Issue 1 Downtime

The teacher's lounge was actually a fairly decent place to be on the weekends. For one thing, very few of the teachers wanted to be in the office on the weekend, so there wasn't much in the way of traffic. There was a coffee machine handy and newspapers and the chairs were comfortable enough, so it was a decent place to be if you didn't want to be elsewhere. Allison was settled into one of the chairs, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper, enjoying the quiet of an office on a weekend.

((Open))

Roland walked in, bags under his eyes, and groped for the coffee maker.

"I would have thought you would be one of the ones who knew the value of a good night's sleep," Allison said without looking up from her paper.

"Like anything valuable, it's rare."

"You just have to learn how to invest in it then." Allison was in a particularly good mood.

"Well, you seem to be in a particularly good mood," Roland noted. "What's going on?"

"My life is going well for a very rare change. I may have just jinxed it, but I hope not."

"Oh? What's changed?"

"My significant other and I have reached some special milestones. That's... rare for me."

"Is that so? Tell me, what passes for significant milestones these days?"

"We're talking about moving into the same place, among other things."

"Oh, he isn't here at Xaviers?"

Roland was not tapped into the rumor mill.

"No, she's here," Allison said. "We've just both been on our own for a while."

"So, when you say she's moving into the same place..."

"Oh, she's not moving in just yet," Allison said. "We're just talking about it. That's further than most of my relationships have gotten."

"Talking is important," he said, after a moment's consideration.

"I would be in the profession I'm in if I didn't think talking was important."

"This is probably true. A bit slow-paced for me, but I see the utility."

"Since we still have to work together regardless, it makes sense to make sure things work out."

"Hrmm. Relationships with people in your camp are always rough."

"Only if they fall apart. So what's been keeping you up?"

"Oh, you know. Just...adapting to modern things, you know. That's me," he said, unconvincingly.

"One would think that in all these years you would have learned to lie better," she said, turning the page of the newspaper.

"Not much call for it," he said, defensively.

"Is there an old time word for 'bullshit'?" She smiled at him, obviously just trying to rib him.

"Balderdash," he said, fairly automatically. "That's one that must have fallen out of use when I was out of English areas."

"I've heard the word before, but it has been out of circulation for a bit."

"It's a good one."

He paused.

"In truth, I'm having trouble...relating to some of my students."

"Join the club," Allison said. "Some students just seem to get under your skin, don't they?"

"Something like that.

I'm afraid I've damaged my...rapport with some of my students. Cultural differences, I suppose you could say?"

"An interesting conundrum, especially since you've had to adapt to cultures far more unusual to make it this far."

"Well, normally I handle that by being aloof. Aloofness is universal, you know.

Or I would just stab them. Neither seems applicable in today's environment."

"Not if you actually want to relate, no."

"That's the difference. I'm trying to relate, but lots of things have changed. Constants aren't."

"Like what sort of constants?" She folded the paper and got up to get herself another cup of coffee.

"Well, let's take you. You're a solicitor.

Did your father sell you into service to a master solicitor, from whom you learned the trade?"

"That sort of thing's actually been illegal for a while now, so no. I attended a university in the States and earned my degree."

"Exactly. And yet, it seems perfectly logical to me. Children don't know what they want to do. Is it not a benefit to give them solid training right off the bat, when they are most able to learn?"

"And have them end up doing something they hate? No. It's better to give them a solid foundation so that when they do know what they want to do, they have the tools to build what they want."

"That is a very recent view.

You can see where the culture shocks might come in. That was just one example."