The Eastern Star, The Pillars of Salt Staff

The Eastern Star

Afternoon light slants through the windows, and there’s a certain safeness in the smell of bleach and copy paper and pencil shavings.

It’s built like a classroom, but it feels like a home.

Various entrances and hallways intersect the grid, leading to journeys of both mind and soul.

I sit next to a door that leads to a musty unknown; I’ve never been down to the cellar, and quite frankly, I never want to.

They say these walls are haunted, grown like ribcages around our secret heart.

The walls are lined with structured wood engravings: rectangles and squares and corner-pieces, all imposing symmetry and uniformity upon the chaos (that is to say, students) that normally fills these halls.

Across the iron railing lies a wooden one attached to the wall, worn smooth from small, sweaty palms clinging to it, girls worried their oversized backpacks will send them tumbling down the stairs.

The fountain’s song breaks the silence already marred by the constant thrum of cars rushing to make the light, honking impatiently.

Tufts of imperfections grow deep into grassy roots.

At night with the lights turned off it becomes the backdrop of some noir film.

Here it’s dark unless you’re in the spotlight.

The Pillars of Salt Staff

Pillars of Salt 55