and yes, you would submit to a background check. After the computer confirmed that your worst offense had been a traffic ticket seven years ago, the manager led you to the rear of the store, to a door protected by lasers, barbed wire, electrified fencing and stainless steel security bars. He breathed over a sensor on the wall, the countermeasures retracted, and the door swung open. From the varied selection, you chose three sticks of the purest white chalk, knowing that you would have to forgo dinner that evening, that your meager salary would result in gastric problems for who knows how long, but proud of the sacrifice you were making for your students, though they might not ever appreciate it.
You progressed through each stick of precious calcite during the semester. The first broke in half at the start of the second month, the errant demi-stick tumbling end over end to the floor, and then, upon impact, exploding in a ferocious pale cloud, causing an evacuation of the room for several hours. The second stick was stolen from your bag while you were in the faculty toilet, a disembodied hand reaching under the stall and swiping the chalk in a fluid motion so fast that you could only react once it was all over. The third stick was worn down to the nub and beyond, as you tried to stretch your resource to its limit, pressing the small white dot into the blackboard until, magically, it vanished into your written words.
And so, with three weeks and your lesson on dangling modifiers left to go, you are once again left chalkless. You try to explain in pure verbals, but the students just stare back, vapid, helpless without the written cues, unable to discern the important parts of the lecture without being told what to write down. You fear for their final grades and their later stations in life.
After class, as you sit at your desk in your miniscule windowless office, contemplating whether you can afford another trip to the supply store, you hear a low rasping cough from down the hall. It is that seasoned professor, that Gibraltar of the English department, the one who has been at the college longer than anyone, his lessons on post-colonial literature a legend throughout the school, and as you walk the corridor to his office, a crowd of fellow teachers has gathered outside, watching. You peek between the heads of your colleagues to see the professor curled up on the floor, the coughs deep and chasmic now, and little puffs of yellowish dust escape his lips with each forced exhale, and you realize what has caused his condition.
You watch with your colleagues, not rushing in, not helping this distinguished gentleman, not pounding him on the back in an effort to dislodge a tracheal invader, not bringing a glass of water, not asking if he is okay, not doing any of these things because you know it would be futile. There is nothing to be done. It is only a matter of time.
The professor’s eyes quiver with knowledge, with fear, with rage against the unfairness of the world, with contempt for all of you lingering in the hallway. No one moves to help as the coughs increase in duration and intensity, until the one final exhale, the long rattling wheeze, and it is done. The professor is still.
Your fellow teachers move as one, the actions of a hive mind, of a singular purpose. One turns the professor flat on his back, one unbuttons and then removes his shirt, one intones a quiet prayer, one produces a draftsman’s compass from a hidden pocket. The metal point of the compass is pushed deep into the professor’s sternum, then drawn down to his stomach. There is no blood. Hands pull the seams gently to the sides and the internal organs are revealed in pristine museum quality.
All except for the lungs, which, over the many years of teaching, of inhaling the dust of ten thousand lectures and explanations, have been transformed from life-giving cilia into crumbling dusty bricks of yellowish chalk. With silent reverence, your colleagues reach
You progressed through each stick of precious calcite during the semester. The first broke in half at the start of the second month, the errant demi-stick tumbling end over end to the floor, and then, upon impact, exploding in a ferocious pale cloud, causing an evacuation of the room for several hours. The second stick was stolen from your bag while you were in the faculty toilet, a disembodied hand reaching under the stall and swiping the chalk in a fluid motion so fast that you could only react once it was all over. The third stick was worn down to the nub and beyond, as you tried to stretch your resource to its limit, pressing the small white dot into the blackboard until, magically, it vanished into your written words.
And so, with three weeks and your lesson on dangling modifiers left to go, you are once again left chalkless. You try to explain in pure verbals, but the students just stare back, vapid, helpless without the written cues, unable to discern the important parts of the lecture without being told what to write down. You fear for their final grades and their later stations in life.
After class, as you sit at your desk in your miniscule windowless office, contemplating whether you can afford another trip to the supply store, you hear a low rasping cough from down the hall. It is that seasoned professor, that Gibraltar of the English department, the one who has been at the college longer than anyone, his lessons on post-colonial literature a legend throughout the school, and as you walk the corridor to his office, a crowd of fellow teachers has gathered outside, watching. You peek between the heads of your colleagues to see the professor curled up on the floor, the coughs deep and chasmic now, and little puffs of yellowish dust escape his lips with each forced exhale, and you realize what has caused his condition.
You watch with your colleagues, not rushing in, not helping this distinguished gentleman, not pounding him on the back in an effort to dislodge a tracheal invader, not bringing a glass of water, not asking if he is okay, not doing any of these things because you know it would be futile. There is nothing to be done. It is only a matter of time.
The professor’s eyes quiver with knowledge, with fear, with rage against the unfairness of the world, with contempt for all of you lingering in the hallway. No one moves to help as the coughs increase in duration and intensity, until the one final exhale, the long rattling wheeze, and it is done. The professor is still.
Your fellow teachers move as one, the actions of a hive mind, of a singular purpose. One turns the professor flat on his back, one unbuttons and then removes his shirt, one intones a quiet prayer, one produces a draftsman’s compass from a hidden pocket. The metal point of the compass is pushed deep into the professor’s sternum, then drawn down to his stomach. There is no blood. Hands pull the seams gently to the sides and the internal organs are revealed in pristine museum quality.
All except for the lungs, which, over the many years of teaching, of inhaling the dust of ten thousand lectures and explanations, have been transformed from life-giving cilia into crumbling dusty bricks of yellowish chalk. With silent reverence, your colleagues reach
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