There are some cons to being the only person who lives in walking distance of the school I teach.

Every single time the alarm goes off, or someone forgets the lock, I'm called in.

And at times, I feel like this has become more of a custodial job than anything

It's gotten so bad that the school had a silent alarm installed years ago and just to add insult to injury they rooted it to my phone.

Of course the head tends to call me up to make sure I'm on my way.

Just have a quick little walk around Mrs Ware says to me over the phone.

Just make sure some of the kids haven't tried breaking into the pool again.

It'd be awful if something happened.

Right, yeah.

Except, it never is just a quick little walk around. There's always something to keep

you lingering, some noise that needs investigating, some mess that can't be left for kids to find. In the day that school is nothing but a

shrine to the banal and mediocre. The walls are plastered in kitchy G.C.S.

the art of local peaches, bronze awards and athletics, and cardboard thermometers used to count the hundreds of

pounds we've raised to stave off cancer or the apocalypse.

With lights streaming in and holes buzzing with running children

it's nothing but another busy part of the world

whistling through space with bugrel to do except keep busy.

But it's different in the dark or perhaps just when it's empty.

Maybe it's because I see it so alive and full of activity in the day.

There's something innately unsettling about a place only recently emptied of life.

Perhaps there's a lingering body heat in the air or a scent too subtle for the conscious mind to register.

Something that tells you that a thousand eyes have looked

...