Death of The Hollow Men (A Sci-Fi Short Story)
I teach a Science Fiction Literature class to seniors, and one of the students who knows I write challenged me to craft a dystopian story. I was hesitant, like Kurt Vonnegut, because I don't like labels, and sci-fi clings to authors long after they've abandoned the genre. Regardless, it is a good assignment for myself, and will showcase good modeling when the students will be "forced" to do the same assignment later this semester. Don't judge too harshly...
I teach a Science Fiction Literature class to seniors, and one of the students who knows I write challenged me to craft a dystopian story. I was hesitant, like Kurt Vonnegut, because I don't like labels, and sci-fi clings to authors long after they've abandoned the genre. Regardless, it is a good assignment for myself, and will showcase good modeling when the students will be "forced" to do the same assignment later this semester. Don't judge too harshly...
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This is the way the
world ends
This is the way the
world ends
This is the way the
world ends
Not with a bang but a
whimper.
T.S. Eliot was partially right. By the time she did go, most were actually
begging- “Just die already.” We couldn’t
kill her off quick enough. Who needs Earth with thousands of inhabitable
planets waiting with neon vacancy signs and untapped natural resources dying to
be utilized by a superior species?
Problem is, Earthlings no longer personified superior. By
the time Information Modification Chips (IMC) took the place of education in
late 2138, we thought we had mastered
the inequality of genetics. Don’t understand Elliot’s The Hollow Men?, there’s a chip for that. But nobody wanted poetry
chips back then. The rage was all for advanced bioengineering, hypothetical
mathematics, and anything that would help build the infrastructure that would
make interplanetary travel possible.
They never quite got there. Neither did we. We’ve been
orbiting Earth for two years now. It’s
2189, and I’ve been commissioned to write a history of the Earth during the IMC
years. (I’m more a reader, than a writer, but then, there isn’t a writing
expert on the ship, so this is what you get).
The same science that perfected the delivery system of synthetic
information into the frontal lobe of the brain via a small forehead opening,
was also its undoing. The misinformation chip movement--either the work of
rogue countries, despondent anarchists, or religious zealots--ended up
poisoning the minds of 99% of the population.
At first, bio-delivery doctors made quick work of
recognizing bad information chips, and reeducation was a fairly painless process.
Recurring migraines were the most common complaint. The World Information Group
(WIG) also set up a task force to eradicate the misinformation producers. It
was a swift and brutal reaction that showed very little humanity--administering lethal justice to the suspects on the spot.
Many of the remaining Natural Learners; holdouts and the elderly,
vocally denounced the monstrous treatment of suspects. WIG called “listening
session” to hear their complaints, and used the opportunity to try out a new reeducational
delivery system that used a high
frequency wavelength rather than a direct application to the brain opening
portal, to stream information. The protestors must have suffered the most
incapacitating migraines of all time. This system flooded the brains of the
protestors, literally melting their brains. WIG was wholly satisfied with the
results.
This wasn’t the first time overloading had caused massive
deaths. Just like after the death of the great Chip testing martyrs of 2120,
WIG reformulated the information dosage to a biologically acceptable rate, and
soon, world mandated information was being “downloaded” at night, and people
were waking up rested, alert, and smarter each and every day.
The average IQ swelled to nearly 200. Chips no longer just
provided knowledge, but also behavioral modification training. Stability Chips
solved disorders. Breeding Chips took the romance out of courtship. Parental
Chips took the place of parenting. Developmental Chips accelerated the process
of childhood; the average child was ready for the workforce at age 11. It was a
brave new world, were suffering could be alleviated with a Chip.
Of course, the best Chips came at a price. And overloading
could still be fatal if one tried to revolutionize himself overnight. Still,
discount Chips, black-market Chips, and even misinformation Chips flooded the
market places. WIG limited the number of Chips to 100 behavior Chips and 100
knowledge Chips, in an effort to regulate the playing field. It was not
strictly enforced. The Haves were still the Haves.
And yet, they acted less and less like humans. They grew
tired of jobs and positions, and bought new chips to master new jobs. Nobody
really stayed at a job longer than a year before they felt bored. Creativity
also suffered. People had the
wherewithal to do the jobs, but innovation stagnated. There were no great advancements ten years
after the IMC reformation. Only the very rich could afford the creativity and
problem solving Chips, and many never installed them (hoping instead to sell them back at a great profit because of their rarity).
Regardless of the inequality and lack of ingenuity,
productivity and population soared.
Forests were cleared for the best modified crops. Buildings were built
taller, cities expanded into counties, and countryside turned to sprawl. Great
strides, however, were made in environmental practices, and fossil fuels were
eradicated and yet the Earth was still sick. The best minds got smarter, and
yet they couldn’t solve this riddle.
Biodiversity suffered. Only the crops with the greatest bang
per square inch were maintained. Science controlled nature for the good of
all. For a little while, it seemed that
50 billion people could thrive with only 4% of the surface devoted to food
production.
But then the Earth rejected the modified grains. Old crops, however, wouldn’t grow either. Quickly a new generation of learners were installing Agricultural Chips, trying to capitalize on the disaster. But the Earth had been poisoned by progress, just like their brains would be.
Panic, not WIG lead to the eradication of the rest of the
Natural Learners, besides us. We 200 were protected by WIG as a sort of test
group, in a 500 acre Eden-like setting. Born naturally, without aid of Chips,
we were all self-learners. We, of course, could use information stations,
books, and archived media to find knowledge…but we were clearly behind the rest
of society. There was no portal to our brain, even if we tried. Socially, however, we were clearly superior. We
protected our own, while they cared little for each other. Individualism was
key “out there,” while we knew we needed each other to survive. The few WIG
employees who monitored and studied our behavior often laughed at our primitive
ways. They aren’t laughing now.
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| Natural Learner communes were the first to be raided. |
Starvation “out there” led first to the destruction of the
last Natural Learner fortifications, and later destroyed protected parks and
forests, then zoos and biodiversity gene universities, and lastly to cannibalism.
Nobody, except the top brass at WIG knew about our facility, so nobody seriously
ever challenged our Eden enclosure, at least before we left the surface. We had
prepared, in any case, for the chaos.
With no food, and rampant crimes against humanity, WIG had
no other choice than to eliminate large portions of society. The Passover
update killed millions in some cities, billions in some regions. Food was
plentiful. Panic grew worse. Someone created the Survivalist Chip, and it
became the most sought black-market Chip.
Nobody was sure if it even worked.
It did, and it didn’t. It blocked the Passover update, but
it had a delayed side effect of near continuous migraines. Chips were sought to
treat migraines, but none were effective.
The smell of decay couldn’t even overpower the migraines. People
stumbled like zombies, bashing their heads, slicing open their arms, trying to
redirect the pain. Biodelivery doctors
could only remove part of the Chip, which rendered the patient susceptible to the
Passover update, which meant death. Debilitating migraines or death that was
the choice. Most eventually chose death.
That last 1% would stumble the Earth in search of peace,
and find none.
We 200, had studied religiously. Everyone a different subject
area, to make him or her valuable to whatever it is we might need as a society.
Law, ethics, order, government, psychology, physiology, agriculture, social
Darwinism, spirituality, physics, child development and on and on.
We also studied Chip manufacturing, and electromagnetic
wavelength spectrum, and genetic mutations, and crop failures, and espionage,
and civil unrest, and interplanetary space travel. Some might say we planned
this. Some could say society necessitated this.
I say they earned
it.
Most of our success has to go to the forty or so members of
ours who headed the World Misinformation Department (WMD) who were able to
infiltrate WIG and use its systems to disseminate our agenda.
We sacrificed Eden. We
poisoned the Earth, for the good of mankind. We knew she would recovery, eventually. We have plenty of
provisions aboard our ship, Mutiny, as well as a museum quality collection of
flora and fauna. We will recreate the world, in our image. Until then, we can
orbit the Earth and watch her like gods from above.
What is my specialty, you ask? Stories through history. Literature and
History. And because I had a certain propensity to recreate stories and events
in modernity, the 200 chose me as a sort of ideologue, or master planner, for
this revolution.
My favorite stories?
Noah’s Ark, The French Revolution, Animal Farm, Planet of the Apes…I’m also
a sucker for anything dystopian.
I do so wish I had somebody to share this love of literature
with, though. I sometimes think my comprehension
or interpretations might be lacking. But, to err is human…(I believe there’s more to that proverb, but I
never can remember).
They were hollow men, who cheated humanity. They did not
deserve Earth. So we, the last remaining humans, eradicated them. Every
revolution is ugly in it’s time. We’ll
see how history judges us.
This is the way the
world ends
Not with a bang but a
whimper
This it the way the
world ends
In pain and carefully
calculated.
(Book Excerpt) If You Could Change One Day (From Life in the Happy House)
(Book Excerpt) If You Could Change One Day (From Life in the Happy House)
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| You liked it. Even with Jim Belushi, right? |
But this failed opportunity dwarfs in comparison to the one situation that I was an active participant in that haunts me to this day. A day I failed at being a human.
The following is an excerpt from my first novel; and a true story (except that in real life inanimate objects don't speak out loud). This story takes place in the fourth chapter, but the only pertinent background information for this mini-story is that I was out for an early morning jog. (Yes I can run, even with my weight issues).
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| Okay, maybe not this worn out. |
Turning the corner onto a narrow side street my ankle went
left as my body went right, compliments of a morning shower’s residue on the
mossy street lane. I careened to the
ground, more bruised by my own stupidity than by the impact of gravel into my
palm. I re-laced my worn $35.00 Nikes
and hinged my ankle up and down to see if it was sprained. It was fine.
“You fat slobbering
idiot,” the road roared in laughter.
“Look around, your neighbors just
saw you for what you are, an uncoordinated unworthy lout.”
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| Just another day in Mr. Wood's Art class. |
I looked around. A
few young grade-schoolers looked at me from a fenced gate, more concerned with
my well-being than with adding insults to my injury. “When does it hit us then,” I thought, “is it
third grade or fifth or seventh that we crumble to the societal demands of
cruelty.”
My own moral degradation hit a
low point in eighth grade. We were in
art class; the teacher Mr. Wood wasn’t the brightest of fellows, and his dog
and father had both passed away that year—details our class reminded him of,
cruelly, unsympathetically, almost daily.
Our class was unrelenting in its inventive mischievousness. We punctured all the oil painting pints with
a compass point, letting them bleed rainbow colors on the floor below. We broke other classes clay sculptures after
they cured in the kiln, leaving only fragmented mugs and armless figurines and
ashtrays that wouldn’t hold ash (why did they teach us how to make ash trays
anyway?).
In this devilish class was a very annoying girl, a “well-actually” girl. The kind that would
raise their hand and say, “well actually, Mr. Wood, the correct way to hold
your watercolor brush is technically…”
She would butt in on conversations, was way too book smart for her
own good, and she had the misfortune of sitting next to a group of my impish
friends. We developed a mutual
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| Oh, I'm sorry, the correct punctuation is "Well Actually" not "Well Alex-tually," like you vindictively said. That's going to cost you $1000 and a spot in Final Jeopardy. |
hatred of
her dissimilitude, and stooping to a brief moment of pure unadulterated
cruelty, someone created a secret classroom
club devoted to her mockery. I designed
a patch. It was called the 4F-Club. As for what it meant, it was merely a
sophomoric acronym, each of the four ‘F's were descriptive adjectives of her
persona. One stood for “fat,” one for
“four-eyed,” one was a harsh expletive, and one was a slang term for sexual
preference (even though I didn’t know then what that word meant). In fact we knew nothing about her. I don’t even remember her actual name. I cringe when I think of our callousness
(understand that this was truly group mentality, and in middle school, group
mentality is to cling to the lowest common denominator).
One day, this poor pathetic girl, this girl who never did
anything wrong but not learn social conformity skills early enough, saw me
creating another patch. At this point
maybe 13 kids in the class were wearing the badges of dishonor. I felt apart of something when another
classmate I barely knew would ask me to craft them a new patch. Like I was some grand scoutmaster.
She looked me straight in the eye, and asked, “What are
these badges, and why is everybody wearing them?”
I looked up, instantly my quick wits were coming up with
some stupid anecdote, some harmless lie as to not face this confrontation, but
another student named Joey simply peered right back at her and deadpanned,
“It’s a club devoted to you, or rather the hatred of you. It stands for the ‘fat, four-eyed…” I was astonished at Joey’s sadistic honesty;
and I was dumbfounded. After an awkward moment I
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| Even hipsters can't make these glasses look good. |
caught her soul staring back
at me through 1/8” thick cheap lenses: there was no distortion through the
convex glass. We killed her. I saw her die right there in front of
me. She looked at me, and said without
saying, “I…I…I can’t believe you would do this…I can’t believe you would spend
so much time…to make a fool of me.” Then
without saying a word, and before the beginning of what must have been hours of
tears in the bathroom, she turned and walked out of the classroom.
I wonder how long she looked at me. Was it 5 seconds, a tenth of a second; was it
a single frame of film in a movie? I don’t
know, but it is ironed on my retina. I
killed her. I was a part of her
death. Maybe she got over it that day,
maybe later that year, or maybe never.
All I know is that look. The look
of someone who just lost everything. Job
must have had this look after Satan took everything. Maybe parents of kidnapped children. Perhaps only one in a million people might
experience this emotion, and I caused it.
I probably put this girl through years of therapy, and I can’t even
remember her fricken name. I wanted to
apologize to her. I wanted to go cry
with her. I wanted to shred up my
patches; I wanted God to smite me. But I
just stood there while Joey laughed. I
don’t think I moved the rest of the period.
She didn’t return to school for a few days. When she did, she was sullen and
robotic. She looked drugged, and
unhuman. I tried to go up to her, to say
sorry, or something, but how does one approach someone they emotionally
raped? How do I apologize for slapping her soul? I didn’t have words strong
enough to break through the walls she had already constructed.
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| Bullies are rarely this recognizable. It's often words much stronger than "Ha Ha" that truly damage souls. |
The fall of man is often portrayed through
moral excess, debauchery like a Roman orgy, but all one must do is spend a day in a
middle school (public or private, religious or secular) and watch the true
results of original sin. That is the one
event I want over in life. For years I prayed for forgiveness for me, and later when I truly understood
empathy, I cried and prayed for her.
Prayed for healing for her.
Prayed she could move on. I
didn’t need forgiveness; I needed to know she was okay. But shortly thereafter we moved to a
different state. This was in 1993, the
internet was still in diapers, and even if I wanted to know her name, I
wouldn’t be able to find it. I forgot my
friends and enemies at old schools, but I don’t forget her face. I don’t know her name, but I know her face,
and I watched her die. God, I hope she
is still alive.
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Summoned to the Principal's Office (a Short Story)
William Henshaw had just lost the respect of his class.
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| OMG, like this teacher is totally rude and stuff. |
Nathan Mitchell, instead of reading along with the class, was watching the video clip that would exceed 20 million views by the end of the week, when Mr. Henshaw lost it. Nathan read the first few paragraphs of the story along with the classroom, and was immediately bored. Settings in Paris in the 1930’s, and French words like “chasseur” meant nothing to Nathan, who had no greater dream than having 30 thousand twitter followers, and maybe being an ESPN anchor.
Nathan tried to conceal his laughter. But the video had everything a man wanted: violence, an attractive woman, and a hilarious payoff. The violence was a low budget MMA fight, set in some small city venue with maybe 300 drunk fans loudly cheering. The arena was basically an old boxing ring, and the fighters were guys in decent shape for their late 20s, but by no means professional fighters. The one lucky roundhouse kick that knocked out the guy in the red trunks, and the ensuing chaos afterward, was the only highlight of the entire evening for those who paid the eight-dollar admission fee that evening. But online, the clip had been edited down to twenty seconds of sparring, before the consciously fatal kick landed on the jaw of the guy in red trunks. That alone, could’ve made it a decent online video, as the guy’s head is blasted to the right, and then instantly he belly flops onto the canvas. The fact that his top left lateral incisor tooth and root, along with saliva and blood, were all dislodged and ejected in a wonderfully parabolic arc clearly captured by the HD video being shot by a fan’s iPhone 5, made it immensely better. Then the tooth took an almost vaudevillian or Family Guy-ish move by landing square on the chest of the girlfriend of the now unconscious and recently de-toothed man in red trunks.
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| The Tooth Fairy is also a meth dealer. Good way to get adult enamel. |
Her initial dumbfounded look was gold, but it was her hysterics afterwards that made the video an internet sensation. Like a child thinking a spider had landed on them, or like a hiker unexpectedly finding himself swarmed by bees, the girlfriend frantically swatted at her body while shrieking, and every muscle which normally made her face an attractive site was turned inside out, distorting in inhumane ways only Jim Carrey could fabricate. The “get if off me” dance was like the Ickey Shuffle and the Gangnam Style horse ride combined in double time.
In a way only live video can prove, it showed that the girlfriend was uncaring towards her boyfriend, probably unbalanced, and falsely beautiful. Eventually the tooth falls to the floor below, and she makes no effort to collect it and save it for the dental surgery “her man” would no doubt need soon afterwards; no, instead she wipes the saliva/blood off her boobage, and with mascara tears forming at the edges of her painted face, she quickly rushes out of the arena in an attempt to save what little face she has left. She never checks on her boyfriend, who is still out cold.
Nathan, caught when his laughter betrayed him, and now trying to save face himself but also impress the class, said, “Sorry, Mr. Henshaw, it’s a funny clip, maybe we could show it on your projector at the end of the class.”
“I’m not showing any stupid ass YouTube video now or ever, Mr. Mitchell. Bring me your phone and you can get it back at the end of the day.” Henshaw immediately regretted the harsh tone and the A-word escaping his mouth.
Maybe it was the mild expletive, maybe it was the fact that Nathan’s parents had recently separated, maybe it was not having breakfast, or that he was benched in the second half of the latest varsity football game, but Nathan decided today, as a junior in high school, that he had enough of this high school’s stupid rules.
“No can do, Henshaw, I got important calls coming in today.” Nothing was further from the truth. Nathan received or sent maybe fifteen texts in a day, but none were of any more importance than, “txt me when u get online for COD 2nite!”
“Mitchell, you can bring me your phone and wait outside the class, NOW, that’s not a request, that’s a command, mister. ”
“Man, I said I’m sorry, okay. I’ll read your stupid French Babylonian story and we’ll be cool, okay.”
Henshaw knew better than to escalate the situation. Directly challenging a student or getting into a verbal altercation never ended good, even though Henshaw was vastly more intelligent (or so he hoped) then his student base. He should’ve just given the class a homework assignment, and while they were preoccupied with this task, walked over to Nathan and quietly let him maintain his pride while still facing the consequences of direct insubordination. Nathan wasn’t a bad kid, he was just a now cornered kid who had already crossed the line and was seeing how far he could stretch it.
But Henshaw took it personally, this attack on his favorite author, his favorite piece of all time. The passages in Babylon could convert any kid to a reader, he thought. The prose could inspire a generation of new writers, who could pen the emotional complexity and interpersonal dynamics that convolute and substantiate the life we all live in. Kids would see that, if they gave the story a chance. Having Nathan challenge not only his authority, but diminish the genius that Fitzgerald’s story is by watching an inane viral video? Not today! Thought Henshaw. Maybe during Steinbeck, or Hemingway, or Salinger, or poetry, or grammar lessons, but not during my hero’s forgotten masterpiece! This deserved a sociological diatribe!
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| No comment needed. |
Mitchell, thoroughly red in the ears, adrenaline pumping and emotionally charged, only heard the words “stupid, and hoodlum.” Mr. Henshaw, this wholly average, almost 40 teacher had just called him a dumb punk. Mitchell wasn’t used to this. He was usually a good kid, rarely involved in the misdemeanors taking place in and out of school, and yet he had just lumped together with the drug dealers, skanks, and gangsters who profligate around certain corners of the school campus. And it ticked him off.
“Well, here you go William,” Mitchell sardonically said as he tossed his $400 dollar phone across the room (which thankfully Mr. Henshaw awkwardly caught). “I’m going to check and make sure you didn’t look up porn with it when I get it back!” And then, because he had never before had a melt down in class, had never been this emotionally charged, he just stood there. He knew it would’ve been cooler to nonchalantly storm out of the room, but the fear of further worsening his punishment stopped him from making any kind of move. Even though he had just committed a
“What did you say?” Did this punk kid just call me a porno addict; was he implying that I’m some kind of pedophile? “What did you say, you stupid son of a bitc…” Henshaw stopped himself. Or he thought he did, he hoped he did. The class was silent; this wholly embarrassing exchange had only taken one minute. A minute that normally Henshaw would use to wrap up the lesson, remind kids of upcoming homework, or chit-chat about the upcoming game or dance; for in those last seconds before the bell rings, in depth instruction is not possible. So he too, having said too much, stood awkwardly silent.
Neither had ever been in a standoff. They would’ve made horrible gunslingers; the fear both were portraying was visible even to the most socially inept student in the room. Then a hooded boy in the corner, headphones on, oblivious to any of the excitement of the last few minutes of the class period, started throwing his backpack on, knowing that within seconds, he would be free of another torturous teacher.
Brrrriiiinnnnngggg Brrrriiiinnnnngggg.
Brrrriiiinnnnngggg Brrrriiiinnnnngggg.
Saved by the bell: those two loud annoying monotonous tones, which predictably propelled the herds of students into the halls. Yet, for the first time in his 12-year career, Henshaw’s class stayed glued to their seats. There was still unfinished business in the classroom. But then another kid threw on his backpack. Freedom was more important to some than a potential gunfight. He along with the head-phoned kid made their way out into the already packed hallway.
The Xeroxed copies of Babylon Revisited lay scattered across the desks. A few had carelessly fallen to the floor in the chaotic hustle of students out the door.
It was instantly quiet.
6th period would be starting in a minute, and Henshaw had no
students coming in, it was his prep period.
He slumped down to his cracked pleather desk chair and exhaled. It seemed like forever since he had taken a
breath. His heart was racing; his blood
pressure was through the roof. What had
he just done?
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| What teacher doesn't have an MLK poster in his or her room? |
His shocked expression turned to ironic smirk as he found the poster of Martin Luther King Jr. near his desk with the title: Integrity. He forced himself to read the subtitle: When your character is built on spiritual and moral foundation, your contagious way of life will influence millions.
Henshaw suddenly wanted to cry. Why today?
Of all the difficult kids, and hairy situations, and heightened
emotional exchanges of hormonal kids; why had he chosen today to retaliate and say
those thoughts he had always had, yet had always easily held in check? Where were you Dr. King, ten minutes
ago? This philosophy of integrity that
he had worked so hard at emulating, was gone.
Poof, like that, he was a hypocrite.
The exact kind of teacher he hated when he was a student. Holden Caulfield would’ve called him a phony.
And what about his job?
Surely it wasn’t in jeopardy.
It’s not like he touched a child.
It’s not like he hit a kid, or said something sexually inappropriate to
a kid. His union would back him, if it
came to that. He wasn’t a new
teacher. He had tenure. That
stupid kid! No, the student wasn’t
stupid, it was just a stupid exchange of emotional beings, and Henshaw had briefly
lowered himself to their maturity level.
Henshaw felt the familiar pangs of anxiety. It’d been so long, he almost forgot the fear,
the millions of thoughts flooding the mind overloading the body and causing it
to quake. He deeply inhaled and exhaled
again, like he did in college before he gave a presentation. He was a teacher now, he gave presentations
everyday, thousands in a year, but that old fearful sensation was never that
far away. Right now it felt like he had
never beaten it down.
Surely he would be summoned by administration. Oh how he wished he had been more supportive
of the newest batch of principals. He
had already outlasted four head principals, three moving on to whatever greater
roles existed for that ladder climbing species, and one to a sudden heart
attack that knocked him into retirement.
All four had been friends of William’s.
Or as friendly as a working relationship of employee and supervisor can
be.
But William had stopped trying to impress all the new faces that
just kept rolling in. He holed up in his
room, and studied the curriculum, trying to become the best teacher he could
be, while ignoring the social political aspect of his job. The new Athletic Director didn’t know him, as
he gave up coaching girl’s basketball years ago, nor did one of the vice
principals. His bi-annual review was
coming up, and he had only briefly emailed the new Head Principal, James
Cladwell, as to when he would be available, it was their only source of communication
in the first four weeks of the school year. Henshaw had also stopped voluntarily signing
up for committees: like the curriculum committee or the literary
committee. He was tired of wasting his
time talking, arguing, creating, changing, motivating, presenting,
accommodating, and negotiating and then not seeing anything significant really
change. The only thing he could directly
impact was his own classroom. Plus, he was no longer a new teacher, his
family, his daughters were growing up, and he wanted to actually be there for
their growth. But now, as a teacher who
wasn’t heavily inundated into the current school culture or brand, one only
concerned with events inside his own classroom, he realized he was an
outcast. He was expendable.
Did he have any allies of importance in the
administration? Surely, his department
head would vouch for him, but who else would have anything positive to
say? He was merely an average
teacher. A few students had come back
and visited him, a few told him he was their “favorite teacher,” and he was
generally liked by the teaching staff, but would anyone, past or present go to
bat for him?
He couldn’t rely on the 5th period students. They were there, they knew the truth, and
they would mostly side with Mitchell. Someone
probably recorded it on his or her phone as well, as this generation of kids
were always savvy about documenting socially awkward situations. Both Mitchell and Henshaw were in the wrong,
but Henshaw was the professional. He,
like all teachers, was held to a higher moral standard than almost any other job. Again he looked at the Integrity poster. He had always shown such great judgment, but
today, he just cracked. He let it all,
12 years of teaching frustrations, build up, and got offended over a stupid
short story, and he cracked. Maybe it
was time for a vacation. Maybe they
would put him on administrative leave. A
vacation, though, is a positive. An
administrative leave, especially if the local media, or if the students found
out, would be a blight that would follow him his whole career.
All I did was call a
kid stupid and mildly swear at him.
That’s all. This stuff happened
all the time in the 70s and 80s. But
William knew it was different. Teachers
today don’t get away with anything. It’s
guilty first, innocent later, forgiven eventually, but never forgotten,
regardless of guilt.
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| St. Mary's Catholic High School faculty photo 1946 |
The bell ending 6th period interrupted his thoughts. His last class of the day, Freshman English,
would be starting, and William hadn’t done a thing with his 50-minute prep time. He had sat, nervously predicting his next chess
move, if he wasn’t in checkmate already, and hadn’t come up with anything. His best hope was for a stalemate.
The first few freshmen started filtering in.
“What are these packets on the desk, Mr. Henshaw? Is this what we’re doing today?” one of his
still unknown acne faced adolescents asked.
Freshman always wanted to know what the agenda of the day was, so that
they could respond to the teacher’s answer, whatever it was, with a groan.
“What? Oh,
no…uh…we’ll just pass those forward when class starts.”
Henshaw looked at his lesson plan for Freshman English and
decided to scrap it. Too much
interaction.
The bell finally sounded, and the least mature, and most
easily distracted of all of Henshaw’s classes finally calmed enough to listen
to their teacher. “Guys, I’ve got a
splitting headache, so please turn to page 456, and read The Most Dangerous Game silently and answer questions 1-8 at the
end of the story.” (Loud group
groan). The idea of not talking through Game usually would sadden Henshaw, since
it was one of the few highlights of his freshman curriculum (as young boys love
its violence). But today, Henshaw didn’t
care, and neither did the students. Probably half the class didn’t read the
story, and many were openly copying the smart kids’ answers. The class was verging towards anarchy by the
time the last bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. The freshman noisily made their way outside
his door, and the silence again befell the room. Another fifty minutes of time to build a strategic
defense, gone. Any minute now, Cladwell
would waltz into his room with a scowl on his face, and questions that needed
answering.
He tried to breath it out at his desk, but the anxiety
wouldn’t let him sit still. He made his
way to the men’s room, relieved himself, and then lost his lunch all over the
urinal. He quickly flushed away the
evidence, but seeing the orange bile swirling next to the deodorant cake made
him heave again. It had been years since
William had thrown up.
Afraid it might happen again, and not wanting to face
students or faculty, he locked himself in a stall and sat hoping the world would
stop whirling around him. He had no idea
how long he sat there when the secretary’s voice interrupted his thoughts. The partially muffled intercom voice said,
“William Henshaw, please report to the front office please.”
William lurched forward and turned toward the toilet opening. He tried to vomit again, but there wasn’t
anything left in his system. He thought
about leaving for home, but he still was technically supposed to be on campus
for another 30 minutes; eventually, it would catch up with him anyway.
The two hundred foot walk, past colleagues’ rooms, the
library, the counselor’s office, the campus security wing, the janitor happily
waving to him, and various students either greeting or ignoring his presence,
before he reached the office lasted an eternity. He could smell the bile on his breath, and he
thought he would be sick again.
When he got to the office door, he saw Nathan Mitchell standing
there impatiently. William pushed the
door open unsurely. The secretary smiled
at him, and said, “I believe you have something of Mr. Mitchell’s?”
William looked up and saw Principal James Cladwell emerge
from his office and perch himself at his doorway.
“What? I have what?”
 |
| Exactly why I don't give out my cell phone number to students. |
“Oh, uh, yeah.”
Henshaw fumbled around his pockets and found the phone in his front
pants pocket. “Here you go.” He shot a questioning look at Nathan, but saw
nothing but the fading grin.
“Thanks…” “Oh, and I
accidentally took this, your story, here you go.”
William reached out and took back his Babylon story, and thought he heard Nathan say something else, but
was too focused on Principal Cladwell’s gesture waving him into his office, to
hear it clearly. He made his way into
the office like a beat dog.
“Sit down Henshaw, I’ve been meaning to have you in here for
a heart to heart for some time, and then, when Mr. Mitchell came in here…”
“Look, before you say anything, he had it coming. He was watching a YouTube video on his phone
during class and when I asked for his phone, he got sassy with me. I asked twice and he started getting
insubordinate…”
“William, relax…”
“No, that kid, I wasn’t calling him stupid, I was saying his
generation is stupid, and who knows, he might be stupid himself, but he just
kept needling me, and I didn’t mean to call him a son of a bitch, or a hoodlum,
or stupid, but he was calling me a porn addict and a boring old…”
“What did you say to him?”
“Well, I’m sure he already told you, I’m just giving my side
of the story…”
“Your student, Mr. Mitchell, came in here saying he wasn’t
paying attention in your class, and you called him out on it, and he realized
you were right. He said that story you
taught today was really good, and he thought you were a really good teacher,
and he wanted to apologize to you for using his phone in your class, but you
weren’t in your classroom after school.”
“What are you talking
about? Are you telling me you cussed out one of our students,
William?” “Because, that…
But William, now, wasn’t listening. He had just noticed the blue ink scribbling
that defaced his copy of Babylon
Revisited:
 |
| Read my review of Babylon Revisited on Goodreads.com |
P.S. Sorry I just “graffitied” this copy by writing on it.
William, tears in his eyes, looked up at Cladwell, and
interrupted him, “I uh, I have a ton of sick leave, would you okay some time
off. I think I need a vacation to get my
priorities straight.” How long had he
been correctly analyzing complex literature, and now, in real life, he couldn’t
even recognize good characters anymore, even when they’re right in front of his
podium.
“I’m glad you said that, cause I was going to recommend
something very similar. And when you get
back, I’d love to have a real conversation.
It’s about time we got to know one another, William. And also, I think you’d be perfect for this
committee I’m setting up on education reform.”
“Yeah, okay. I was
just thinking I needed to get involved with people again.”
“Not now, though. Get
out of here. Take your wife to Paris or
something and get your head on straight.
But by all means, go find Mr. Mitchell and apologize, I don’t need his
angry parents in here cussing me out
tonight.”
Yes, all roads do lead to Paris. Of course, on his teacher’s salary, William
would probably have to settle for Paris, Texas.
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