I’m tired of coming to the same classroom everyday. I’m tired of seeing the same detached and disinterested faces of students coming in and out of here. Smelling the same smell of the chalk dust on the blackboard that looms aged and cracked behind me is, like myself, getting old. I often find myself distracting myself from their vacant expressions. I pretend to read quotes out loud from the plays I attempt to teach them even though I’ve memorized them all by this point.


     Some pretend to pay attention, but I know they’re not. The school is closed, and I sit here grading a recent test, and this proves to me ever more that they never listen to the lectures. I’m told I’m getting a new student. Great. Another lost cause is exactly what I need. If I could just get one hopeful student I might even consider postponing my retirement for another year.


     I finish grading the final test, a failing score of course, and as I shuffle the papers, the door to my room slowly opens. I glance up quickly and see it’s a girl, about high school age. My eyes reflexively turn to the floor to avoid seeing her face. She walks into the classroom. She’s wearing very fancy, black, leather dress shoes, the kind you can hear coming from miles away…but I can’t hear them.


     Each step she takes is completely silent. She grabs a nearby chair by the backrest and pulls it across the old black and white checker tiles of the floor. It also makes no sound as it scrapes across the floor. She very gingerly plants herself down in the chair. She’s dressed in the uniform of the school.


     Most students wear the uniform in more casual ways, but not her. The white shirt, the black blazer with the school’s emblem on it is buttoned up all the way, her skirt isn’t rolled up, and her black socks are pulled all the way up. I decide to raise my head and look at her face. I do, but it doesn’t matter because of the long, black hair that’s hanging down in front of her face. There are a few moments of silence before I finally speak.


     “Can I…help you?” She gives a soft nod and smiles. “Yes. I’m Noh. Your new student.” I quirked an eyebrow at her curiously, “You…do know the school is closed right now, right?” She gives another nod. “Yes, I know. But, I wanted to come in and meet with you. I feel it’s better to have a teacher you know well.” I leaned back in my chair. “Well…it’s pretty late in the year. There’s a lot of work that you missed.” Her hands remained neatly folded in her lap, one over the other, and she nodded again. “It’s already been taken care of. You should get them later today.”


     Once again, I quirked my eyebrow up at her in curiosity…how did she already know what she missed? She never came to me about it before and I’m the only one who knows. In the silence, she picks up the cup of pencils from my desk. “I…see”, I managed to stammer out, “That’s good. You’re well prepared for tomorrow, then.” Her eyes fixed on me. She takes the pencils out of the cup one by one and begins to throw them on to the desk.


     As the pencils hit the desk, they twirled in a semi-circle and then stood upright on their tips, in a short row going the length of the front edge of my desk. After she threw all the pencils onto my desk, she places the cup gently back on my desk and she stands up. “I should get going. I will see you tomorrow.” She walks to the door, opens it slowly, and walks out, just as quietly as she came in. As she gently closes the door behind her, the pencils all fall and roll of the front of my desk. I lean back in my chair again. I think I might postpone my retirement after all.