Beeping Holes

My class hadn’t yet arrived. They likely wouldn’t for several more minutes, assuming this wasn’t one of those days someone would show up twenty or even thirty minutes early.

I hated that.

I looked at my desk. It was clean but a little disorganized. The stapler had been slung off-kilter; the post-its were thrown scattered around, one of them having fallen from the desk to one of the dust pockets on the floor below.

The floor was mostly spotless but there were still remnant streaks of dust.

I moved to the smartboard, typing into the software the class schedule and objectives, which flashed alight upon the back wall of the classroom. Turning, I looked at the bulky, wide desks, imagining their arrangement.

They looked right. There was enough space between each one. The students likely wouldn’t become trapped or confused, but you never knew. There was often a new student unaware of how to control themself.

I forgot that the lights were still off; I had been absentmindedly using my auto-headlamp.

I turned on the lights.

I opened the windows. It was still raining; it was the beginning of spring.

The automatic door beeped and slid open; a student cruised inside. Looking to them only at a periphery angle—my primary focus was still on preparing the materials assembled in my lesson plan—I couldn’t quite make out who it was.

“Good morning,” I said in a monotonous voice.

“Hi!” said the student, skating to her desk and sitting down. It was Yui—it had to be—she was the only student who greeted me like that—the only one who said ‘Hiii’ with cracked, increasing pitch.

My class materials prepared, I clicked the ‘leave door ajar button on my software, now ready to let the rest of the class enter the room.

“Oh!” said Yui, “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you want alone.”

“No, it’s okay,” I responded, “I was just getting some things ready for class. Don’t worry about it.”

Yui looked downward to her desk. Sun was shining through the window in her room. A cat jumped atop the table and nestled its head against Yui’s forearm, purring gently.

“Looks like you have a visitor,” I said.

“She want study English, too!” said Yui, giggling.

Another student strode into the classroom. Loud music was blaring in the adjacent room behind them; it was Fuel, by Metallica. It wasn’t coming from the student himself, but from somewhere in the background.

“Turn that down, please,” I said.

“Oh! Sorry!” he said. It was Yousef. “That’s my roommate. He always listens to Metallica in the morning. I’ll go and tell him to cut it out.”

“Thanks.”

The majority of the rest of the class filtered in before the 08:30am start time. Some of them, however, were several minutes late, rolling in and disrupting the beginning of class. Whenever that happened, I liked to quiz them instantly on some aspect of their homework, making them feel immediate discomfort upon arriving late. In my mind that would somehow prevent tardiness. It never worked though. Sleepiness is a powerful feeling; students will always be late for morning classes.

“Okay!” I said, moving from the beginning review and homework section of class into the meat of the lesson, “Today we’re going to focus on the difference between gerunds and infinitives, and when you can and should use each of them in the present-simple verb tense.” The size of the monitor functioning as my head expanded, creating a huge screen which covered most of the back portion of the class. A short video on gerunds and infinitives played. When the video finished, my face appeared on the monitor.

“Okay,” I said, “So what is a gerund?”

“Ing,” said Carlos from the back corner of the room.

“What do you mean?” I responded, “Use full sentences.”

“Gerund is verb with ‘ing’.”

“Okay; that’s true. What else?”

“Gerund is noun that look like verb.”

“Good! Seems like you understand. When can we use gerunds?”

“I like.” said Carlos.

“What do you mean?”

“We use gerunds when I like. You know—I like swimming.”

“Yes! Good. That is one situation when we can use gerunds.”

I drilled the students on some simple sentences containing gerunds and infinitives and then split them into groups to converse amongst themselves about things they like doing. While they were talking I scooted over to the tall windows encompassing one of the walls of my classroom and gazed outside. There was some sort of large construction project beginning at the university. A bobcat and an excavator had already begun the earthworks, moving dirt around and scooping unnecessary remnants into a dump truck which sat idling in the circle in front of my building.

I looked into the windshield of each of the machines. I saw inside them the monitors of their operators who were looking ahead trying to avoid cutting through any important pipes or infrastructure as they dug through the dirt, the claws of their giant metallic machines ripping up the land apathetically. The prickly bushes, dirt, and mulch was pulled up and removed. There were several squirrels and a groundhog living in them, I knew, along with a hive of yellowjackets. They would have to find new homes; they would probably die.

I wondered if the construction workers had any cats, perhaps ones interested in construction.

“Teacher!” came a voice from behind. I had zoned out.

“Yes?” I said, spinning around.

“We finished.”

“You’re not finished yet. I need you to speak English as much as possible; that’s the only way your fluency can improve. Keep talking for another couple minutes. If you can’t discuss anything more about what you like doing using gerunds and infinitive, just talk about your weekend plans or your hobbies.”

“Okay!”

I looked back to the construction project. The two individuals operating the bobcat and the excavator were each wearing lime green shirts. Two others sliding by—though with an offroad driving track and wheels rather than the self-cleaning vacuum-bottom of my model—were wearing bright orange. They moved through the dirt across the construction site. They were carrying materials to a different location for later assembly. Why did the bright colors matter; why was safety still necessary when no one was physically present?

Money. The equipment was too valuable.

“Fucking football team,” I thought to myself. I had again zoned out. It did infuriate me, though. Why did the football team get to do whatever they wanted to the university land? They already got so much of it—why did they need more? My students couldn’t study in peace without the constant beeping, grinding, and scraping of construction equipment working hard to make room for a new practice field—the third practice field.

I had forgotten my coffee. I spun out of my office chair and walked into the kitchen, nearly stepping on the cleaning robot diligently sweeping the floor as I strode past.

“Get out of the damn way,” I said to it, frustrated. The cleaning robot would vacuum seemingly any part of the floor other than those areas that were actually dirty; I had become well aware of that unfortunate fact.

Pushing past him, I grabbed my brewed cup of highlander-grogg from the machine and limped back to my seat.

“Teacher… Teacher?” I heard from the kitchen before I had even made it back. I was really neglecting my students today; I was being a shitty teacher.

I was too angry, though; I had too much on my mind.

“We can be finish now?” said Yui. She was still smiling, though it was obvious she was struggling to continue the conversation in her group; the other students all so shy to speak. She was always polite but her poor acting had betrayed her.

“Yes, Yui; you’re finished. You can leave your group and go back to your normal place.”

I fell back in my chair, briefly rocking to-and-fro in anxious discomfort before again deciding to get on with class. Public speaking always made me nervous, even though I had been teaching for nearly a decade, even in this new remote format.

I taught though. Most of the students listened, though some of them blackened the screens composing the facial regions of their robots. The software we used didn’t even allow for that, but students improvised and covered their cameras with external things like paper. They knew it killed their grade but didn’t care. Some students, when give the opportunity, will do nearly anything to avoid participating in class, even if they are fully aware of its detriment to their grade. They are so incapable of preparing for the future that it’s always, in every situation, better to do something that makes them more comfortable in the present.

The construction robots continued digging, beeping, scraping, crunching in the gravel. I wondered where the squirrels and groundhog would go; whether the yellow jackets were capable of constructing a new hive at this time of year. Would the queen even care to look for a new home?

I had no idea.

Exhaustion set in well before class was over. I released the class ten minutes early, as usual, anxious to be done with them. Once class had finished, I moved my teaching robot to its station near the window where it would collect sunlight on the panel composing its head and charge.

I shut my laptop and fell back in my spinning office chair, exhausted. Teaching was getting more difficult with each passing day. I was losing the ability to enjoy communicating with anyone, even through use of a remote device such as my robot. I hadn’t left my house in nearly half a year. I worked from home. Groceries were delivered. Bills on autopay. The world was a polluted mess, anyway; I didn’t see any real purpose in travel.

The cleaning robot bumped against my foot. I looked down at it, annoyed.

End