Dissolution

By Bub 

They were the first things he saw when he entered the classroom. The sleek black top of the science room table they sat on really brought out their stark and severe, yet forgiving beauty. He set down his suitcase behind his desk, hung his coat on the back of the chair and then stood there fixated on their hard, sharp angles. The slow gradation of slopes were contoured to welcome the palm's embrace. The shiny reflective metal of the undercarriage that brazenly forced you to reckon with your your own self-image; was contrasted with paint finish that was warm and unsanctimonious. The one had a familiar gray, the very same shade that colors the preponderance of your grandmother's hair. The other, an almost-pastel brown with infilled paneling designed to look like wood, evokes in you a longing for a simpler time that you haven't actually experienced.

He imagined their lives - sullen years of mass-fastening packets on igneous rocks and Newton's lesser laws. Waiting and toiling. Waiting to toil. Sometimes toiling to wait. All the while heartsick for a life they would never know or at least never know again. If only they were in the study of a beautiful mansion they might then be putting the finishing touch on a movie script that is funny, heartwarming, and self-aware. Maybe they might have been taken to a corner office in a major metropolitan sky-rise they would be at this very instant be sealing the deal on a business transaction with millions or even billions of dollars at stake. Or perhaps they would have been happy somewhere up in the New Guinea highlands living amongst clan-based societies securing mosquito nets and preventing malaria. So much of their time must be consumed by considering all that might have been.

And now here he was, about to add to their misery. These wonderful creatures; rotting. And he was there to help them rot, or at least to not embarrass anybody by mentioning it. He could not stand it. He grabbed a geode from a nearby table, then dashed the two staplers to mangled bits in front of a confused and and alarmed class of sixth graders.

As soon as he'd finished someone knocked on the classroom door. He dropped the geode and went over to the door to answer in a hushed tone. "Yes? Hello?"

"Oh, hello there. I'm a transport specialist for the Staple-a-Wish Foundation. I'm here to pick up your staplers."

"Staple-a-... I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"Well sir, for a few lucky underprivileged staplers, our organization makes their dreams come true by granting them one wish! The staplers in this room here were selected in a special lottery last week at Staple-a-Wish headquarters in Costa Grasa, Florida to grant the wish they submitted."

"My god..." guilt and anxiety began to overwhelm him, "what... was... their wish, if I may ask?"

"Sure, let me check my clipboard." He continues while checking his clipboard, "If my memory serves me right... it was a pretty simple one... OK, here! They both requested to be 'dashed to bits by the geode that had been kept just out of reach'. Says here they want me to pick up the remains".