The air of anticipation and tension is palpable in ATLAS 402 as students begin to fill the room. They nervously glance at the ceilings high above, with pipes and scaffolding still exposed, air system churning gently. The bare concrete floors echo loudly throughout the room as they slowly walk to their assigned desks, and rolling chairs creak and slide as they sit down.
The classroom is capacious, walls stretching 50 or 60 feet away from the large, black double doors, ending in a wall made up mostly windows. But despite the windows, light still remains scarce, and what light there is casts long shadows amongst the students and still-lifes in the late afternoon sun. The lights high overhead are off for this very purpose.
The walls, unlike the floor, and covered haphazardly with portraits and projects, black graphite shining with a slight glare. Some of the drawings reflect the room itself, depicting the several piles of objects throughout the room; chairs and vases and flowers and bolts of cloth and boxes and stools. The desks of the room encircles one or other of the still-lifes, and once students seat themselves, they begin to pull out their supplies. Pencils roll on the tilted surface of the desks as they are placed, and loud slaps ring out as 18 by 24 inch sketch-pads are hurriedly brought out.
The students begin to lean over and begin their work, flipping open the sketch-pads to the proper page mirroring the group of objects in front of their respective stations. The only sounds in the room are the scratching of pencil on paper, the quick breathing of the prospective artists, and the constant churning of the air system. The teacher hasn't even arrived yet.
The room is not yet filled; half of the 30 desks remain empty. They are the desks of those who already finished their work, with no need to come in before class and scramble to finish their work. Those who haven't finished continuously glance towards the single clock above the doors, seeing how much time they have, before bending down to work again. They don't have much time.
Tense minutes pass as furtive pencil strokes replicate on paper what the students see in front of them. Some lean back from their work and let out a sigh of relief as they manage to complete the drawing. Most do not. The students who already finished are starting to arrive, placing their complete work in a pile near the door, standing idly near their old work stations, watching the people who are still trying to finish.
A few more minutes pass, and then the large black double-doors burst open, then shut with a loud thud behind the tall, dark figure who entered. She stands directly beneath the clock, emphasizing with her presence what the panicking students have been dreading.
"Time's up children," she said, raising her voice above the churning of the air system, echoing around the capacious room. Sighs of regret follow.
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Good effort. I do wish you'd put more time into the description of the instructor. In fact, the descriptors for all of the people you notice were vague, though you did a good job describing their environment and their behavior.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't have mattered except that you brought them into the field of vision, yet they are the most obscured. Something to think about.