Einstein was right. Time is relative. At the very least our perception of it is. Because while the first weeks inside this compound felt as if years had passed, the remainder of the month, until the drill instructor was scheduled to come had passed in a flash. We had kept busy too, rallying everyone who had any sort of skill that could help out the collective, trying to figure out how we could convince people to study instead of beating the crap out of each other. As it turned out, we had quite the illustrious community around us. Some of us were the children of merchants who had fallen from grace, others were children of farmers, we even had the son of a Smith, the daughter of a baker and the grandson of a miller, whose parents had an accident. And the best part, they all knew ‘something’ about their parents trade, just from being around them in their childhood. Of course none of them were masters of the trade, but ‘something’ was still a far better starting point than ‘nothing’. Unfortunately my idea of teaching them to read and write ran into a problem pretty much right away. Matthew, the merchants son, never got around to learn how to do it, but he knew a few bits and pieces, and while the stone on my chest allowed me to ‘understand’ what he was putting down, the glyphs he used were more akin to Nordic runes than Latin letters. As a test to the theory, I put down a few of the letters and words I knew, but got nothing but shaking heads as a response. Nobody had ever seen ‘funny signs like that before’. Fortunately, the laws of mathematics at least remained the same, meaning that I could at least teach a little about that. Considering that I was really bad at math in my world, I most certainly was not the ideal choice, but among the blind, the one-eyed fool is king. And this was just about the basic principles of arithmetics, not trigonometry or advanced geometry.

Unfortunately while a few of the older ones took well-meant notice of our efforts to educate the people out of there, the vast majority, mostly hotheads who had never taken much interest in anything than ‘being the strongest around’, either ignored us if we got lucky, or started mocking and harassing the students on their way to the daily lessons if we did not. I stopped counting how often there had been ‘incidents’ in front of the locale we had chosen as ‘school grounds’.

When the visit of the drill instructor’s visit was due the next day, Martha sent a message with one of the students, telling me to meet her in the arena after lessons. I still remembered the last time Martha asked me to dance quite vividly and I certainly wasn’t keen on getting another beating, but at least this time she left me a choice.

Since I did not want to anger her needlessly and because I was curious why she’d send that message, I headed over to the arena after the lessons for the day had ended. Martha was already waiting for me in the center of the ring, just like the first time and I was reluctant to enter the cage, to say the least.

“Didn’t think you’d come, to be honest,” was her greeting.
“Nice to see you too, Martha,” I retorted, motioned around us in an wide gesture before asking, “So, I’m here. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“Are you aware, what will happen tomorrow?”
Of course I knew. It’s been the talk on the streets all week, that the monthly inspector would be accompanied by the drill instructor to judge the battle prowess of the contestants.
After I told her, she nodded and said, “And I also assume that your little ‘school for the masses’ project isn’t really picking up? And that the support of the few you’ve got will falter sooner rather than later if you fail to produce results?”
“Well, what do you expect?! To teach these people everything they need to know over night? Without any materials or actual teachers? Look, I’m trying my best here, but I don’t—“
“Can it. I know that teaching is a lot harder than what it may seem like. My mom was a teacher, so believe me, I have a rather good idea of the trouble you’re currently going through.”
“Your mother…” I start, but shake my head, “You didn’t call me here to tell me that I was going to fail anyway and that I should just give it up before losing all the support I’ve still got, right?”
“No, I did not. I support the idea. Otherwise I wouldn’t have encouraged my girls to go check it out.”
“And it of course doesn’t have anything to do with them keeping you informed, am I right?”
Martha shrugs and replies, “Hey, information are important, even in this world. Either way, one of my girls told me that a bunch of brutes often harass some of the meeker students. Is that correct?”
I clenched my fist remembering the most recent incidents and finally admit, “There have been a...few incidents along those lines, yes. Nobody got hurt, but it was close a few times.”
“And that is, why you will fail. Not because you are a bad teacher or because the idea is destined to fail or anything. What you are lacking is neither the knowledge nor the enthusiasm to achieve your goal. What you are lacking is their respect. And that’s why I called you here. You see, there is a custom of sorts. When the drill instructor has finished with his lessons, there is always a tournament to determine, who the strongest of the bunch is. And the winner would certainly command some respect.”
“...so you want me to walk into this ring and beat them all up? Assuming I was even capable of that, why would I do that? I want to show them that ‘violence’ is not an answer, for crying out loud!”
Martha laughed and said, “Always a wuss, honestly. Fine, I’ll tell you something. I’m not telling you to fight. You could probably take those troublemakers down, but the actually serious competition...I don’t see you winning that. However you’ve got a smart head on your shoulders. And most of the people here are pretty proud of their strength. Now, let’s just assume that someone whom they consider inferior beat them at their own game by using something you are teaching…”
“Like what? I doubt things like ‘4 * 3 = 12’ is going to help them win any battles. You are comparing apples and pears over here, Martha.”
“So you are saying that there are no practical applications to what you are teaching then?”
“Well, of course there are. Plenty of them. But none of them are suited for the arena.”
“You’re thinking about this wrong, Thomas. Do not think of this place as ‘arena’. Think of it as ‘showroom’. Everyone from the whole town will be here tomorrow. Show them a few magic tricks using your knowledge and they’ll be far more likely to listen to you. Or...beat you to a pulp, I guess that depends on your presentation.”
“Lovely…”
“Your choice, Thomas. You can try to win them over with that ‘knowledge’ and ‘enthusiasm’ you’ve got...or you can fail silently. And none will hear you whimper in defeat.”
“...’So this is how it ends’, huh?”
“Precisely. Your choice: Will it be a ‘bang’? Or will there only be a ‘Whimper’?”

It took me a while to remember who had originally written these words. Google would’ve been able to tell me in 5 seconds flat, but alas, my internet access has been kinda ‘restricted’ ever since coming here, so I only had my memory to rely on. That Martha would know about T.S. Eliot came as a bit of a surprise though. But then again, I barely knew anything about her and her past life at that point. Not that Martha has been much of a chatterbox in that regard though. At least this verified one thing for me: She came from the same world as I did. Or at least similar enough to both have had T.S. Eliot and Batman. And I was thankful for that. I would have hated to have to deal with the alternative, her stemming from yet another realm of existence that is fundamentally different from the one I knew or the one I was in now.

Either way, that same evening, I convened with everyone I could get a hold of on short notice and we tried to figure out, how we could get people interested in the school we were building. How we could them interested in learning. At first most of my colleagues were very reluctant about disturbing the instructors visit like that, but when I reassured them, that I’d take care of all presentation, they worried less.

Honestly, just like back in school: It’s okay to prepare something behind the scenes, but nobody ever wanted to stand in front of class to present it.
I, on the other hand, never cared much about what ‘the others’ thought about me.
The perfect spokesman in that regard. Perfect for taking the fall.

And thus a presentation of what ‘education’ could do for everyone individually was put together in all haste.
And then the day of the inspectors visit came.
Today, the arena would become my proving grounds.
Though hopefully not in the way that most people were expecting.