This is based off of a simple question asked by a kid who decided not to look up. Rather simple question from the kid but it had me think and well here’s a short story, and like Lamont it will be a s***** draft.
“Mrs. Nogare, Mrs. Nogare, I have a question.” Randall’s arm is already hanging in the air, waving erratically, and his teeth beam.
“Randall that’s not how we get answers here is it?” Mrs. Nogare quickly turns from the white board, darting him a quick look and scans the room.
“Class please remind Randall what he needs to do if he wants to ask a question or if he wants something.” Mrs. Nogare turns back around
“To raise our hand until Mrs Nogare shows that she can answer.” A little boy rings proud with the answer sitting at the front smiling toward Randall and nods at the room’s silence while Mrs. Nogare continues at the white board.
“Thank you Matthew.” She smiled smugly, knowing that boy would be the one to answer, knowing he liked having the answers and assisting as often as he could. She adored her students, mostly all of them, but there was a sincerity to this one that had her tell her husband about him often. It was a mere coincidence her husband and him shared a name. Her husband, well she could do without more than half the time if not more. He’d become an incessant annoyance lately, like an ailing pet that needed a constant back rub or drink that he couldn’t get himself. She imagined coming home with a treat, least saying it was a treat, but upon greedy hungry fingers he opens it to rocks. She chuckled quietly to herself and wrapped up the instructions quickly as she realized she had been daydreaming. She spun around with a smile and clapped her hands together as if she’d sketched with chalk, and issued everyone’s attention to the board.
“Now class please look at the board, follow the instructions as I’ve stated, you have steps one through five to finish, now after finishing the project put the finished assignment in bin one and once that’s done you can start doing your free time.” She swiftly slid down the rows of desks and chairs to Randall while also checking the room in that all the students were following the instructions.
“Now Randall, how can I help you? Were you needing to use the restroom, did you want to go over the subject again?” She’d become so used to the students hardly listening most of the time she’s prepared with the monotoned response of what was said before, said before, and said before.
“No, no, that’s not what I was going to ask, I wanted to… can you come closer Mrs. Daisy, I don’t want other kids to laugh at me…” Mrs. Nogare withdrew for a second,
Expecting just that, she was more than confused when he responded. Leaving the words trapped at the throat and her wanting to scratch at her head for a second. She gave her head a quick and brief shake of the hair and issued him to her desk. “Of course Randall of course. Come to my desk and we’ll talk.” He quickly pulled from the desk he was in, grabbed at a pencil and then decided otherwise and followed Mrs. Nogare to her large and decorated desk of flush markers in color coded order, neatly marked cubbies for pens, pencils, one marked sharp with the pencils pointing up dart like and sharp, the other marked dull with rundown erasers kissing at the sky above them. Randall always admired her desk, the peculiar Lego flowers in a vase, the curious jewel adorned turtle nearly kissing the coffee mug sitting on the coaster warmer since the start of the day. Randall found he enjoyed the cleanliness. The order of it all. It left him silent and gazing until Nogare interrupted his string of thoughts
“Now what is it Randall?” He shook from his admiring the big desk and wanting to play with all of the items in reach but shook away the thought and brought back in focus to Mrs. Nogare who was looking at him with kind but piercing eyes awaiting the inquiry.
“Sorry, sorry, Mrs. Nogare have you noticed how the Sun gets dimmer, not, not like the clouds are covering it, but like it’s blinking or squinting, like it has an eye making the sky dim, the sun dim?”
Mrs. Nogare not trying to be overly blunt or brash, and holding back an eye roll, she gently addressed the obvious to him. “Randall that would be called clouds my dear, you’re just needing to start looking up. See, the clouds moving from the directions of the wind across the Earth that make the movement go across the sun and across the moon, so when you’re out and about and you see that light coming from the sky dim, it’s due to that movement of cloud coverage. That’s all. We’ve gone over this quite a few times in science hour, remember Randall?”
He knew it. He knew Mrs. Nogare wouldn’t understand. The one teacher he felt was a bit funny, maybe a bit mean, but odd in a way the question would hopefully draw a sincere concern. But no one did, his dad laughed at him calling him a baffoon, his brother gave him a noogie just for the question, and his mom just laughed waving a hand and telling him to clean his room instead of asking stupid questions. His inner lamenting was missed by Mrs. Nogare while she scanned the classroom as she often felt compelled to. “Is there anything else Randall?”
“Yeah Mrs. Daisy, no, no, never mind, never mind. I know what the clouds are doing, it just looks different, I don’t know like I said just don’t tell the other kids please?” His face red and flushed, he quickly got up and almost tripping over his feet, walked back to his desk. Johnny, a friend of Randall’s who had tried to catch the question Randall asked Mrs. Nogare, was now sticking his tongue out at him but quickly sucked it back in when he noticed Mrs. Nogare staring him down.
“Mr. Johnny, do you have the assignment finished yet or were you too busy eavesdropping on your pal?” Johnny went to ask what eavesdropping was or meant but decided he would rather not have a lesson today, he ignored her, shaking his head and slyly smiling and snickering at Randall while he sat back down.
Mrs. Nogare found herself starting at the clock on the wall shortly after the inquiry from Randall and enjoyed the quiet shuffling of students, of papers sliding to and fro, the scribbles of pencils, and tapping of keys on laptops, these were the sounds that brought her peace and had her know she chose the right profession. She then thought of Randall and that curious question of his which took her mind and eyes to looking through the window and up at the sky. It was a clear day, the sky bright and nearly piercing, but just as she expected, looked just as it always does on bright and clear days. The sun gleamed through the window and had her mesmerized while also a bit curious still to the odd question of Randall’s. She whipped around on her chair and was happily surprised she found the students were sticking to doing the assignment, there were a few that decided the assignment could be ignored and doodled instead of working. But those few were known for great test scores, perfect CMas scores each year, and she figured they were bored, as she often is with the doldrum of routine and the same third grade topics each year. She refrained from bringing an alarm to the few not working and shook the words to the waste basket that is tidely set within her mind. Her thought though was due to that they’d be going to specials in near minutes and then off to lunch and the rest of routine that is third grade.
She gazed over her students admiring those working, shaking her head at the few who decided otherwise, and then found Randall solemnly scratching at something he’d written on a small piece of scratch paper. She knelt down at his desk and placed an open hand on the desk. “Everything okay Randall, is it still about what’s going on with the sun?” She strained to see what he wrote but needed to get closer.
Randall shrugged and shook his head not wanting to be a laughing stock, not wanting to point the finger of blame or negligence of her. She should know he knew she would know if she just saw it. But he just avoided the topic all together.
“I’m good Mrs. Nogare, I just spelled something wrong and needed to erase it but,(flashing the pen) I wasn’t paying attention.” He quietly chuckled and she smiled at him not assured he was okay. Not one bit. She went back to her office desk and happened to look to the large window and saw a dimming to the outside.
Clouds, she thought, it’s just the clouds. But, the inquiry of Randall’s and his demeanor after her response had her thinking, perhaps longer than she should have. The bell rang. The students who were anxious and getting hungry refrained from bolting and causing a ruckus. The waited. She shook her head and alerted the kids with a quick and cheerful addressing.
“Alrighty class I’ll be seeing you after specials and lunch. Don’t forget to put your assignments into the right bin and I’ll see you all in a while.” She wasn’t paying attention to them, she was merely present and awake but her mind was a drift and she chose to look to the window, but avoided looking up while maintaining focus on the input of light.
They all shuffled out quietly filing in with the large 3rd grade line heading off to specials (art, p.e., music) courses. Randall lingered for a moment until he saw her peer out the window and smiled briefly and hustled up with the rest, hoping she’d have something to say when he got back.
Mrs. Nogare hesitated for a moment and went to the computer instead of going to her car as she had originally planned to have her lunch with her husband. What she did was send him a text message saying she wasn’t going to make it, and that she’ll see him for dinner later. Xoxo. And then took to the computer entering cloud coverage searches, Doppler readings, and the weather for the next 10 days duration.
It will be clear skies for the duration of the next month, almost cloudless, today especially when she sees there can be no reason for the light to dim. Now Mrs. Nogare thinks maybe Randall was onto something. This thought still brought her attention to the outside again with a rapid urgency as Mrs. Nogare knew she needed to confirm it visually before she called anyone. Just like Randall with his quiet request earlier that morning.
It took thirteen minutes from the time the students left for specials and her noticing the dimming herself. She had stared with complete attention to the outside, through the window from her office chair, not moving, staring, with her heart pounding within. She stared. Knowing that above her, above the school was clear and blue skies. She watched it dim again and had a thought.
It has to be affecting the weather, right?
She went back to the computer, and putting as many factors that she could think of pertaining to the coming summer season and the weather temperature increase or decrease, she waited for the slight pause while the info loaded. Seeing what she did though had her clap her hands to her mouth quietly and quickly.
It can’t be she thought, couldn’t be, NASA and news departments would be losing their minds if the details were correct, she thought. Every time the sun dimmed she noticed or, as Randall put it, blinked, that effect dropped the temperature. Mrs. Nogare being no fan of math whatsoever, she put her theory and mathematical progress to the computer with inputs for time, duration, distance, and time again. So her model was loosely based off of an idea and not mathematically sound, what she was seeing had her really wishing she ignored Randall. This would mean that within a year the temperatures would be so cold, life wouldn’t be feasible. It’s impossible she thought, that’s impossible.
Deep down though, Mrs. Nogare I knew that regardless of the hodgepodge math she used, there was a definitive knowledge and just seeing the dimming when she took the time to notice that had her regretting not going on that lunch. For now everyday looking forward, she knows the end is so much more near.
Dream Dark Stories 