Listening Lesson
“If you don’t listen,” she says, “then when you answer, when you talk back to me you are making chaos. Chaos! Its like this.” She draws, on the chalk board, a rectangle, inside of which she writes a big wobbly Q. “When I ask a question…” She taps the Q with a short pink fingernail. “I’m trying to go this way.” She scratches, with white, the outline of the front end of an arrow. No feathers at the other end, so it would just plop to the floor if anyone tried to shoot it from a bow. He knows that and keeps his mouth shut.
“But what you say,” she tells him, a big warm hand pressing down on the bony shoulder of the boy who stares up at her, then at the big slate slab screwed to the wall, “when you haven’t listened, that answer, goes like this.” Her voice has risen, but not like a question does at the end. The Q stays in its long box with an arrow’s tip coming out of it, and she digs in with her fingers, digs in with the chalk, scribbles, makes spirals, her whole arm whipping from her side until the chalk collides with the board’s raised frame and breaks. One bit flies into the air, into the boy’s face, making him squint. He doesn’t close his eyes completely, though. His teacher breathes short breaths. Her nostrils flare. Her lips purse. He swallows, doesn’t move or look away. He will not cry, because that would be worse. Because then she might be satisfied, and send him out of the room for the others to see.
– lavina blossom