Literary Glasses

 

Is it better like this…

 

High winds pushed hard against the spiderweb, stretching it, testing its limits, while Mr. Spider sat quietly in the shadows, hoping some passing tidbit would get snagged just in time for lunch.

 

Or like this?

 

The gale pressed its full weight against the web, making each strand hum like a violin string stretched one note too high. The whole structure bowed, shivered, reconsidered its life choices. But Mr. Spider, veteran of many such tempests, remained tucked in the rafters of shadow, eight legs folded like a silent monk.

He watched the web flex and sigh, watched the wind try to negotiate new terms of existence, and thought only of lunch. Not in a predatory way—more in the way a small-town diner owner watches the empty parking lot at 11:58, hoping the lunch rush hasn’t forgotten him.

 

Like this…

The empty classroom sat silent, no chairs screeching across the linoleum, no children popping their gum or dropping their books.  The blackboard still clean from the night janitor, begging to be written on, chalk and erasers lay anxious along the tray below. 

So, who was more nervous, the new teacher or the students?  At the end of the day, which one would walk away with an education?

  

Or like this?

An empty classroom is never truly empty—it’s holding its breath. It’s the moment before the curtain rises, before the first line is spoken, before the audience even realizes they’re part of the play.

The new teacher walks in rehearsing authority, clutching lesson plans like talismans, hoping the room won’t see through the costume. The students shuffle in rehearsing indifference, clutching their own private anxieties, hoping no one notices how much they care about being seen, or not seen, or seen correctly.

And the classroom—your silent witness—knows the truth. It knows that the person who learns the most is usually the one who thought they were supposed to be in charge. It knows that the students will walk away with facts, maybe, but the teacher will walk away with a new understanding of human beings, which is always the more dangerous curriculum.