Half-hearted Swipes

It is good to see chalk boards again. The lessons given semi-permanence through the medium of chalk throughout the years strain to hold their vitality, peeking up from behind the half-hearted swipes with the eraser. How many hands have touched this desk, copying those heiroglyphs on the wall? How many people have hung on to a quote that could have changed their lives? Where is that line that turned P__ into a lawyer, that led M__to her affair on her husband? What were those words? I can feel them, the burning embers smouldering beneath the ashes of the fire of education. There are no clean slates. There is just the half-hearted swipe and the smouldering embers poking through.