She shuffled through the papers, picking up each one and weighing its potential. Like a field sparrow testing a crust of bread to determine whether or not it was worth trying to carry it off, she carefully placed each one back into the “in” basket.

She couldn’t even read them past the first sentence. "It was a dark and stormy night . . . " That might be preferable. She fantasized about building the world’s largest paper airplane and flying to North Carolina. There, on the Wright Brother’s Beach, she would ride the currents of Kitty Hawk like a seagull. She would dance along the boundary between the land and the sea and feed her soul off of its restless energy.

No, these essays weren’t that good. She might have better luck making the world’s largest spit wad. Ah, but then she’d have to eat their words instead of her own.

“By the end of this class, you will be able to write a coherent theme.” She had made that statement firmly in September, but now her words seemed written on the wind in smoke.