A Writing in Progress

Here’s a short story I’m working on… It’s nowhere near complete but I’d love some revisions… Best,DBR 

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The Unanswered Cry for Help

 

I had always had a passion for teaching – the excitement, the drama and the suspense, the connections.  This I remember from my first day of student teaching – the day which taught me the most.  Without that one day, I wouldn’t be who I am.  I wouldn’t have my identity which I so dearly rely on.  My understanding of life began then. 

The rings of the bell attempted to call a crowd of sleepy adolescents to bay, whom, in a massive ingression, stuttered to their respective classrooms.  The Monday groans of complaint which frequent the halls created a soft yet thunderous roar through the postered hallways.  Despite the noise, something, it seemed wasn’t right.  I can’t remember if it was the students’ tones or expressions.  I can remember the Goosebumps that noise brought. 

Into the classrooms they ventured.  The classrooms and their contents, sporting positive posters so bright they resembled marquees in the New York theatre district and pictures of successful alumni, hardly fit the mood.  The school seemed perfect; attendance was perfect, except in Mr. David’s classroom – my mentor to be. 

I, running late, walked in with the students.  I headed to Mr. David, a grey-bearded man of about 45, and introduced himself.  His eyes red and puffy, he congenially greeted me and showed me to my desk.  Immediately he returned to his task – scribbling out some note – which he handed to a student who appeared to be in shock. 

The room was solemn, and for the outsider to the class, yours truly, the mood was dark and dank which, juxtaposed to the aforementioned posters, seemed paradoxical.  Something, I sensed again, wasn’t right.  Finally after a monotoned greeting and subsequent checking of the roll – the most productive activity done in that art room that dreary day – Mr. David sat, legs crossed on the stool behind the handmade lectern and the students listened. 

“I am sure you have heard the news,” he said.  Nearly repeating himself he, in a whisperish, drained voice, said, “I’m sure you have all heard about Seth,” while staring at an empty chair – the only one – in the second row.  That chair, like the occupied ones, was painted with a rendition of a masterpiece.  Seth’s, I assumed, was painted in an astounding rendition of The Ship of Fools. 

The class passed slowly and quietly.  The sound of the wall mounted plastic clock, humming and chirping like a foreign bird, dominated my senses for the entire period – excluding the occasional sniffle.  It was deathly quiet which, as I soon found out, was no pun.  There was no activity in the class that day – no sketches, no paintings, only silence. The class was comatose. 

After that first period, Mr. David had a preparatory period in which, on a common day, he would finish grading and other teacherly duties.  However, that day, after the last student closed the light hued wooden door underneath the allusional banner which read “abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  I approached Mr. David in the quiet.  I was feeling odd and misplaced in the depression filling the school.  Before I arrived at his desk, Mr. David told me, through grief-ridden tears, the emotions and story of Seth.

He told me of a quiet, reserved but brilliant student, red curly hair, who aspired to be a professor for the sole purpose of sharing his passion for education, to give back to the future God provided him – he was always humble and grateful.  Seth, he said, wanted to teach Art History.  His passion for arts was astounding whether it was literature, photography, music, or sculpture.  The medium didn’t matter.  “He poured his soul into his studies and his studies into his soul,” Mr. David said.  That, as I found in due time, was his downfall. 

You see, Seth, the night before, ended himself and everything about him.  He did so the night before my student teaching began – I never knew him but through stories, I felt like I knew him intimately.  Over the following weeks and months, stories from students came to my ears; some were good, some baffling.  I can remember Sally describing a peer-to-peer art criticism.  Sally, an Ivy-bound student, wrote a prize-winning paper.  Seth, on the other hand, penned a Pulitzer Prize worthy book. 

          As more news became known after his death, I began to understand his motives – his passion for the arts and his passion for living.  The month before, fire ravaged his family’s house and consequently stole his entire collection of essays, paintings, photographs, and music – his expressions all stolen by a common electrical fire. 

To say the least, the fire devastated Seth.  After the fire Seth walked around lost, confused as if advanced Alzheimer’s had suddenly blended his once sparkling persona into a worthless sludge.  According to his English teacher, his essays turned from magnificent and artful to worthless; the art teachers concurred.  He was a senior, a patron of the arts who, after the thievery of the fire, had nothing but time – a precious commodity that, as we know, fleets away from us.  In Seth’s view, as he wrote, he had noting – nothing to prove is existence.  He screamed to his identity for help, he wrote, but there was nothing but ashes of former glory to reply – and they didn’t. 

 

The fiery blaze of his car, was, in the end, well, fitting. It seems fire, like it had before, had stolen everything from Seth – first his identity, and then his existence – all because he screamed for help.