Elizabeth Bear - Future Visions - Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft

He walked in through the front doors, showed his ID to the security guard, and arrived in his classroom twenty minutes early. But there were already three kids behind their desks. He put his briefcase down, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote his name on the board: MR. PEACOCK. Behind him, somebody giggled.

When he turned, they were all not very effectively hiding smiles. “Good morning,” he said, trying to be casual.

They all responded with “Good morning, Mr. Peacock,” followed by more snickers.

Get used to it, he thought. They don’t know they’re laughing at Captain America.

The homeroom was easy. And it was only fifteen minutes long. The classes ran three-quarters of an hour. In the first period, Walter tried his best to assume a confident stance and welcome everybody. He placed them into their assigned seats. “If at any time,” he said, “you have a question, please don’t hesitate to raise your hand.” He followed with a short description outlining what the program would cover. Then he gave them an assignment: “I’d like to know what you find most puzzling about physics. Think about it for a couple of minutes, and write your response in no more than four sentences.” The plan was to give them something to occupy them for a few minutes while he committed faces and names to memory.

But the timing didn’t work. The kids—there were twenty-four of them—opened their notebooks, frowned at them, and, for the most part, shook their heads. Nothing puzzled them about physics because they’d never really thought about it. But each of them wrote something down. There were a few questions about how curveballs work, and when you fall off a building, do you pick up speed as you get nearer to the sidewalk? And several wondered why they needed the class at all. Well, Okay. It was a start.

Wes Calvecchio, who looked as if he might be a linebacker on the Academy team, was the exception. He raised a hand. "Why can’t we travel faster than light?” he asked.

“Good question, Wes.” Somebody said something about bad roads. Walter tried to explain. It violates causality. “If you could move at the speed of light, there’d be no sense of passing time. You’d get the impression you were traveling at an infinite pace. No way you could go faster than that.” He saw confusion in their eyes. “Maybe,” he said, “we better let that go for a while.”

It was, he decided, going to be a long day.

“I’m sorry I got near it,” he told Diana. “I’m just the wrong person for the job.”

“Give yourself a chance,” she said. “The first day is never easy.”

He didn’t like confiding in her, putting his weakness on display. But she’d called him again. He didn’t get a sense she was being swept off her feet by him, but something seemed to be going on. And God knew there was no one else in his life. “Got to go,” he said. “I have to prep for tomorrow.”

That was a lie. No amount of prepping was going to get him through the next day. Some people just aren’t good with an audience. He settled in to watch some Seinfeld. With himself in the lead. He tried to prevent Jason Alexander, as George, from confronting the Soup Nazi. He inserted Diana for Elaine and persuaded her that the original title of War and Peace was War: What Is It Good For? He watched himself and George unknowingly con a couple of Nazis into a ride home from the airport. But he shut the TV down midway through the episode.

Walter was magnificent as Jerry. If he could only, somehow, take that personality into the classroom, he’d become the best teacher in the state. But the jokes hadn’t worked. And that was the point. It was the personality that was missing. The delivery. He got off the sofa and tried to deliver a couple of the Seinfeld routines, but it was no use. Everything came out flat.

Well, it was going to be all right. He’d met his students and survived.

His topic on the second day was the difference between speed and velocity, and why it matters. Wes Calvecchio stayed with him, nodding occasionally, biting his lower lip. And Linda Markham’s bored eyes softened, as she leaned forward over her desk, obviously trying to puzzle her way through what he was saying. The others for the most part stared quietly out windows or down at their notebooks. They looked frequently up at the clock, occasionally whispering. They were obviously all relieved when the bell rang.

The rest of the week followed a similar pattern. He wanted to talk to Diana, but he didn’t call her. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let her see him feeling sorry for himself. He was beginning to think seriously about quitting. His father checked in. “How’s it going, Walter?”

“Fine,” he said. That night he left the TV off. Comedy is hard.

On Monday the assistant principal showed up minutes before the second period. “I’ll be sitting in, Walter. It’s just an evaluation.” His name was either James or Jack Delhorn.

“Sure, Mr. Delhorn,” said Walter. “I hope you enjoy it.”

The class headed in the same direction as all the others. They spent time calculating how long it would take a brick tossed from a twenty-story building to hit the ground. And why, when you removed air resistance, did everything fall at the same rate? Walter thought the topic should have been interesting to high school juniors, but he could see the boredom in their eyes. One of them, Wes again, actually looked sympathetic. Occasionally Delhorn glanced his way, but his face remained expressionless.

When it was over, the assistant principal got up slowly and watched the students leave the room. “Thank you, Walter,” he said. “You have any free time today?”

He’d have preferred to get the meeting with Delhorn out of the way immediately, but he had a study hall coming up, followed by a lab and two more classes. He could have offered to go down on his lunch break, but that would sound as if he were panicky. So he arranged to sit down with Delhorn when classes ended. It made for an unnerving day, during which he decided to open the conversation by offering his resignation.

He got the first name from a biology teacher before going down to the assistant principal’s office. It was James. He was bent over his computer when Walter arrived.

Delhorn had lost most of his hair, though he looked barely forty. He was short, a bit overweight, with thick glasses, heavy eyebrows, and a neatly clipped gray mustache. He wore a vest, with his tie loosened. “Come in, Walter,” he said. “Glad to see you.” He looked at an armchair. “Have a seat.” The notebook the assistant principal had taken into his classroom lay closed on the desk. “How was the rest of the day?”

“Okay, James.” He took a deep breath. “Before we go any further, I’d like to say something.”

“Sure, Walter.” James sat back and delivered an automated smile.

“I realize I’m not very good in the classroom. I thought I’d be okay, but it’s not working. So I thought I’d better—”