Title: Corridors (The Call)
[Baritone 1 — low, clipped] North Wing. Door plates tarnished. Card readers d**d. Ceiling tiles fallen. Air tastes of dust and lead. Safety posters, curling. Fire code out of date. Condemnation notice stapled to the gate.
[Falsetto 1 — thin, tight] Echo count—one, two, three— Exit lights dark, batteries empty.
[Baritone 2 — low, sustained] Budget cut. Staff cut. Classrooms emptied slow. Mold blooms in the plaster where the roof let go. Observation windows clouded, one-way glass opaque. Lesson plans left open like a fault line in a quake.
[Falsetto 2 — sharp, breathy] Clock hands stuck—one seventeen— Hallway length—thirty meters—seen.
[All — staccato, escalating, like a grim race call] Call the corridors. Mark the turns. North to West to Methods, where the strip lights burn out. Call the corridors. Count the scars. Steel doors buckled, blackened where a short threw sparks. No laughter. No fiction. Only facts in the dark.
Verse 1
[Baritone 1] West Hall. Bulletin boards with thumbtacks bare. Floor polish gone to powder in the stale, cold air. Emergency maps sun-faded, arrows ghost to gray. The last drill schedule taped and flaking away.
[Falsetto 1] Seat charts—names crossed twice— Cabinet locks snapped, file tabs like ice.
[Baritone 2] Microteaching lab. Cameras rust in brackets. Two-way mirrors blind, red LEDs bracketed. Phoneme charts stained. IPA smears on glass. Practice chalkboards blister, lathe lines split the class.
[Falsetto 2] Stapler husks. Overhead film— Projector belts brittle, reels gone still.
[All] Call the corridors. Take the split. Methods on the inside, Library in the pit. Call the corridors. Here’s the grade: Lead paint peeling in a thousand blade. No ghost, no joke—real hazards made.
Verse 2
[Baritone 1] Science Annex. Acid cabinets tagged. Sash on the fume hood jammed and ragged. Broken eyewash station. No flow. No green. Neutralizer kits expired in 2013.
[Falsetto 1] Glass on tile—sugar of shards— Warning placards, corners charred.
[Baritone 2] Gymnasium doors chained from the outside twice. Code violation written in a blue pen slice. Bleachers bow under pigeon bones and straw. A whistle lanyard rots to a tar-black draw.
[Falsetto 2] Caution tape. Frayed and slack— Footprints turn, then never come back.
[All] Call the corridors. Hold the line. South Wing narrowing like a throat in time. Call the corridors. Mark the air: Asbestos snowfall in the winter glare. No myth. No mercy. Just the state of repair.
Verse 3
[Baritone 1] Administration stair. Motions filed and boxed. Payroll ledgers finished where a year just stopped. Student teaching rosters, edges licked with damp. Letters of dismissal buckled under clamp.
[Falsetto 1] Office plants—soil to stone— Phone list numbers with no tone.
[Baritone 2] Child Psych suite. Observation chairs. One stuffed animal, seams split bare. Mirror smudges from a thousand hands. Training scripts that never met their plans.
[Falsetto 2] Door sweep
