Tonight's Poet Corner: The Immortal Headmaster
The Immortal Headmaster by Belinda Roddie At the old schoolhouse, children gather in scuttling clumps on the tile floor, scooping up clay and pinching it between their fingers, rolling it up into miniature planets to be launched into space, orbiting their own private sun. One of the teachers coughs and scratches at his large, reddened nose. Traces of white still linger on the rusty rims of his nostrils. My blazer pockets are filled with painkillers, since the bottle that had once cradled them cracked and set them free. They are cold against my knuckles. I could eat those blue gelatin capsules like candy if I wanted to - my head hurts enough for it. I suppose a schoolmaster's thoughts are supposed to squeal against the membrane of a feeble brain, to remind me that I'm still alive and in charge. We love our old schoolhouse: Its splintered doors, its greasy windows, its Gothic panes leading into Poe-esque corridors where imaginary monsters dissipate at ...