Glow

Ms. Jackson loved the first day of school. She watched her new fifth graders milling about, looking for their desks, friends, and cubby holes. She greeted them at the door as they entered, but was silent as they walked around the room. This was their first test. Were they able to find their marked desks on their own? Were they shy, boisterous, calm, scared? So much could be learned from the first day.

The most important aspect of seeing the new class was the amount of glow she could discern from the children. Fifth grade was the optimal year for children’s glow. Sixth grade begins the descent into the middle school chaos, egged on by hormones and social hegemony. The glow naturally dims during this time and many of the children never regain the brightness again. Her job was to start that dimming.

As she greeted each student at the door, a brightness unlike anything she’d ever seen was making its way down the hall. She could feel it as much as see it. Finally, the intense light was in front of her, a girl that looked like any other girl. Ms. Jackson’s eyes were watering from the intensity of the girl’s light.

“Hi, I’m Ms. Jackson!” So hard to keep looking at the girl.

The girl smiled and, unbelievably, grew brighter. “I’m Talia, Ms. Jackson.”

It was difficult to stay focused on the remaining children coming in. How could Talia be that phosphorescent? Ms. Jackson had been born with the gift to see the glow and had never seen anyone this bright. She was certain that she could dim that glow, but it was going to be extra work.

The classroom had five sets of six desks, each desk with a child’s name taped to the top. She knew most of the kids from seeing them in previous years, so she knew how to divide them into groups for best glow dimming results. There were four transfers from other schools in her class. For this first week, she had dispersed them among four desk groups.

“Welcome to our classroom! We’ll be doing all kinds of stuff this year! There will be exciting and amazing things! There might even be some boring things, but you’ll see that almost everything can be fun if you let it be!” The Talia glow was disconcerting, but once Ms. Jackson went into teacher mode the glow was a minor distraction.

“Today we’re going to make our own name stickers for our desks and cubbies. You can put whatever you want on the stickers just as long as I can read your name.” Fifth graders universally loved blinging their areas.

“Before we start doing that, however, we need to go over rules.” There was an audible groan from the room. “It’s not that bad because YOU make the rules!” She went to the chalkboard.

“Okay, someone give me a good rule.” Ms. Jackson purposely kept her back to the class so they would feel freer to say something.

“Um… be nice to everyone?” A timid girl’s voice. Ms. Jackson wrote ‘Be Nice’ on the board.

“Share stuff!,” blurted by a boy near the front and she wrote it on the board. Then multiple children spoke at once. Making rules was more enjoyable than being told the rules.When they were done ‘creating’ rules, Ms. Jackson would show them how all the rules they thought of could be condensed to ‘Be safe, be responsible, be respectful’. Those were her classroom rules, but the students would remember that they had created the list.

At the end of the first day, Ms. Jackson saw that all of the students in Talia’s group were glowing brighter than in the morning. She liked to wait for the first week to be done before switching groups around, but obviously she needed to switch things up tomorrow.

The children were slightly confused by the group switches the next day. Talia’s group was all kids with no glow, the hardest group. Kids that had hard luck home lives; broken families, drugs and alcohol, poverty, abuse, crime. There were other children with equally bad backstories, but this group were the most broken and cruel.

At the end of the day, Talia glowed as bright or brighter than at the beginning of the day. The five groupmates all had glows. A couple were substantial.

Ms. Jackson changed the seating arrangement every day that week. By Friday every child in the class had a glow. The room was so bright she thought about putting her sunglasses on.

She awoke late Friday night sweating and chilled. In a panic, she looked around her dimly lit room until she recognized a greater darkness in the room.

“Silvio?”

“Hello, Alice. It’s been a while.” He chuckled, a sound not pleasant.

“Have you lost your talent?” Silvio was walking around the apartment now, a dark form she could barely track.

Alice shook her head.

“Perhaps, then, you have forgotten our arrangement?”

She mouthed ‘no’, but no sound came out.

“Maybe you don’t remember me saving you from your late husband?”

Silent tears streamed down her face.

“Are you trying to fool Silvio?” Alice covered her face and shook her head vehemently. Silvio laughed.

“There is a new girl. I… I cannot dim her glow.”

“Tell me about her.” The darkness enveloped Alice and she talked. And talked.

“Hmm, interesting. This may be above your pay grade, Alice.” Silvio chuckled again. “I should pay a visit to little Talia tonight. She won’t be in class Monday.”

Ms. Alice Jackson cried until morning. Though she had the gift of seeing the glow in others, she had never seen it in herself. She came from a terrible home, her father abusive, her mother beaten down. She had married at sixteen to escape, except it was just a change of abusers. Her husband was ten years older than her and bad. Bad enough to terrify her. Silvio was so much worse, but he had let her live her life. Crossing him was not a thought she ever entertained.

In class on Monday there was no Talia. The class was brighter than it had started last week, but there was a slight dimming through the day. Ms. Jackson would have to rearrange desks, an easy task.

When school was done for the day, she corrected papers and thought about Silvio. He had known about her gift. She shied away from the memory of what he’d done to her husband. She honored their agreement.

There was a knock on the classroom door. Talia walked in. Ms. Jackson had to close her eyes for a moment to keep from being blinded.

“Ms. Jackson? I’m sorry I missed class today.” Alice opened her eyes and Talia was right next to her. Talia put her hand on the teacher’s hand.

“My family is moving to a new place tomorrow, so I won’t be here again.”

“Oh, I am sorry, Talia. Where are you moving?”

“Another place that needs me.” Talia smiled. “Silvio won’t be bothering you again. You are a good woman.

“Those that can see the glow cannot see their own. That’s just the way it works, I guess.”

“But I…” Alice Jackson cried. She cried for her mother, her friends, the children she’d taught, the broken people she had never met, for herself. When she stopped crying, Talia was gone.

Ms. Jackson spent the next hour moving desks to optimize the glow. She was more than herself. She would help the world glow.