[ showcase #11 - the farthest star ]

Nov 16, 2011 06:44

[ Mayfield High School ]

[Guess what, students? You might just discover you have a new elective- Astronomy! Right in the middle of the semester...right before a major holiday. Whatever, this town is effed up, just roll with it.

At any rate, at least the instructor currently writing his name on the board is easy on the eyes. Unlike the drone teachers' classes, this one is decked out to the max. Absent displays of cursive handwriting, pithy 'Hang in there!' signs and motivational posters with pictures of mountains, the walls are littered with star charts of every kind, eerily realistic-looking pictures of various celestial bodies (that might just have a mild greenish cast to them), x-ray photos and artistic representations of cosmic phenomenons. A shiny, though definitely 50's in execution telescope sits parked by the window.

Oh shit. This guy's legit.

He's also not altogether very pleased. While Hal's job as a firefighter for the town didn't require a huge amount of brain power to pull off, it was familiar. True, some of the men were batshit insane, but if it came down to another zombie invasion, he knew he'd always have access to medical supplies, weaponry and a bigass vehicle with which to run things over.

His notification of the sudden job change came through via an unlikely source, the Jordan drone kids, who'd taken the liberty of shaking him awake and informing him that he was going to be late for school. He sat in the empty class for a little while that Monday, considering his options in the gathering dusk. All right, you bastards. Challenge accepted.

Which brings us back to Wednesday morning, Hal in his Friday-casual dungarees and his dad's leather jacket hanging off the back of his chair. He dusts his hands off and points a thumb back at the board, where 'Mr Jordan' has been neatly rendered.]

Right, Class, welcome to Astronomy. I'm Mr Jordan, and if you couldn't tell before now, I'm obviously not a drone.

[He hands off a sheet of notebook paper and a pen to a nearby student, then sits on the edge of his desk.]

Write your name down and pass it back, this is just a formality so I can take roll in the future and keep this class drone-free to the best of my ability.

You'll find your books for this class on your desk. It's pretty dry, incredibly out of date by my standards and better served as a doorstop, but try not to lose them, I have this thing about destroying books. We will be covering Astronomy primarily from an Earth-based perspective, starting with its history and evolution into the branches of observational and theoretical astronomy, and then we'll take a lot of time just looking at a lot of really awesome celestial stuff.

Any questions?

[ Mayfield High School - Lunch ]

[So. Lunchtime. Fellow teachers, anyone offering up a seat?]

[ Grocery store - late afternoon ]

[...how do you tell if a squash is ripe? Maybe he should pick something a little easier to get adventurous with. Oh, if his friends and comrades could see him now. Anyone in the vicinity might see him accidentally disturb a display of sweet onions, and Hal scurrying to pick up the few that scatter.]

do all the things, hot for teacher, grocery store, i'd rather be flying a jet, teacher leave those kids alone, this is not a pink floyd song, real men cook...stuff, mayfield high school, this does not bode well, grace under pressure, this guy's a superhero y'all, i'd check out your celestial body, i read banned books, tv dinners aren't worthwhile nutrition

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