by Celso Antonio de Almeida

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“And that, class, is why time passes more slowly if you travel at speed, though you need to start approaching the speed of light for the effect to be significant,” Ezra Nolan stated flatly, his eyes drifting to the clock above the whiteboard, wishing with all his strength that time, through some unlikely relativistic effect, would pass faster. Fifteen minutes left. Fifteen minutes until the end of the day, the end of the week, and one day closer to the end of his career. Thirty years of teaching high school physics, and for what? He surveyed the classroom of blank faces illuminated by cell phone screens under their desks. They probably wouldn’t remember this lesson tomorrow, let alone ten, twenty or thirty years from now.