A Dark Friday for the Space Center. So Rare.

Hello Troops,
Only a few times a year is complete quiet heard on a Friday at the Space Center. Today is one of those rare Fridays.

The school is quiet, the Space Center empty, except for me. Here I sit, keeping company with the ghosts of Central's teachers past. They roam the hallways when all are gone, looking for escape from their self inflicted torment. I hear them from time to time, crying in anguish behind locked classroom doors. It seems this school has become a special purgatory to punish teachers for the evil they inflicted upon students during their mortal years.


The ghosts ignore me. I don't know why. Perhaps they sense my impending membership in their Society of Anguishing Teachers. If so, then I state here and now that they have been sorely misinformed. What evil have I done to students? Yes, I've done my fair share of dispensing stern lectures for misbehavior. I've given countless dictionary pages to be copied by incorrigible students. And yes, my tongue has released several arrows of extreme sarcasm into many a deserving student's psyche. It is an survival skill I learned in 1983 during my first year teaching the 6th grade. Sarcasm has kept me sane during the ups and downs of almost 30 school years, to the dismay of many a bully and miscreant.


I stand guilty as charged if these be the sins which anchor a teacher's soul to this world. I'll challenge the Gate Keeper to show me a teacher who hasn't when my time comes. If one can't be found, then I shall ask him to step aside and let me pass.

To all the Space Center's Staff and Volunteers, I wish you a happy Dark Friday. My work here is done for the day and I leave the building to my vaporous colleagues.

Mr. Williamson

The Ghost Teacher

The school is closed, the children gone,

But the ghost of a teacher lingers on.

As the daylight fades, as the daytime ends,
As the night draws in and the dark descends,

She stands in the class room, as clear as glass,

And calls the names of her absent class.

The school is shut, the children grown,

But the ghost of the teacher all alone,

Puts the date on the board and moves about

(As the night draws in and the stars come out)

Between desks -A glow in the gloom-

And calls for quite in the silent room.

The school is a ruin, the children fled,

But the ghost of the teacher, long time dead,

As the moon comes up and the first owls glide,

Puts on her coat and steps outside.

In the moonlit playground, shadow free,

She stands on duty with a cup of tea.

The school is forgotten -the children forget-

But the ghost of a teacher, lingers yet.

As the night creeps up to the edge of day,

She tidies the Plasticine away;

Counts the scissors -a shimmer of glass-

And says, "Off you go!" to her absent class.

She utters the words that no one hears.

Picks up her bag...

And

Disappears.

Allan Ahlberg