Primal - By D.A. Serra Page 0,2
movie selection at the fourplex would try something without gunfire, and she jokes that she would give her right arm for a piano bar. She misses the city world she grew up in, but she knows this is the ideal place for Hank and her to raise their son, Jimmy, and that’s the priority. Life comes in phases. This is Jimmy’s time to learn and run free. Watching him is fulfilling. It is the most fulfilling and joyful experience of her life. The piano bar will wait for her. She assumes there will be time.
Moving down the aisle between the school desks, Alison points to the large colorful poster of predators all along the wall: coyotes, bears, and cheetahs. “A mom animal will use her teeth, horns, hooves, stingers, whatever. Some mothers divert predators from their babies by using elaborate movements or by changing their appearance.” She turns down the aisle in a deceptive stroll toward one particular boy. “Others rely on speed or surprise!” She yanks the iPod earphones out of Tanner’s ears. He looks startled and a little scared for having been caught. They look at each other for a moment. She holds his eyes.
“Uh…oh…sorry, Ms. Kraft.”
“Okay, Tanner, but one more time and I’m keeping these for myself. They’re really cool.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She hands him back the earphones. “Now,” addressing the entire class, “for your homework for the next few days while the substitute is here.” Loud groans from the instantly gloomy children. Howie Hunter drops his forehead down on the desktop in despair. She tries not to smile at him, so cute, so bereft, his shaggy blond hair covering his face. “Oh, right” she teases then, “these substitutes really are creatures from the Black Lagoon.”
“Where is the Black Lagoon?” Sarah asks Joey.
“France.”
“Oh, Mrs. Kraft!” Sarah whines, “I don’t speak France.”
Keeping a straight face with difficulty, “I’m quite certain the substitute speaks English.”
Howie adds, “I knew a kid who spoke France. He was annoying.”
“Howie, just because someone is from France does not mean they’re annoying. France has a beautiful language, lovely museums, pretty countryside, and the biggest erector set right in the middle of the city.”
“Really?” Howie asks excited.
“Yes. We can see some photos of the Eiffel Tower and learn more about France when I return. Now, the homework. I want each of you to pick a book from the library, absolutely any book, even a comic book, if you want, and read - that’s all - just read and then tell the class about the story when I return. Okay?”
The bell rings and gleefully the kids fly out of the classroom. The room empties in seconds leaving a sudden complete silence after the last fleeing footstep. Alison remembers being their age and watching the clock as is ticked toward freedom. She was, and still is, a daydreamer. Her imagination has always had a wanderlust. She scans the room for a moment, and sees the usual: orphaned hair ties on the floor, several lunch boxes (mold experiments by tomorrow) and inexplicably one pink sock. She muses there is something exceedingly poignant about an empty classroom. One empty classroom feels so much more forlorn than an entirely vacant office building. As she straightens up the room, she thinks that must have something to do with the impermanence of childhood itself - the moving on: the seventh grader who becomes the teenager who becomes the college kid and leaves the toys behind. Closing up her desk, Alison wonders if at night, when the janitor sweeps his way through the silence of these rooms, if the echoes of thousands of children’s voices keep him company as he pushes the broom. They call the janitor Old Man Tinker, even though he’s only forty years old. She wonders how old she looks to them. It makes her grin as she collects up her purse and a few papers. She flips off the classroom lights, steps out into the school hallway.
Denise and Gary are also heading for the door. Denise interrupts Alison’s thoughts, “Hi, Alison. You look thoughtful.”
“Just considering my old age.”
Gary says, “I’m looking forward to old age, sitting in an armchair, watching the television, and reveling in being the full-time cynic I know I am.”
Alison smiles wryly, “Gary, cynicism is an intellectual overcoat; it’s just an empty gesture of sophistication. Smirking at the world is a cop-out.”
“I think empty is underrated.” Gary holds the door open for the two women. They smile at him and walk through. Denise and Alison are fairly