September 1st, Period 0

                My name is Penrose Blacklead. “Penrose” to my friends, “Mr. Blacklead” to my students, and “Penny” to my wife. “Penrose” to everyone else, incidentally. I’m a math teacher at NEO Yorkville Technical High School, where I’ve worked for around three years. Today, September 1st, is the first day of classes of the school year, and we teachers need to do some last-minute checks before school starts. We’re all bunched up in the faculty office, and there’s a bit of anxiety in the atmosphere, as usual.

As I’m matching my attendance sheets against the class roster, I hear a small knock on the wall of my cubicle. I swivel around in my chair to find Mr. Danny Rubidio, the new 9th grade history teacher, looking at me expectantly. Well, I say that he’s new, but he actually joined last year. He still behaves like he just got here yesterday, but I don’t really mind. He’s rather short and has a mop of shaggy blond hair on his head, and between that and his personality, he ends up reminding me of a golden retriever. I’ll hear him out.

“Hey, Danny. What’s up.”

“I’ve got a lesson plan for today that I need your help with, man. I’m not sure if the kids will like it.”

I don’t know much about history, so I probably won’t be able to help him too much.

“I don’t know much about history, so I probably won’t be able to help you too much. Actually, why does it have to be me?”

“It’s fine, it’s just some basic stuff. You kind of look like a history guy. It’s only for the first class, but I want to do a recap of the last few hundred years or so in a span of around 20 minutes.”

Intriguing.

“Alright, so what’s the problem here? I’m not a history guy, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“I don’t really know what’s hip with the kids these days.”

That is a problem. I wouldn’t be caught dead saying “hip” like that in front of anyone. If I was in high school, I would have laughed at him before he even formed the first syllable. I’m an adult, though, so I won’t.

“You don’t necessarily need to make it ‘hip.’ You just need to make it interesting.”

“There aren’t a lot of historical events that kids can relate to nowadays, though. I don’t know how interesting they’ll find it.”

Alright, this is going in circles. Is this indecisiveness, anxiety, or laziness? There were quite a lot of objectively cool things that have happened in the last few hundred years. Time to bring out the big guns.

“Okay, you’re starting from the 2000s and going forward chronologically until the modern day, right?”

“Sure am.”

“So let’s see what you’ve got. If I were to start off this presentation, I’d first mention how much of a shithole the world was in, like, the 2020s.”

“First of all, that’s contentious. It probably wasn’t that bad. Second of all, nobody wants to hear about wars, famines, and plagues.”

“So don’t go too deep into it. It’s just a 20-minute recap. Don’t get stuck in the weeds, dude.”

“I’m not in the weeds!”

“You’re a homeowners association’s nightmare. You are so stuck in the weeds, you don’t even realize how stuck you are. Never mind kids, most people tune out if you go way too in depth about information that doesn’t really matter to them.”

“I want to make it matter to them!”

“So save it for later, man!”

Maybe this atmosphere is getting to me, too. It’s really stressing me out how averse this guy is to concision.

“Fine! Fine, fine, fine. It’s fine. Let’s just continue.”

A deep scowl on Danny’s face begs to differ, but I’ll oblige him.

“So then you’ll go onto World War III, right?”

“Well, duh. That’s a pretty big one. Although it’s less interesting than IV and V.”

“I guess you should just- ”

“Get out of the weeds, talk about the stuff I like.”

“Yeah.”

Finally, we’re getting somewhere. Let’s see if he keeps this streak up.

“Then I guess we then do the obligatory Vibe Force explanation.”

“Well, we have to, right? But haven’t they heard this stuff since, like, kindergarten? Oh, in like 2100-something-”

“2158.”

“In 2158 humanity discovered- how do you pronounce it?”

“Vill- yat – frium – ite. God, I had to memorize that for one of my finals when I was in college. Allegedly, according to scientists, it doesn’t really do ‘everything.’”

“That’s bullshit, though.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.”

I’m really getting into this. People call it the “Vibe Force” because that’s essentially what it is. The laws of thermodynamics and pretty much anything to do with technological advancement became entirely dependent on the average state of human emotions. The more people that feel good, the better the tech works.

“It apparently can’t do everything, but let’s give some examples of what it can do. Hmmm. Maybe just put up a slideshow and flash a bunch of pictures while you go over all the cool stuff?”

“Yeah, I think the kids would like it better. It really drives home how nuts the technological development was.”

“Let’s start. Uhhhh, infinite renewable energy with literally no downsides, that’s a big one. Can cure pretty much every disease, nearly immediately. Space travel, teleportation, chemical transmutation, holograms.”

“Well, human nature is a big downside that you missed. Remember that it somehow took another 116 years for everyone to get on board with world peace and infinite technological growth? Anyways, then I give the whole speech about the Vibe Force’s ineffectiveness in weapons and then pivot into the Peace Maintenance Pledge.”

“No weapons, no war. No war, no fighting.”

“No fighting, no problems. See, you remember more than you think!”

“Well, we have to say this thing every morning, so I’d better remember it.”

“Anyways, we then flash forward to the present day and go, ‘Oh, now it’s 2708 CE, and you kids are the shining hope of the future. Our ancestors gave up fighting to maintain this prosperity, all so you can live your lives to the fullest.’ Et cetera. Wow. We’re at the end!”

We both gave each other a round of applause. Although, he did most of the heavy lifting. History majors are the real deal, that’s for sure. Danny suddenly looked at the clock. It’s seven minutes before the start of first period. My first class is on the same floor as the faculty office, but Danny’s is two floors up.

He gathered his materials and left with a hearty “Thank you! I’ll see you later!”

I waved goodbye and watched him sprint up the stairs two at a time. Looks like he’s still a bit nervous. I never really talked to him too much, now that I think about it. This was pretty fun, and I’m a bit surprised that this was the first time I had a conversation this long with him. Speaking of time, just because I’m on the first floor doesn’t mean that I can show up late to my own class on the first day. Early is late, late is on time, and on time is unacceptable, right? Wait, that’s the wrong order. With the correct version of the quote lingering in my mind, I made my way to my first period class.