Tales from Bleak Metal Falls by Donte Kirby

Author:Donte Kirby [Kirby, Donte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798885041850
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2022-04-11T09:29:00+00:00

Web of Tales

Mr. Arachni, illustrated by Alex Izegbu. Insta: izegbu.art

“There was no quartah given,” said Mr. Arachni in an accent that had never seen a winter. “Those seeking to deny liberty were given death.” None of this was in the US History textbook. I kept flipping between the chapters on colonization of the Americas and the war for independence but couldn’t find the section he was pulling from. Oz would have known the page and the appendix section with corroborating evidence.

“Give me liberty or give me death,” shouted out a student from the back of the class.

Mr. Arachni rattled off on various topics: Haitian Revolution, Creole revolutions in Mexico, and Gran Colombia. He concluded, “The cost of liberty is death.”

I let out a yawn, full throated and full bodied. Mr. Arachni’s eyes narrowed at me. I shrank into my seat. Ughhh. Chastity definitively would have stood tall.

“Am I boring you, Mr. Johnson?” asked Mr. Arachni.

I quickly tapped my index and middle finger to my thumb, then brought my thumb with an open hand from my temple to my chest, coupled with a series of spastic movements trying to explain. “No sir, you aren’t making me tired. It’s the process of learning and retaining knowledge that’s making me tired.”

Mr. Arachni sized me up with wrinkled maple-colored eyes that could pour over you like molasses. The attention made me feel sticky, and my green sweatshirt felt two sizes too small. The teacher gave a shrug and moved on with his lesson.

Mr. Arachni shot off questions to kids in all corners of the class, which Oz, at the front, couldn’t help but try to intercept. He was bouncing in his seat trying to step in when Kyler was called on and she couldn’t name the slave rebellion that caused the prohibition of education for enslaved and free Black people. Oz was so excited by known knowledge, he mouthed “Southampton Insurrection” like a basketball player practicing his shot before the free throw. The next student was asked, “What rebellion ignited the flames for the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 in Britain?”

I felt my bag vibrating, pulled out my cellphone, and hid it inside my desk while Mr. Arachni interrogated Brandon and his one giant cubic zirconia earring about Caribbean rebellions.

I flipped my phone open to a text from Chastity that read, “BOREDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.” Smiling at the message was my first mistake.

“Mr. Johnson,” said Mr. Arachni.

I looked up from the blue light streaming from the inside of my desk.

“How about you tell us then?”

That was my second mistake. I didn’t at least glance at Oswald before giving answer. I would have seen him mouthing, “The Gloucester County Conspiracy.”

Which led to my third and final mistake, forgetting the time you think past reading a text isn’t always the reality.

I opened the back of my textbook and pointed at Jamaica in a way that said, “The Christmas Rebellion.”

“Detention,” responded Mr. Arachni in a monotone. The verve and bounce in his voice gone, only thinly veiled contempt remained.

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