Jesus Christ on the last day of school

Jesus Christ on the last day of school

fiction
edward w pritchard


Over and over Jesus tries to collect all the pencils and pens to finish the check list and clear the milling students out of the room. It's a daunting task for the temporary fill-in substitute teacher Jesus
because students from the other halls and classrooms already dismissed for the day keep coming into the room over and over to spend one last minute with their pals before they become instant and permanent alumnus. Jesus can't remember any of the students names but all the details of their future lives and sins overwhelm the busy teacher/coach as he struggles to dismiss the official students in his charge and return his assigned classroom to original position for cleaning and post inventory readiness.

Every time a happy student bursts into the room to wish one last tearful sayonara to their chums Jesus sees in his mind's eye which one will lose an eye or leg in the future wars over in Turkey or North Africa and who will lose a child to cancer twelve years hence and which rushing laughing student now making the horse laugh just outside the classroom door as his girlfriend off key sings the school anthem one last time will do two years for embezzlement of the local 79 Union Iron workers dues and retirement funds.

At last exhausted and temporary deaf from the noise and commotion Jesus Christ will sign the post readiness inventory form, bundle the bulging wad of pencils and broken pens with two gigantic rubber bands, turn each of the three classroom 16A wastebaskets upside down in a straight row, shut out the lights and drop his time card off at the crowded central office, all the while avoiding eye contact with the boisterous mobs in the Halls and on the stairways.

Not invited to the coffee and cake retirement for assistant principal Murphy Jesus will leave the building and disappear into history again wondering why the government of this country doesn't run it's school system along the ancient Roman model which worked well indeed back when he studied as a boy himself so many years ago.