June 10, 2023: Stop telling me it's okay to be still
One loud, resounding
Click! of the metal edge of Mrs. Williams' ruler against her music stand after another, each more desperate than the last, the first few clicks simply calling for our attention, the next few screaming for it, the last few begging for their lives, each with face red and glistening from sweat and tears, veins visibly at their limits from the effort, while Mrs. Williams' face, though similarly apparent and for much the same reasons, is drier.
"You're never going to be
anything! Not one of you is going to get out of here. You'll just keep pacing in circles, all behind each other, ants in a death spiral, chasing
nothing which you're telling
everyone is
something, everyone in the
same spiral as
you, until you've just
had it, and that will be that."
The class ends. Students quietly pack their things and leave the room. Behind the last one, the door slowly closes, cushioned by the air in its pneumatic mechanism, until it gently but completely shuts. The final clap of the door into place and
chunk of the deadlatch into the doorframe is peaceful. It signals security. All of the tension from the clicks dissipates instantly. She sits down slowly, but as soon as she does the last of her energy vanishes, and she slumps down on the long table in front of her.
At some point, the janitor passes through. "You alright?" Mrs. Williams, now just Savannah, sits up, says something polite and convincing. maybe asks him how his day's going. He maybe says something, and eventually is gone.
The next time she sits up, the shadows are longer outside, though not as long as she had expected (feared?) they would be.
However long ago, she had heard something similar, from a teacher of her own, one hated by most. Had she really proven him wrong? And why did she still so strongly feel the need to?