She arrived half an hour late. She had set the alarm for 10:00 a.m., but turned it off when it rang. Those pills really knocked her out, leaving her so groggy she did not know whether it was day or night; she could barely even remember her own name…

The psychiatrist had been right. He had warned her not to overuse those sleeping pills because they caused "brain fog" and memory loss. She had been taking them for years, and they were beginning to take their toll.

She was certainly addicted, and her husband never stopped reminding her. But at least the pills made life bearable…

It was not until eleven that Joe came into her room. Since he worked nights, they slept in separate rooms so they would not disturb each other.

"Deb, honey…" he whispered in her ear. He had entered quietly, without turning on the light. "Don’t you have that meeting with the teachers at eleven thirty?"

She stirred and looked at him as though graciously sparing his life. The little light filtering through the lowered blinds was enough to see his face, and she wondered why he was not asleep too.

"Why aren’t you in bed?" she asked hoarsely. "What time is it?"

"Eleven. I was worried about the meeting. Want me to go instead?"

She seriously considered the offer. Yes, he could go and she could keep sleeping. But Joe would have gotten home from work at eight, eaten breakfast, taken a shower, and gone to bed at nine…

No, that was too much, she decided. Besides, after getting so worked up, she was unlikely to fall asleep again. So she sent her husband back to bed and got up. She took a quick shower, drank a strong cup of coffee, and, with an air of utter resignation, headed for the high school where her daughter supposedly "studied."

She reached the teachers’ lounge, a place she knew well from all her previous visits. The two of them were there, Frank and Monica, the same ones as before. Frank used to be the homeroom teacher, a very thin man in his fifties, though now she seemed to remember that Monica, a somewhat younger woman, was the homeroom teacher.

When she entered, Monica was placing books on a shelf while Frank read through some papers. When they saw her come in, Monica said:

"Good morning, Deborah. How are you?"

"Sorry I’m late," she muttered, still hoarse. She sounded hungover as she removed her sunglasses, revealing enormous dark circles that seemed to reach all the way to her feet.

"Please, have a seat," the man said, and all three sat around one of the tables. "We asked you to come because we’re concerned about your daughter."

"What did she do this time?" she snapped, before they had a chance to explain.

"Your daughter usually doesn’t do anything," Monica continued. "She’s not like other students, who really do ‘things.’" She stressed the words "really do."

"Then what is it?" she asked. "Is she going to repeat the grade again?"

"No," the homeroom teacher continued. "We think it would be best to move her up."

"Did she pass her exams?"

"That’s not the point," Frank interjected. "These days, unfortunately, passing or failing is almost beside the point."

A silence fell, and Monica continued:

"Deborah, when we decided to have your daughter repeat two grades, it was to put some distance between her and her classmates. You know what I mean…"

Her mother nodded, serious and resigned.

"She’s doing better with these younger girls now," the teacher added. "They don’t pick on her; they simply ignore her. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t make those… disgusting little monsters—I could use a much uglier word—repeat a grade instead of my daughter."

The two teachers looked at each other. After a sigh, Monica said:

"Look… Madison, Savannah, and all the others deserved to repeat a grade at least as much as your daughter did. But their parents wouldn’t allow it."

"Oh, but I did, right?"

"Well… we discussed it at the time…" he said, remembering when he had been her homeroom teacher. "We thought it was best for Emma. Her well-being has always been our main concern."

Deborah rested her hands in her lap. She looked out the teachers’ lounge window, which faced directly onto the schoolyard. A few kids were playing soccer, while another group of girls giggled and craned to see what one of them was showing on her phone. She wondered why all those kids were out there instead of in class when recess was already over. What a mess… she thought.

Then she covered her mouth, unable to hide a yawn.

"All right, tell me why you asked me to come in."

"Well," Frank began, "we know your daughter has received psychiatric care…"

"And psychological one," her mother added.

"Yes. And we wanted to ask whether she’s taking anything that might… make her fall asleep in class."

"She does that?"

"She does it quite often," Monica continued. "Not in every class, of course, but in many of them. She folds her arms on the desk, lays her head on them, and falls asleep."

Her mother stared at some vague point between the two teachers. She had been warned that the new pills she was taking had a delayed-release effect and kicked in at different stages. She was clearly entering one of those stages now, and the familiar brain fog began to settle over her. Not to mention how sleepy she was becoming…

"Deborah," Frank asked, "is your daughter taking any kind of medication?"

That snapped her awake at once.

"Absolutely not! She used to, but she tricked me…"

"Tricked you?"

"She pretended to take them, but she was actually hiding them in a drawer. And once she had saved up enough, she swallowed them all at once to…"

"Yes, we know why," Monica cut in. It was a delicate subject, and they preferred not to mention it. They were teachers, after all, and it was not their place. They had tried to intervene once and gotten burned for it.

"Then," Frank said, "is there some reason she isn’t sleeping at night?"

The woman nearly told him she had no idea what her daughter did at night. She had enough to deal with simply checking out of reality by abusing those pills. Instead, she said nothing. She kept staring at that middle point between the two teachers, her eyes unfocused. Only when the silence stretched on longer than usual did she say:

"Can’t you do something? If my daughter falls asleep, can’t you just wake her up and make her pay attention in class?"

The two teachers looked at each other again. After a few seconds, Frank spoke:

"Deborah, public high schools are a jungle. Teachers don’t really teach anymore."

"You don’t?"

"What’s the point?" Monica said. "Nobody listens to us…"

"It’s impossible to make ourselves heard over all the yelling. We’ve given up trying to quiet the students down because it doesn’t do any good. Since we can’t punish them, they do whatever they want."

"At the beginning of class, we just tell them the day’s topic and write a few essential notes on the board," she continued. "Then we sit down and basically make sure they don’t kill each other."

"It’s like daycare… for teenagers," Frank added.

"Well, I had no idea…"

"If you can, transfer your daughter to another school," he suggested. "One where students call the teacher by name instead of ‘hey, you.’"

"Which school?"

"Saint Mary, San Agustin…" she suggested. "A private school, of course."

"I can’t afford that. My husband doesn’t make much, and I… well, I don’t have a job."

The two teachers exchanged concerned looks.

"Deborah, your daughter is intelligent. She has more than enough ability to go as far as she wants. But of course, if all she does is sleep in class…"

"Is she always asleep?"

"Not always. The rest of the time, she’s staring at her phone."

"But isn’t that against the rules?"

"It is," Monica confirmed. "Like so many other things. But as Frank said earlier, there’s nothing we can do. Without any real consequences…"

"Don’t you search their backpacks?"

"We used to," he said. "We would search them and keep the phones in a cabinet until dismissal. But some parents filed lawsuits, and the teachers were disciplined. No one has done it since."

"Lawsuits over what?"

"Violation of the student’s privacy," Monica replied. "Apparently, their backpacks are considered part of their private lives."

"Okay, but once they take the phone out—especially during class—can’t you step in then?"

"There’s still nothing we can do. There was another complaint at Cama’s High School. A teacher made the mistake of glancing—even just briefly—at what a student was viewing, and the student reported him for intruding on his private life."

"For violating the privacy of communications," Monica clarified.

"The privacy of… what communications?"

They both sighed, and Frank went on to explain.

"A judge ruled that social media is comparable to private correspondence. One person sends messages to another… Anyway, you get the idea."

Deborah tried to make sense of it, but she could hardly believe what she was hearing.

"But… would a parent really start a lawsuit, hire an attorney, and go through all that trouble… over this?"

"If the parents knew the truth, they probably wouldn’t. But the kids tell them whatever they want, and the parents believe them."

"What do they tell them?"

"Well, in that case, the girl in question arrived home in tears and told her parents that the teacher was pursuing her. That he fancied her… you know what I mean... And that he’d taken her phone away to see if she was chatting with her boyfriend."

"That’s incredible…"

"Yes, it really Is," Mónica nodded. "Thank God none of that could be proven, although the teacher was suspended without pay until the trial took place."

"That’s outrageous!"

"It all came down to the matter of the messages," he added. "That couldn't be denied in any way. The girl’s classmates saw him take the phone, and the judge concluded that there had been snooping."

"Students are untouchable, Deborah. They have that kind of power, and they do whatever they want."

A shout rang out in the hallway, followed by running footsteps. Then came another, less frantic yell, and afterward, laughter. The teachers did not even flinch.

"Don’t worry," Monica said. "This is normal."

"Normal? What’s going on?"

"Nothing. Same old thing."

"But… aren’t you going to do anything?"

"There’s already someone in the hallway keeping an eye on things," the teacher pointed out. "The fewer of us who get involved, the less trouble we’ll have."

Another shout rang out, this time from an adult—probably the hall monitor. He was reprimanding the kids, though they did not seem to pay much attention. The laughter continued, only farther away now, until it finally faded.

Deborah fell silent for a few moments, thinking that public high schools were not really jungles. They were closer to concentration camps, only with the roles reversed. The teachers were the victims, and the students the tormentors. Not to mention that, among the students themselves, there were also victims and tormentors.

"But what are the kids looking at on their phones all day?" she said at last.

"It depends on the case," Frank began. "The guys, usually adult sites. You know what I mean..."

"Yes, I understand."

"And the girls… well, they follow influencers on social networks and spend all day watching their videos."

"Who knows what those people are telling them…" the teacher added. "They give them a distorted picture of reality, as you can imagine."

"The picture of reality you can’t give them because they won’t listen to you, right?"

"That’s right, Deborah," Monica said. "No one listens to us anymore. In fact, I think education as we know it will cease to exist sooner or later."

"Eventually, we’ll be replaced by youth workers whose job is to ‘engage’ the groups, like they do in juvenile centers, for example."

"I see. Then what? How will the kids learn?"

"They won’t. They’ll be manipulated by those damn influencers, who will make them think and believe whatever they want, and they’ll never know how to do anything. When they reach adulthood—once their parents are gone—they’ll live on government benefits, and the state will keep them entertained and hooked on TV shows all day long."

"I’m afraid that’s the future waiting for us," the teacher agreed.

"Maybe it’s better not to live to see it," Deborah said.

"Absolutely. That’s why I advise you to find the money to transfer your daughter to another school. As I said, she’s intelligent, and in the right hands, she’ll get the education she needs."

The woman drifted off into her thoughts again, and the teacher added:

"We don’t say this to just any parent. There would be no point in sending many of the… students who roam these halls to a school like that. But your daughter is different," he emphasized. "If you enroll her there, she could join that privileged group who, someday, will be able to shake off the yoke of media tyranny and live freely."

A bell rang throughout the school, signaling the end of one class period and the start of another. The teachers stood, and she followed suit. Both of them had to return to their classrooms, so they said goodbye.

The woman left with her head down. On the way home, she thought about what they had told her, but it did no good. When she arrived, she found the kitchen a complete mess, with all of the previous day’s dishes piled in the sink, the cooktop covered in grease, and the floor filthy.

The thought of dealing with all of it made her feel faint, so she took the easy way out. She went into her bedroom, swept the enormous pile of clothes off the bed—some dirty, some clean—lowered the blinds, took a sleeping pill, and lay down.

When she woke up, well into the afternoon, she could not remember why she had gone to school that morning. It was probably because of something Emma had done, she thought. After all, the girl was rebellious, and she did not cause problems only for her parents. When her husband asked, she said:

"Nothing. It was just a routine meeting. Oh, right," she recalled fleetingly. "They said our daughter is doing well and will move on to the next grade."

Fortunately for her, Joe had already cleaned up the kitchen, so she could sit down in peace to watch the afternoon gossip show on television. That way, she could tune everything out and escape reality. And if her daughter was not home, so much the better. One less problem. She had already given up trying to control her; there was no point.