F3 Cycle 72 "Standing in Judgment"

Flash Fiction Friday Cue: Use the photo for one scene in your story; it must have at least two scenes.



  The day Mary Bain was murdered I saw her standing on the side of the road looking out towards the river off in the distance. As I passed her on my way to my second job, I did not think much about it other than the fact that she looked like she was waiting for someone. It was cold that day and the jeans and sweater she was wearing looked normal enough but draped across her shoulder was a purple bag stuffed to the point it looked like it might explode. Deep down I sensed loneliness and a despair in her that ate at what small part of my soul I had left.

  For a second I contemplated pulling off the road to check if she was okay but just as quickly thought the better of it. Mary was just another of those hopeless cases high school educators encounters every few years while teaching in rural backwaters where the word of God rules everyday affairs and the locals are instantly suspicious of anyone even remotely intellectual. You learn quickly living in the Appalachian foothills of upstate South Carolina outsiders like me do not get involved in gory mess that many of the residents call their lives, even if you have some acquaintance with the family.

  Mary’s dad, Phillip Bain, was a high school dropout and disabled Iraqi War veteran whose humvee was blown up under him resulting in a brain injury and an extreme case of Post Traumatic Stress making it impossible for him to hold a job. In the best of times, Phillip suffered from terrible headaches and in the worst, dealt with memories that haunted his mind. He and I had were introduced to each other at the local VFW since I had done three tours in that hellhole myself as an infantry platoon leader with my National Guard unit. That made it possible for the two of us on occasion to bridge the divide of mistrust that would have normally existed between a man suspicious of everyone in authority and me, a former officer and college graduate.

   As for Mary's mother, for the most part she had abandoned her daughter to concentrate on raising the children she had with her second husband. This left Mary drifting between her disabled father and elderly paternal grandparents who regularly went around town proclaiming the Rapture was imminent. Everyone in Mary’s life had failed her from the day she was born, and in a way, I failed her worst of all.

  Seconds later, I glanced up at my rearview mirror for one last look but she was gone. Absentmindedly, I figured one of the cars that had passed me going the other way had quickly pulled over and picked her up. Caught up in my own affairs I had no idea she had gone missing until the news three days later that her lifeless body was found washed up along a riverbank.

***

  The morning after I learned the news I found myself sitting in my empty classroom waiting for the morning bell to ring. Looking at the thirty unoccupied desks in front of me, I got the eerie feeling they were judging me in every aspect of my life and that Mary’s phantom was the prosecutor. Given the number of ways I had failed over the years, I figured it was an open and shut case.

  Like Mary’s dad, I had my own demons to contend with over what I had seen and done in Iraq. After my last deployment I came home to Long Island and found my marriage damaged beyond repair and the middle class lifestyle I took for granted spoiled and worthless. Teaching was the one refuge I had in my personal storm, until I started seeing the same soulless eyes in my privileged American students that I saw in the poverty stricken and fearful Iraqi kids who lived in a war zone. For all the wrong reasons the American kids whined about how tough and unfair their lives were and when I could not take it anymore I left it all behind and went looking for someplace I might be able to make a difference.

  What I found was ignorance and a closed society that rivaled anything I saw in Iraq. Now saddled with alimony and having to provide most of my own teaching supplies I find myself sacrificing the very students I left everything behind hoping to help.

  Outside in the hall the sound of the kid’s voices were exactly like the day I first met Mary. It was my freshman algebra class and I quickly found myself struggling to supply the level of work her keen mind demanded. Mary was a gifted student and in a better place, she could have done anything she wanted with her life but Fate was cruel and had saddled her with too many obstacles.

  The bell rings and my students file in and take their seats. Some look at me expectantly while others seem in a daze. None have Mary’s abilities and in fact I see little hope for most of them. However, that is not for me to judge, I am a teacher and I must try.

  “Mr. Blake, are you okay?” One of the girls sitting in the front row asks.

  “No,” I say, “in fact from today on I will be asking far more of you as you should demand more from me.”