.
When the old teacher entered the
classroom, the student, who has slept lonely between
the empty desks and benches, said, "Stand up!"
Then still in sleeping positioned called, "Sit down."
The old teacher put the roll call book at the wooden
window of the classrome. He wore his back rimmed glasses, and
he began the roll call.
"Abnousi!"
The lonely student said loudly, "He is absent, Sir."
"Ali Baratiani!"
"Present, Sir!"
"Jala-ol-dolehi!"
"From Jala-ol-dolehi to the end, all are absent,
Sir."
The old teacher, looking at the roll call book, said in coarse voice, "Where are they?"
Ali Baratiani, the only student gaped and said, "Nobody knows."
The old teacher closed the book and stood at the blackboard. He wrote on
the middle of the board "Today's Lesson".
Out of the room, in the schoolyard, there were no students under the flag to shout, "We all know that the teacher is our second father and the school is our second home!"
Ali Baratiani, the lonely student in the classroom, came
out of the benches and desks and sat down on the first
bench with full attention. The teacher, rolling a piece of chalk in his hand, went to the
window and he looked the sky through the cracked glasses of window and
he said to Ali Baratiani, "I don't think today is raining."
Ali Baratiani wrote in his blue book, "I don't think today is raining, under the little of
Today's Lesson today."
The old teacher went to the blackboard and wrote
"I don't know, what is going on with me
today!" under the, "Today's Lesson!"
Ali Baratiani wrote in his blue book, "I don't
know, what is going on with me today!"
The old teacher hesitated, and he turned toward Ali
Baratiani,
the lonley student in the classroom, and said,
"What grade are you in?"
Ali Baratiani wrote in his notebook, "What grade
are you in?"
The old teacher said, "I think today is Monday, I
don't think today is raining!"
Then he went to the window and he looked sky through
the cracked glasses and said, "Mondays are not
suitable for raining!"
The sky was gray. Through the cracks of window pane, a
Taq tree was leaning against a morning breeze. In a
distance, there was a boy, hand in pocket, a police
whistling on his lips, whistle constantly. Beside the
boy, there was a wastebasket, full of torn notebooks
of the students, further to that, beside the start of
the walls of schoolyard, there was a kite in the smoky
sky and whining of a child after that. The old teacher
returned to the blackboard and he wrote with a piece
of white chalk:
"There is nothing to say anymore."
Ali Baratiani, the lonely student in the classroom,
wrote in his notebook, "There is nothing to say
anymore."
There was no sound of frowning Assistant in the
corridors. No trace of slavery laughs of the
Principal. The old teacher recalls all the time, he
considered the laughs of the Principal as slavery.
There was no sound of alphabet classes. And no
"sit down you fool", from the teachers. The
old teacher looked at the closed door of the
classroom. He remembered that he had closed the door
himself, just after his entrance to classroom. He went
to the window. Ali Baratiani, the lonely student of
the class, put down his pencil on his book and mumbled
a lullaby.
The old teacher looked the yard out of crack, again. The sky was gray.
The boy, hands in pocket, whistling and the voice of
whining child, following the kite in the sky. Besides,
thirsty Taq tree was still leaning toward morning breeze.
The old teacher went back and stood at the blackboard. He wanted
to write something on the board, but he asked again, "What grade are you in?"
Ali Baratiani immediately wrote in his blue book,
"What grade are you in?"
There was a maddening silence in the classroom. The
old teacher believed that the situation is prevailing in
the whole school. Suddenly, he thundered, "Where is
here?"
Ali Baratiani write down in his notebook in silence,
"Where is here?"
The teacher hesitated, on the ambiguity of his remark
and shouted, "I mean, is here school or other
place?"
Ali Baratiani explained his question on his notebook.
"I mean, is here school or other place?"
Ali Baratiani, in the response of his question, write
down in his notebook, "I mean, is here school or
other place?"
The old teacher was hopeless. He went to roll call book
again, he opened it and he started to read the name of
the students:
"Abnousi!"
Ali Baratiani put down his pencil on his notebook and said,
"Absent!"
"Ali Baratiani!"
Ali Baratiani said, "Present!"
"Jala-ol-dolehi!"
Ali Baratiani said in calm, "From here to the end, everyone is absent.
Sir!"
The old teacher asked again, "Where are they?"
Ali Baratiani said in calm,
"Nobody knows, Sir."
The old teacher closed the roll call book and he stood
at the blackboard. He cleaned it
with a duster, made up of a hat of a father of one of
the students. Ali Baratiani, the lonely student of the
class, took out an eraser from his pocket immediately and he
erased slowly whatever he had written in his blue
book. There was no sound throughout everywhere in the school.
The old teacher thought, he had woke up by the sound
of his alarm clock. No mistake by now! After the
morning exercises and after
breakfast, he had come to school, in the same route as
always. His eyes are sound and safe! Even if he is in mistake,
Ali Baratiani would not do mistake. Besides, if here is
not school, what is that flagpole? He shouted
suddenly,
"Here is the school!"
Ali Baratiani wrote in his notebook, "Here is the
school".
The old teacher shouted, "If here is not school,
what is that flagpole?"
Ali Baratiani wrote in his notebook, "If here is
not school, what is that flagpole?"
No sound. It was silent. A deadening silence. The old
teacher went to the window of the classroom. He looked through the
cracks of window pane; the sky was gray again.
But the kite was caught among branches of Taq tree.
The boy hanged the whistle with a rope around his
knee, and he sat over the wastebasket, taking out the
torn papers of student's workbooks, he threw them one
by one in the sky. The whining voice was stopped in the
distance. The old teacher returned. He was hopeless.
He wrote on the blackboard, "There is nothing to
say, no more, I don't know, what is going on with
me."
Ali Baratiani wrote no more; he put his head on his
workbook and he was slept in a sound sleep. The old teacher
crossed the classroom hopelessly. After a long
time, depressing and deadening, he came back to the
window. He looked through the
cracks of window: The sky was still gray. The thirsty Taq tree released
the kite in the sky. The flag was high in the wind and
the whistling boy
disappeared. There was waste papers flying in the
wind, instead of him.
The old teacher went to the blackboard. The snoring sound of Ali Baratiani,
the lonely student of the class, filled the
classroom in a mysterious situation. The old teacher
was terrified. He opened the door, crossed the hall
rapidly and he went through the yard. When he was leaving the
school-gate, the janitor came in her veil fluttering in
the wind. She said, "Sir, Fridays the school is
closed."
The teacher mumbled, Isn't today Monday?"
The janitor said, "Today is Friday."
The old teacher said, "Then, why Ali Baratiani has
come to school?"
The janitor looked dizzily into his eyes and said,
"Ali Baratiani passed away two weeks
ago."
The old teacher was terrified, while going backward to the
gate and to the street, said, "..."
.
|
