Empathy
I know
they forget me
between wars, tests and weekly homework;
they see me
confined in my raised chair, sitting
always opposite,
my hands of vine that envelop the room
keeping them from wild sunlight;
so they tell me
(their words tumbling like chains of skittles
and scattering across my high desk):
you are not fit to teach.
I think
their answers
are dead ground, with headstones marking dates of passing,
their questions
are sea-froth—all bubbles no substance,
their faces
are beyond the aid that eight-to-two public schools can provide.
I reply
you are not fit to learn.
like an ant impaled on a toothpick,
wriggling between life and death,
I see this aggressive world
diverge from my perspective,
stretch to the horizon with the promise of a bridge,
become a giant, vexing stick.
so I tell them
(in a classroom, laid out flat,
with corners nibbled by heavy sighs)
you will learn Empathy
before you learn History.
I decide
to forego lecture, dialogue and example
and teach them through periods of
exhausting silence: we hear
school-bag zips like race cars,
the hourly bell;
brooms, barefoot on mosaic corridors,
shearing clacks of autumn's teeth,
the hourly bell;
footsteps, through a false ceiling,
the music-room, first asleep then awake,
the hourly bell;
impatient engravings on pinewood desks,
the hourly bell;
the school coordinator:
thin, pencil-eyed, precise,
buzzes on my desk with a reminder,
chimes in my inbox with the syllabus,
accosts me in the elevator one day
taking us down
into talks of terminal exams and marks.
we know
you are a good teacher
but
(we hang in space as feet shuffle in).
they survive
through borrowed notes.
complaints.
deliberations.
a letter of regret.
on monday
the coordinator addresses the students.
he tells them
we found you a teacher
who will teach you history
before they teach you empathy.
when he leaves
the students whisper a reluctant apology.
1 month
3 weeks
3 days
after that incident,
they are a little too late
for any of us to win.
Ayush Mukherjee is a Bangalore (India) based writer who has recently been picked up for publication by The Threepenny Review.