Day 164 (Two Hours)

The bell rings, a disconcerting prance up absent stairs. It means you have to get up too, from a wobbly, reflective black table captained by yourself and no one else. Chinese teachers’ red shirts are everywhere, but your own shabby whatever is singular. You groan as you rise, sneaking your arm underneath a pile of books you never use and cradling them toward the classroom. There are five clocks on the wall: London, Taipei, Seattle, New York, and Dubai. Who the hell cares what time it is in Seattle? In Dubai? You step up the single classward step that has nearly killed nearly everybody. You take the stringent left turn. The last line in your notebook reads Friday. Between its folded-back covers are ten slips of paper. And that’s it. You have nothing else.

You cross the threshold and let your books mount a vacant front-row desk. What do you do?

You create.