M. L. Hollowell

To the left, on the north side of the street, is the broad, grassy sports field that borders the high school.

The damp grass is silvery in the light of the gibbous moon.

The cold is sharp, bracing.

Scattered snowflakes drift aimlessly from the cloudscaped sky.

You hum.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Most people have turned off their Christmas lights for the night, but a couple displays still blaze away.

Even this late at night, well past the midnight hour, you are surprised to find people still awake.

Every few houses, the strobing glow of a television emanates from a living room window.

Sometimes, somebody can be viewed sitting in an armchair, close to the set, bathed in the glow.

You deviate to the left, onto the field, toward the low-slung, tan-brick two-story building where you work.

Used to work would be more accurate.

You're on hiatus, taking a sabbatical, a leave of absence, to work on your writing.

And also because you snatched a student's phone and flung it against the whiteboard, shattering it into multiple pieces.

You had told her several times to put her phone away.

There was shock after the phone exploded, and absolute silence.

The phone's owner burst into tears.

She wailed from the depths of her soul, wrenching sobs like she was standing over the mangled body of her brother at the scene of a car crash.

At that moment, you wanted to slap her so hard she went pinwheeling out of her seat.

To knock sense into her.