M. L. Hollowell

Some fucking perspective.

Heidi Jansen.

Heidi Jansen.

God damn her.

But of course you didn't.

You're a reasonable man, a civilized man.

You sent her to the nurse and went on listing world capitals, stepping on crunching phone fragments as you worked at the board.

The class wrapped.

Eventually, Flo Hagedorn came to the door and said Miss Carson needed to see you.

and she would take over your class.

You're on probation, as they call it.

But, as you say, you're using this time to write.

Water mists from the toes of your shoes as you cross the grounds.

An overhead bulb illumines the south doorway, bugs wheeling around it.

You mount the three steps and peer through the door window.

The locker-lined hallway stretches into the distance, into a dense darkness beyond the lightbulb's reach.

The end of the hall is a wall of black.

For a second, it seems that someone suddenly materializes there, emerging out of the black miasma.

But you're just freaking yourself out.

You shudder and step back down the steps.