The Lonely Corner

In that little corner no one ever looked at, there lay so many memories of the past. Year after year, the blood, sweat, and tears of each of his students is put to the test. Can their work be so magnificent, so majestic, as to be collected and stored with his care? Unfortunately, it almost seems futile. The nostalgic collection of the hand-crafted displays, as flimsy as they may be, wore the odor of time’s passing like perfume. It’s a sweet smell, in a way. Though laden with glue and multicolored, pulpy construction paper, the bonds were wearing thin and would be blown to pieces in a swift gust. However, there was reason for his hoarding. For him, the child-like pride imbued within the fragile fruits of their labor brought back the memories of students... no, friends, from his “once upon a time”.

Near this little stack of memories lay a red backpack. One could imagine it on the back of a child, but the faint smell of medicine and gauze spoke for itself. Caked with dust, without ever a need to employ its contents - just as it should be. The faded vermilion fabric was hardly frayed, and probably will never unravel within the safety of the stronghold known as his class. Beside all this, lying right against the wall, was a cold, metallic cube stuffed with years, months, weeks, and days past. Its scratched, dented surface showed the hardships endured in his effort-filled sheltering and shifting of the contents within. Piles of color, mostly an arctic white, lay motionless within. The inscriptions within seemed to be from an eternity past, marked by the titans themselves; the few seasons that truly took the toll on these sheets were, in comparison, underwhelming. As the cold gates forever separated these records of time from our generation, they lay within the slowly rusting tower, as the next meal for the hungry children of silverfish. Who knows - perhaps the children will be perpetually fed, by the newest flock of hungry minds which put their ink to the snow-colored fibers.