The Last Teacher

by Chris Dietzel

  Which brings me to my larger point: accomplishments do not make a life; our actions each day are what define us. No young kid says he wants to win the Stanley Cup when he gets older. He simply says he wants to be a hockey player. Well, let him! And no kid says she wants to win a case in front of the Supreme Court. She merely tells her parents she wants to be a lawyer. Well, let her too!

  The world is changing. The human race is fading away. We all know this. But until the day I die I will continue to tell my kids that they can do anything they want as long as they keep trying and never give up. I will never tell them they can’t be anything they want.

  And if you don’t like it, you’ll just have to fire me and go without an English teacher.

  Sincerely,

  Ray Phillips

  It felt good to tell her principal how she felt. It felt even better to stand up for what she believed. But she wasn’t done.

  Next, she raced down the hallway so fast that if she were a student one of the other teachers would tell her to slow down unless she wanted detention. She jogged past one empty classroom after another. Al Flannigan’s room was dark. All the lights were off in Harry Rousner’s room as well.

  Maybe Eric Tates wouldn’t find a cure for what was causing the Blocks. But if he really wanted to be a scientist, then blast it, he would be a scientist. And whatever Kelly and Debbie aspired to be was achievable too, so long as they never gave up. That was what she should have been teaching all along. Not The Awakening. Not The Stranger. She was supposed to never let her students forget that they could do anything they wanted.

  “It’s a new day, class!” she shouted on her way into her room. A new day indeed. Throw the books out. Forget about anymore quizzes. From now on, she would do things a little differently.

  “You can be anything”—she said, then stopped.

  Her last three students must have left in the latest migration. Her room, like all the others, was empty.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chris graduated from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College). He currently lives outside Washington D.C. His dream is to write the same kind of stories that have inspired him over the years. His others novels have become Amazon Best Sellers and been featured on the Authors on the Air radio network.

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