A short story called "The Idea of Innocence"

The Idea of Innocence

Mr Terrason hated his job. The main reason for this was because he hated kids. That was because kids were so incredibly stupid and they frustrated him. His job was to teach them how to be less stupid and even when he did – even when the smartest ones would finish the institution in which he taught – they would still be incredibly stupid. All he did was completely fruitless and unrewarding and he realised this. Sometimes he wished he could turn back the clock twenty years and choose another degree apart from primary school teaching because it was surely the worst decision he ever made.

It was lunchtime and Mr Terrason was standing in the playground, waiting for some retarded kid to run too fast and trip over and graze their knee and start crying as if the whole world was ending. ‘God, don’t they ever think about anyone other than themselves?’ he wondered. He was surveying the scene as he stood: in one corner there were girls playing hopscotch, in another corner there were boys playing handball, in the third corner were boys and girls running around, and in the fourth corner were kindergarten kids frolicking about. ‘God, they’re all so stupid’ he asserted in his mind.

As he was standing there, all pensive and nonchalantly pensive, one boy suddenly ran straight in front of him, brushing his trousers. Mr Terrason was infuriated at the boy’s obnoxiously carefree spirit and shouted at him, “Slow down or else you’ll fall over and hurt yourself.” He wanted to add the three words, “You little retard” but knew the consequences of such an action. ‘Fuck my life is shit.’

Mr Terrason had, after all, just been through a bitter divorce from his wife (she wanted it, not him) and had a dead-end job which involved spending his entire days with kids who knew basically nothing about anything, still believed in magic and were, for the most part, incredibly unintelligent. ‘Some of them can’t even work out the two-times tables; I can barely fathom how retarded they are’, he thought pompously.

Fortunately, despite being lost in a great vortex of such thoughts, Mr Terrason was still able to survey the playground with a hawklike focus. His fierce gaze was focused in particular on the insolent child he had reprimanded only seconds before.

He was watching as the child fell over. Just adjacent to the steps that led to the old wooden assembly hall, just in front of the shady wood-chip-bedded garden, he had fallen. It was all over in a second… one fateful second.

I can see the scene in my dreams: my body moving forward, my legs striding gracefully forward below me and cool wind rushing against my cheeks; in front of me the flicking legs of Harrison – just need a little more effort then I will get him – just a little more effect then I will tip him at last; my mouth is dry but I am getting closer.

But then I misstep… I misstep, I stumble, I stutter and flap my arms, oh it is so desperate – so hopeless – and I am tipping and tipping and tipping then that’s it. I fall. First hands then knees then I am limp; I am limp and it hurts, it stings, it is excruciating and the ground is cold in the shade; it is cold, rough, unfeeling asphalt.

Brutal, barren and grey.

The crying started immediately and crescendoed to a terrible howl when the child gazed upon his bloodied knees.  ‘Shit’ Mr Terrason thought as he began to run towards the retarded child.

“AAHH, OWW, I want my mummy, OWWW, AAHH, AAHH.” It was a hideous wail, so vulnerable and desolate, like the whole world had crashed in on it, like the whole world had conspired to hurt it. Like everything that had led up to that moment in its life had been utterly pointless and it was about to die. Like everything it knew and had ever known had all been for nothing because now it had a gaping, bloody, unfixable wound gouged deep into its knee and it was all going to end and everything would be lost and there was no hope and the world was a pitiless place, an unfeeling place, and the universe was gigantic and emotionless and the universe was really no more than an infinitely dark and mysterious vacuum and their lives were insignificant and useless and it was all lost, it was all lost, it was all lost. “WHHYY?” A desperate plea that nobody could ever answer. Why did it happen to them? Why did it have to happen to them? The universe was horrible, hideous – it thrived off suffering and sorrow and fear.     

Mr Terrason picked up the whiny little shit and took him to the school nurse, who bandaged up the deadly wound while the child continued to cry. Its dejected moaning gradually subsided into a self-pitying whimper as the bandaging was completed. Eventually noise ceased coming from the child at all when it was given a lollipop; it had realised the world wasn’t ending.

‘Children don’t realise very much at all’ Mr Terrason asserted as he watched the initial repair work being performed on the knee.

He wished he was a child again often.