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Feb. 6th, 2014 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
planet_x_oneAt 2:30 in the afternoon, while washing dishes and looking through the sink window at the oak trees turning to fall colors, Mrs. Everheart received a telephone call from her son's elementary school; it was the principal. There had been an incident. Her heart leaped when he said this, but he assured her it was a small matter, and only required she come and meet with him.
She got into her hatchback and drove off onto the interstate, leaving two exits later, and turning left underneath the overpass. There she stopped at a red light as traffic on the service road went the other way. In the distance, strip malls and chain stores lined the sides of route 47. She squinted her eyes and the stores, signs and warehouses turned into colored boxes. So much lost, she thought; where did the land go?
After ten minutes going west she cut across space in fast, oncoming traffic and pulled into the parking lot of a low and long tan brick building. There was a metal sign on a simple pediment that read Elementary School 12. She got out, went to the door and punched in a code. The handle buzzed and she went inside, greeting the guard who knew her by name, down straight to the end of a corridor where another door -- fake wood and burnished -- had a plastic sign engraved from black into white: Principal Evans. She knocked on the door and peeked her head inside.
Evans looked up from some papers and, noticing her, smiled and made a welcoming gesture with his hand. "Please, Evelyn, come in," he said. She thanked him and sat down in front of an enormous, faded desk. The edges were chipped and the wood stained with coffee and ink; the desk of every principal since the school was built eighty years ago. Mr. Evens got to the point, as was his nature; he prided himself on not wasting anyone's time.
"As you know we consider ourselves a progressive school," he said. "Obviously we try to encourage children's creativity and not give in to every paranoid standard of most educational systems. Your son Lewis has always been a very good student." He paused to look over Lewis' record, nodding to confirm his own assertion. "Yes, a very good student, especially in the creative areas, an active imagination." His eyes returned to the record. "I see here he won our Callister Award last year for his play Jungle Gym Blues."
"I know," Evelyn said. "I was very proud."
"Evelyn, do you mind if I ask an odd question. Are you a religious woman?"
"No, we're all basically agnostic."
"So no religious instruction, no church or other religious activities?" he asked.
"No, we don't practice religion at our home and never have. What are you getting at, Dennis?"
"No time spent with religious people or religious authority figures? A priest or reverend?"
"What? No, none of that," Evelyn said. "What is this?"
Evans paused a moment and then reached down behind the desk and opened a drawer. He took out an 8 x 11" paper, about ten pages stapled together. "Lewis wrote this for his creative writing assignment." He handed it to her.
On the cover page it said, A Hot Oil Rubdown From Jesus with a Written By Lewis Everheart in a smaller font underneath.
(to be continued)
She got into her hatchback and drove off onto the interstate, leaving two exits later, and turning left underneath the overpass. There she stopped at a red light as traffic on the service road went the other way. In the distance, strip malls and chain stores lined the sides of route 47. She squinted her eyes and the stores, signs and warehouses turned into colored boxes. So much lost, she thought; where did the land go?
After ten minutes going west she cut across space in fast, oncoming traffic and pulled into the parking lot of a low and long tan brick building. There was a metal sign on a simple pediment that read Elementary School 12. She got out, went to the door and punched in a code. The handle buzzed and she went inside, greeting the guard who knew her by name, down straight to the end of a corridor where another door -- fake wood and burnished -- had a plastic sign engraved from black into white: Principal Evans. She knocked on the door and peeked her head inside.
Evans looked up from some papers and, noticing her, smiled and made a welcoming gesture with his hand. "Please, Evelyn, come in," he said. She thanked him and sat down in front of an enormous, faded desk. The edges were chipped and the wood stained with coffee and ink; the desk of every principal since the school was built eighty years ago. Mr. Evens got to the point, as was his nature; he prided himself on not wasting anyone's time.
"As you know we consider ourselves a progressive school," he said. "Obviously we try to encourage children's creativity and not give in to every paranoid standard of most educational systems. Your son Lewis has always been a very good student." He paused to look over Lewis' record, nodding to confirm his own assertion. "Yes, a very good student, especially in the creative areas, an active imagination." His eyes returned to the record. "I see here he won our Callister Award last year for his play Jungle Gym Blues."
"I know," Evelyn said. "I was very proud."
"Evelyn, do you mind if I ask an odd question. Are you a religious woman?"
"No, we're all basically agnostic."
"So no religious instruction, no church or other religious activities?" he asked.
"No, we don't practice religion at our home and never have. What are you getting at, Dennis?"
"No time spent with religious people or religious authority figures? A priest or reverend?"
"What? No, none of that," Evelyn said. "What is this?"
Evans paused a moment and then reached down behind the desk and opened a drawer. He took out an 8 x 11" paper, about ten pages stapled together. "Lewis wrote this for his creative writing assignment." He handed it to her.
On the cover page it said, A Hot Oil Rubdown From Jesus with a Written By Lewis Everheart in a smaller font underneath.
(to be continued)
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Date: 2014-02-07 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-02-08 12:28 am (UTC)I look forward to the rest.
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Date: 2014-02-08 04:35 am (UTC)