Chalk

July 16, 1997
There are very few students who think I have a brain. Most walk past me and see only my square shape. Some don't even notice my color, or that I have a sexy aluminum chalk tray running along my bottom, or a shiny garland of metal framing me, and God knows, they never give me credit for retaining any of the lessons that have been rubbed, or engraved, if you will, into my flat surface. They see only what they have been trained to see, and most of them can't even see beyond their noses.
Most likely they have never given me a second thought even when we are in the most intimate of situations, such as when they are sliding a cold finger of chalk over my beautifully flat body.
We chalkboards do have brains. Highly developed ones, I can tell you, and we communicate our wisdom to those who will listen. We do not speak aloud, which we think is quite vulgar.
Sure, you'll hear a squeak from us now and then when some juvenile scrapes our face on purpose. Everyone flinches at that sound, and we flinch at the pain (imagine how deeply embedded those bits of chalk go). But those occasions, thank God, are rare.
There was one student, many years back, of whom I was very fond. We seemed to be in sync, that fellow and I. He loved to take care of me, and his touch left me wanting more.
One day, after he had finished erasing all the gibberish that had been pressed into my pores, I simply glowed for him. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I couldn't help myself. I could feel an effusion building within me when he did the erasing, and this particular day I didn't try to hold the words back.
I blushed for that young man more profusely than ever before and allowed my formerly hidden messages to ooze forth. The feeling was wonderful. It felt as if a fever of facts had broken loose. They melted out of my pores, those long forgotten lessons, and beckoned to him.
He saw the blurring words appearing just below my epidermis: quantum physics, algebra, poetry, football plays, recipes. Yes, I had been used for everything!
He saw the old information, bubbling up out of me and I radiated until I was spent. This profusion of thought pouring out of my interior scared him. He stopped staying after school to erase me, and I heard he had dropped out to become a fiction writer. I hate to think of him living such a silly existence, when facts are the only real thing, as far as I'm concerned.
I guess I'm getting old. Wake up stiff and dry each day. In some places, my top layer has been rubbed away and these awful grey splotches show. I can feel time catching up with me. Every day, I seem to be losing my luster, and when someone rubs a piece of chalk on my face I want to scream. It doesn't feel pleasant like it used to. And another thing, they tell me there's a new kid on the block. I'm beginning to feel out of place.
This new kid is white enamel they say, and a slick son of a gun to boot. He's never even seen a piece of chalk. Wouldn't know what to do with it if he had one. The students use a set of colored, felt-tipped pens when they skate along on his surface. He must be brain dead I think. Sure, sure, the information looks pretty, on the surface, but don't you see? The point is, this board doesn't have an opportunity to feel the grit of chalk in his pores. He doesn't have the pleasure of giving himself over, leaning into the warm rubbing, the way nature intended, and therefore no text is retained. He might as well be dead.
If I could yank my bolts and frame away from this cinder block wall I'd take off. I'd run away to be with the Gypsies, or portables as some call them. That's the life! Oh man! That's the life!

First written for Mr. Shumsky's class.  Used also in Gilda Provolo's class