A small krysa sitting in a shadowy corner of the cafeteria twitched its whiskers, squinting its beady eyes at the bright light. It had just scurried out of its dark home and was unused to the electrical light. The rodent sniffed the air and felt the pleasant aroma of food fill its nose. It was hungry. Very hungry. Its tiny paws were weak from lack of food.
The small population of krysas in the Lyceum led an unfortunate life. Born in a place full of humans, they had to be quick and nimble. Many died quickly in the claws of local cats, some succumbed to illness, some managed to find a way out into the streets, and others were caught by cruel children. The rest suffered, fighting to survive. Just like the students. The students studied not to be kicked out, and the krysas fought not to die of hunger. There was an odd symmetry to their positions.
The only time when the krysas could hope to se nourrir in peace was during the night, when the entire cafeteria, usually full of children’s laughter and an endless fluctuating stream of people, was still, and the lights were off. As soon as the last worker had left, they scurried out of their holes, scrambling and injuring each other for crumbs. There usually wasn’t enough. Children were hungry creatures, just like the krysas, and were careful with their food.
This particular krysa was much smaller than the rest and could never hope to equal others in a direct fight. So it had to obtain food during the day.
It was carefully monitoring the air vibrations coming towards its ears, trying to determine the amount of danger it would face if it suddenly scurried out. Would it be noticed? Would it be chased after? The krysa tried to find its food near quieter tables, where the people were usually lost deep in their thoughts and didn’t pay attention to their surroundings. Maybe, like Karl, they were analyzing their lives and trying to find purpose in them, or, like lazier students, frantically scribbling away at their homework, sometimes putting a spoon full of unidentified mush into their mouths. The dumb kryslet was intensely concentrated, dedicating its entire five senses to find the perfect moment to jump out. Its life depended on it.
A few floors below the cafeteria, a tired janitor checked his watch, and reached for a switch. Electricity coursed through an electromagnetic coil, which created a magnetic force that pulled on a small metal plate. A hammer attached to the plate hit the gong, at the same time breaking the electrical circuit. The coil stopped generating a field, the force pulling the plate and the hammer disappeared and they moved back. The circuit closed again, and the process repeated. This generated a small bit of dark smoke.
The entire cafeteria echoed with cheerful chiming, and the gleaming golden metal of the school bell was outlined in beautiful trailing darkness.
The kryslet shuttered, spooked by the loud and aggressive noise, and scurried away into its dark hole. It would most likely go hungry today. It had missed its opportunity. Damnation!
A few minutes later, Karl, along with a few other classmates, was standing next to a metallic door on the fifth floor. The depressingly dull corridor was dotted with around fifteen classrooms on each side. The floor was carpeted, although the individual colors were obscured by a shallow layer of dark fog. Some classrooms were almost completely trapped in the earth, accessible only through identical iron doors; others had windows looking out into the hallway so that any passerby could see what was happening inside.
The corridor had close to no lighting. Everyone passed most of their days sitting in classrooms anyway.
The light in the corridor came mainly from inside the classrooms, which were much better lit. Playing with the thin layer of slightly shifting fog covering the floor, it created interesting shadows which sometimes terrified younger students.
This same light illuminated the many sketches of famous scientists hanging on the walls. The unlucky portraits which hung in the shadowy parts of the corridors became as shadows themselves and, as the light glimmered, oscillating slightly in intensity, these shadows seemed to almost move.
The peaceful corridor was completely silent, save for the soft echo of the murmurings and shiftings of the small groups of uneasy students hovering around every fifth door. These students were the group of brazen teenagers that were regularly late to class each Wednesday after lunch, slightly respected and pitied by the rest, because they were always screamed at.
The group of courageous students that interests us wasn’t very large, four or five people. Most of them were out of breath, having run up five floors from the cafeteria. The ones who had had some time to rest were nervously looking at the others, waiting for someone to go in and become the first victim of the bloodthirsty geography teacher.
‘Go in, what are you waiting for?’, Karl urged the boy standing in front of him. ‘You’re holding us up.’
The boy was the closest to the door, and he had already recovered his breathing, so the only thing stopping him was fear. He had put his ear to the door, and was listening to the faint sounds of the teacher speaking, trying to find the best moment to quietly slip in.
The boy glanced at the many pairs of innocent eyes looking at him expectantly. He realized his position. Ignoring Karl’s words would brand him a coward… He sighed and opened the door a crack, peeking in. The door creaked loudly, its metal hinges badly oiled. The sound coming from the classroom instantly stopped, and the whole gang outside started trembling slightly in fear. The boy, understanding that there was no way out, confidently walked in, and, after a few moments, sounds of complete verbal annihilation reached the good-for-nothings.
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Right after the poor student had been humiliated, the rest of the group gathered their confidence, and walking in one-by-one, calmly took their seats. The geography teacher’s kind face darkened more with each newcomer, and at last she started to scold the whole class, her voice slightly trembling from anger and sadness.
‘You are supposed to be the most elite class of this school, to be an example for the other classes and the younger years’ She stared at each of the rule-breakers in turn, and her gaze filled with deep loathing. ‘How can it be that you disrespect me, your teacher, so much? I still remember your predecessors…’ She made a pause, and her face softened.
‘It was such a pleasure teaching them…. I never saw a single case of cheating, with them I felt like I was actually imparting knowledge, and not teaching idiots...’
‘And you, cursed cretins, do you have any conscience? Next time, I will kick you out, and force you to stand in the corridor for the whole class. How dare you be late?! The moral fabric of the new generation is degrading...’
And so on and on.
After some time had passed, the class waiting patiently for her to finish, the geography teacher calmed down. ‘Now, since you were late, you will be the first ones to submit your homework’.
Damnation! Homework involved naming all of the ninety cities and what they specialized in, pointing them out on a map, in front of everyone. Karl was ready, thankfully, but many students counted on having time during the lesson to quickly finish their memorization.
After the teacher had finished listening to the homework and a few students had been humiliated, the real lesson began.
‘Today, we will be learning about how the Free Union obtains energy. Flip to page two hundred. Fernande, read the passage out loud, with intonation.’ The geography teacher’s face had lightened up, regaining its kind mien. ‘Children, prepare your notebooks, and write down the numbers carefully!’ Rustling sounds filled the classroom.
‘Our glorious Free Union’s energy sector is much more developed than the primitive one of our war-seeking neighbors. We must thank scientists and engineers, the backbone of our Nation, as well as God, who is always helping them out with divine inspiration, for this great achievement. They are constantly working hard at advancing Science and bolstering our technological advancements.
The energy sector is multifaceted. It encompasses a large range of industries (coal mining, natural gas, Venite mining), power generation, as well as fuel and energy transportation infrastructure (pipelines, electric power transmission lines, inter-floor transmission and transportation lines). In some cities, it also includes the oil refining industry...’
‘...Discovered in 600 by the celebrated physicist Notwen C., Ru preserve his genius, Venite is the most efficient power source known to man. It provides 60% of the energy produced in the capital, Sovok, and 71% of all the energy consumed by the Free Union. Lower, see Fig. 20, is a table of the energy consumption of different regions of the FURP, and a table showing the structure of energy production of key Union cities. On the Venite power stations (VPSs), by combining the mineral with ethyl spirit, a huge amount(133.9 KF/tonne of pure Venite) of energy is released, turning the water to steam, which then pushes levers that generate an electrical current….’
‘…Mining for coal, Venite, and other compounds now happens on the lowest floors of the cities...’
After listening to the boring and monotonous voice of his acquaintance reading out things everyone already knew, then listing cities which had the biggest yield of the mineral per year (writing a two-page report on it would probably be next week’s homework...), Karl glanced around, checking that the teacher wasn’t looking. He slowly reached into his jacket’s pocket, taking out a slightly crumpled piece of paper, and hid it behind his notebook, which was lying under the opened textbook. He shifted the piece up slightly, and glanced at the printed math problem. Unscrewing his pen and dipping it into the bottle of ink he kept on his desk, he started scribbling in his geography notebook, thinking on how to approach the geometry problem. His eyes glinted in interest at the beautiful triangles and circles.
If only a fraction of this fire would have gone into geography!
The entire last row of Karl’s class had already started solving math problems and ignoring the useless nattering on about topics they were not interested in. The first rows, where Karl was sitting, thanks to being late, were slightly less active, fearful of the teacher coming close and seeing their illegal activity. Some of them, like Karl, had also decided to risk it. The deadline for submitting the problems was in a day!
After some time of this pleasant and fun activity, Karl had already solved around two of the easiest ones. Immersed in his work, and quietly clicking his tongue, a strange habit he had when we was deeply concentrated, Karl was completely unaware of what was happening around him…
‘You! How dare you disrespect my lesson!’ the angry geography teacher’s voice was alarmingly close. ‘Karl, put away your mathematics immediately!’, she spit out.
She came closer, and, lifting Karl’s notebook, took away the paper with the math tasks and placed it on her desk. ‘Come to me after the lesson ends, I will return it to you.’ The rest of the class, noticing her anger, quickly hid their own sheets and made innocent and condemning expressions appear on their faces.
Karl, nodding guiltily, put away his pen and pretended to be concentrated on the lesson.
Staring vapidly into space in the direction of the blackboard, he let random thoughts slowly flow through his mind. What use was there to listening to random facts about geography? He would never need them in his upcoming life of servitude to science. Geography didn’t help his mathematics or his physics abilities. Anyways, why was the school so demanding to subjects that didn’t bolster its national rankings? Didn’t it want students to win science competitions? National subject competition results were one of the few factors that influenced the rankings. Why didn’t it just leave the mathematical class alone, then? Why force them to memorize geographical facts that had no relevance to their chosen specialization? What did the school administration want?
Karl felt his eyes slowly closing. He used all of his willpower to stay awake, but he had barely slept during the night, frantically finishing his homework. After around ten minutes he was napping on his desk. The kind teacher let sleeping students sleep on because she thought that getting enough sleep was important. For Karl, the rest of the class passed in a drowsy bliss.