated with dull gray color enclosing nearly 2,000 students probably did not help with my hunger for importance. I felt like just another common man, a gear shifting with each motion of a bigger machine. All the encouragement from past teachers I met in the States all seemed like lies. I stopped being an all-A-student ever since being back in Korea. I was forced in the rigors of Korean academia by attending many after-school classes, all for advanced level studies. I never seemed enough in the eyes of my parents. I felt like I was suffocating in a glass menagerie.

Maybe that was why I enjoyed being first in the classroom. A sense of being somebody could have been a slight consolation to my freezing heart. Perhaps it was from such a thought that an act of rebellion was set in motion. As a means to climb out of the suffocating insignificance, I guess I chose to do something out of the ordinary, a little recklessness to remind myself that I am still somebody, that I can rise above pillars of society. 

I was not a child who had a sufferable childhood. Yet, I guess a lot of people go through the same concerns. Thankfully, I can say with a decent assurance that I have grasped some idea of my identity and my goals in life. Though at times I still search for comfort in who I am with people and materials, I am glad to have been found in God, able to remember past experiences to move unto an image closer to that of Jesus. I recognize that I still maybe just another gear in a whirring machine, but that I am know to God seems to be enough so far, hopefully evermore.