Mr. Graves lingered just a few moments over his morning paper to finish an article about an automobile accident that had happened the previous evening not too far from his home. Two dead, both first-year university students returning about a week late from winter break. Sad, he thought, as he closed and folded the paper. He took the last sip of coffee from his cup and turned his mind toward preparations for this evening's class.

Henry Graves was a gentle soul of sixty-five who had, until his retirement some five years past, quietly taught English within the halls of a small teacher's college snuggled cozily into the foothills which formed the southern border of the town which had been his home for the last four decades. It had taken several of his early years at the university to fully adjust to the Japanese way of thinking, to weed out his foreign and, to be fair, inexperienced perspective; but his colleagues were patient and encouraging. By the end of his fourth year he had made most of the essential compromises. By the fifth year he had begun to accept them as reasonable. And by the sixth year it had all made perfect sense. As the years rolled by, the skills and attitudes his colleagues had so patiently helped him to develop were slowly internalized until, without being the least bit aware of it, Henry Graves the man and Henry Graves the teacher became one. His colleagues were pleased, and with good reason; it is a rare foreign teacher who truly adjusts, truly understands the system and its students.

Mr. Graves would have stayed on had he been asked to, but school policy was quite clear on this. And so, at the age of sixty, after thirty-five years, Henry Graves retired. What he had become, however, he continued to be. And as the weeks and months rolled by, the emptiness grew.

His return to teaching came shortly after the funeral of a former colleague, a man who had helped him so much during his early years to understand what teaching was. The casket and the deceased's picture placed at the front of the hall, the silence of the mourners, the straight rows of heads bowed and lulled in response to the hypnotic drone of the Buddhist chants surrounded and enveloped him, and his mind began to wander. He saw a teacher giving his last lecture, teaching his final class.

During the short bus ride from his home to the class, he mentally reviewed his preparations for the evening's class. He always made it a point to prepare for five students, though he was never sure if that many would indeed show up. Sometimes there would be five, more often less. Of course, there were also times when no one showed.

He got off the bus and buttoned his coat against the chill. In the distance he saw the soft lights of the building where he taught and, beyond that, white billows rising from the smokestack of a factory. He walked silently past the main entrance and made his way to the rear of the building. The door at the rear was usually left unlocked, or could be opened easily enough if it weren't by reaching through the window next to it that was never locked. He entered, walked the three steps to the door of the room he used and, using the switch on the wall next to the door, turned on the lights.

The room was cold, and the chemical smell reminded him that this room served other purposes during the day. He counted two students, both stretched out, sweet as you please, on the stainless steel tables that doubled as desks. He cleared his throat as he placed his briefcase on the table and tilted the hanging microphone up out of his way. "Good evening," he said as he took his notes and prints out of his briefcase, "it's a bit chilly, isn't it?" He took a look at his two students and read their nametags as he placed a print on each of their tables. He thought he recognized the names, Tanaka and Saito, but he wasn't sure if he had seen these two before. There had been so many students over the years, and he was often confused. And the fact that it was often difficult for busy students to attend class regularly made it more of a challenge for him to keep these things straight.

He started off the lesson, as he often did, with a song. This evening's song was Seasons In The Sun. He gave the students a few minutes to read over the lyrics, and then asked if either of them were familiar with it. "Perhaps you'll recognize it when you hear it played," he said after a few moments. He asked them if there was anything that they had trouble understanding then, just to be sure, pointed out and gave short explanations for some of the more useful words and phrases before playing the song for them.

After the song had finished, he moved on to the listening exercise he had planned for that evening. He placed a copy of a short reading passage and an answer sheet on the corner of both students' tables. He knew it would be much better for the students to study the reading passage as homework before giving them listening practice, but he knew from long years of experience that it was often difficult for busy students to find the time to study preparation assignments. He asked the students to read over the passage and, after a few moments, asked if there were any words or phrases that they were having difficulty with. "Well, don't hesitate to ask if a question does come up," he said before modeling the passage and emphasizing the pronunciation of several important words and phrases.

"Well, let's try a bit of listening practice and see how we do. I'll read a question or a statement. Look over your answer sheets and mark what you feel is the best response." Mr. Graves read each of the ten exercise problems three times, allowing a few moments between each problem for the students to consider and choose the best answer. "Well," he said after he had finished, "let's see how we did. Which of you would like to give us the answer to number one?" He waited a few moments, as he always did, before giving the correct answer, repeating the problem once more and moving on to the next.

With a few minutes left before class ended, Mr. Graves encouraged his students to use English by asking them to think for a moment and make a comment. "Anything will do," he told them. "Remember, practice makes perfect." After giving the students some time, he smiled to indicate that he was ready to listen to them. "Anything at all," he said, continuing to smile. "Anything at all. Mr. Tanaka? Mr. Saito?" He continued his gentle urging, smiling encouragingly, until, regretfully, time was up.

"Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this evening," he said as he collected the prints he had handed out. "Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoyed this evening's class as much as I did." He placed the prints into his briefcase, closed it and began walking toward the door. He paused for a moment at the door, opened it slowly, almost hesitatingly, peeked shyly into the hallway and then, just before stepping out of the room, glanced back at his students and smiled.

He walked the three steps to the back door of the building and stepped out. He stood for a moment to button his coat and let his eyes adjust to the darkness before making his way along the unlighted back wall to the corner of the building. About four steps from the corner, he saw the slow spread of light and heard the soft mechanical purr of a vehicle of some sort just turning the front corner of the building toward the back. He paused at the corner with his back to the wall to let the vehicle pass, then stepped around to the side of the building and watched what turned out to be a van arc toward the opposite corner of the small back lot.

The van's break lights flashed just as the back lot was flooded with light from the back of the building. Mr. Graves pulled his head back around the corner when he saw the van's back-up lights flash on and listened as it pulled back to park in front of a set of double doors. Standing in the shadow of the building's corner, Mr. Graves saw two men step out of the van and walk toward the rear. They greeted the man who had emerged from the double doors, handed him a clipboard and opened the rear doors of the van. He watched as they pulled a gurney from the van and rolled it into the building. Sad, he thought, as he turned to make his way toward the front gate.