Communion

We sat at desks worn smooth by children's hands, with empty inkwell holes, the past stained and etched into the wood. Floorboards planed from wooden chairs and the soles of countless shoes. The daily tapping on the blackboard, interrupted by the occasional screeching of chalk and a spine-tingling shiver throughout the room. A bell told us when to learn, when to eat, when to play and when to go home. We started the day solemnly with a pledge and a prayer; a yelling, laughing, running mob when the bell rang to go home. There were days that you prayed real hard, a warm sunny spring day you prayed for a fire drill just to get outside and away from the stiff,hard chairs. That first grade year we wrote with big thick pencils on manila paper with widely spaced blue lines;crude paper for awkward hands. We listened and learned,raised hands to answer and tried hard not to be called on when we didn't know. We struggled to concentrate even though the windows told us it was too nice a day to be inside and snow falling would bring us all to a standstill, eyes riveted to the sky in the hope that our day would end sooner.
Noon would be lunch and the playground's call to be tossed about on see-saws and swings,climbing monkey bars or shooting marbles on the ground. A chance to laugh and get a break from the seriousness of it all.
After noon would be the lighter stuff, reading and writing and song. Then recess and dodge ball, because no one our age could possibly sit still that long.
With recess done maybe some spelling or show and tell, to help us calm down and bring us back to order. The moans and groans when homework was assigned, the final act in our busy day. Then the bell-that glorious sound and the mad rush to the cloakroom,and the surge to the door. Our voices louder without order as we hit the sidewalks for the walk home. The school would stand quiet now, and await another day to be filled by the voices and the shuffling and the scraping of chairs. To be slowly worn smooth by the hands and the feet of children.