The Blackboard
robertthecat
Posts: 69
"This is pretty shoddy prose and it's a bit old, but it's posted nevertheless"
The Blackboard
There is a crooked man standing in front of it. Well, he's not really crooked just bent around his hips where he usually places his hands. He simply leans.
A girl with bouncy hair is sparked by him more than the other males surrounding her. ”Who are you?”
The boys in the classroom respond to her words with a smile. None of them know her name but they know her. But the crooked man does not answer. He is straighter than most.
A four eyed boy tugs on the girl's hair. “What a trickster,” he says.
She gives him the finger.
The crooked man quickly grabs the tin globe sitting on the corner of the desk. He whirls around then stops, keeping the globe balanced on the flat of this hand. He holds the globe high, displays it to everyone. "Here is what you'll know," he says. He spins the globe. The crisp lines defining the countries, the continents all melt and become splashes of color on a blue canvas.
“Oooh!”
“Aaahh!”
“Pushaww!” says a young man with black chains growing out of his hair. He shakes his head. His chains rattle loudly. The boy to the right of him pulls on one of his chains. He gets punched in the nose.
Laughter fills the classroom. It is silenced by a light sound of tapping. Everyone looks up at the man bent strangely at his hips and holding a long skinny stick, which he taps against the black background. He then twirls the stick in front of him and points to the girl behind the boy who picks his teeth with a toothpick.
She does not notice. The boy in front of her picks his teeth loudly. She cannot concentrate. She begins to wonder what he eats. “Jeff.” He turns around. A toothpick sticks wedged between his two front teeth. She backs away to protect her eye from injury. ‘What do you eat?’
‘Last night, Jones and Bringham, 'Political Partisanship: An Old Cure for America's Ravishing Epidemic?'" It was decent but could use some more salt.”
He breathes on her before he turns around. She realizes that maybe he is not kidding.
Again the tapping. This time the girl responds. The man asks her a question. She babbles some words that she remembers someone else saying some time before.
But the two boys across the room with the same haircut and same voice have come to the decision that everyone is speaking Martian. So, instead they measure the dimensions of an airplane made solely from notebook material. They launch it right at the nose of the crooked man. He receives it with a frown and again taps the black surface. Everyone looks up.
He does a somersault this time from one side of the board to the other and back. He reveals a piece of chalk hidden in his palm. He writes HISTORY and marks out the HI and leaves STORY.
“This scoliosis this that you have, it's all a crock. Isn't it?” says the girl whose hair is not so bouncy anymore.
The Blackboard
There is a crooked man standing in front of it. Well, he's not really crooked just bent around his hips where he usually places his hands. He simply leans.
A girl with bouncy hair is sparked by him more than the other males surrounding her. ”Who are you?”
The boys in the classroom respond to her words with a smile. None of them know her name but they know her. But the crooked man does not answer. He is straighter than most.
A four eyed boy tugs on the girl's hair. “What a trickster,” he says.
She gives him the finger.
The crooked man quickly grabs the tin globe sitting on the corner of the desk. He whirls around then stops, keeping the globe balanced on the flat of this hand. He holds the globe high, displays it to everyone. "Here is what you'll know," he says. He spins the globe. The crisp lines defining the countries, the continents all melt and become splashes of color on a blue canvas.
“Oooh!”
“Aaahh!”
“Pushaww!” says a young man with black chains growing out of his hair. He shakes his head. His chains rattle loudly. The boy to the right of him pulls on one of his chains. He gets punched in the nose.
Laughter fills the classroom. It is silenced by a light sound of tapping. Everyone looks up at the man bent strangely at his hips and holding a long skinny stick, which he taps against the black background. He then twirls the stick in front of him and points to the girl behind the boy who picks his teeth with a toothpick.
She does not notice. The boy in front of her picks his teeth loudly. She cannot concentrate. She begins to wonder what he eats. “Jeff.” He turns around. A toothpick sticks wedged between his two front teeth. She backs away to protect her eye from injury. ‘What do you eat?’
‘Last night, Jones and Bringham, 'Political Partisanship: An Old Cure for America's Ravishing Epidemic?'" It was decent but could use some more salt.”
He breathes on her before he turns around. She realizes that maybe he is not kidding.
Again the tapping. This time the girl responds. The man asks her a question. She babbles some words that she remembers someone else saying some time before.
But the two boys across the room with the same haircut and same voice have come to the decision that everyone is speaking Martian. So, instead they measure the dimensions of an airplane made solely from notebook material. They launch it right at the nose of the crooked man. He receives it with a frown and again taps the black surface. Everyone looks up.
He does a somersault this time from one side of the board to the other and back. He reveals a piece of chalk hidden in his palm. He writes HISTORY and marks out the HI and leaves STORY.
“This scoliosis this that you have, it's all a crock. Isn't it?” says the girl whose hair is not so bouncy anymore.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Thanks, roberthecat.
*Remembers the BBS posting guidelines. Uses 'ignore' feature*
Well, that was my initial reaction to the last sentence. I thought it was a good read
Amaterasu, what's up with that?
I give you credit...everyone says everything on here is good when a lot of times it's crap. If that's what you think of it, you should be allowed to say so. So that's cool with me.
That's not the issue. But more of that anon.
I'm know I'm reaching, but bear with me. this piece is an old, old writting exercise from eons ago in college. It was just something to get my feet wet into writing prose again.
Anyhow, it's interesting that ISN thought that the piece was scary because it's based off of my experiences tutoring kids in detention. These were good kids, but many were preoccupied with gangs, though you wouldn't think it at first site since the location was 40 miles east of the true gang areas in Los Angeles and many lived in an area more affluent than where I was living at the time. Go figure, eh?
Anyhow, I don't mind the bad comments, honest ones--good or bad--are the most useful. Thanks again.