"Dad, please. I need to stop." Riaz bent over, his hands stuck to his knees as he tried to breathe through his nose and out his mouth. He was covered in sweat and his hair was plastered to his scalp.

"No, I tell you when to stop." Zaheer said from behind the punching bag. "Now aim high."

"I need my glasses." The nausea had trebled with the strenuous exercise regime his father had him on, yet he showed no mercy.

"Is the week up?" Zaheer asked.

"No." Riaz tried to stand upright, yet immediately resorted to his previous position.

"Exactly. I told you a week and your week is up tomorrow. Now, aim high." Zaheer held onto the punching bag.

He stood up and staggered towards his father, his boxing glove uncomfortably tight as he stood in his father's preferred stance. "Aim high." Zaheer reminded him, yet again.

Aim high.

Aim high.

Aim high.

Riaz had even forgotten what it had felt like to aim high. He was alive merely to exist, not to dream.

Dreams were too expensive to exist in his line of vision.

***

"Claire!" Zaheer's voice boomed from the hallway ahead of Riaz's room.

"I'm coming...coming." His mother's mumbles could be heard from the staircase.

"What is this?" Zaheer asked, looking at the sideboard.

"I don't know." His mother looked down to where his father pointed, perplexed.

"You don't know? Aren't you even conscious of what goes on in this house?" He bent her head to show her what she was meant to see.

"No no. Sorry." She whispered. "Sorry."

"This vase is not where it's supposed to be." He pointed at the little circular blue vase, an inch off from its usual position.

"Dad..." Riaz tried to interrupt.

"Walk away, Riaz." His father looked up at him, his hand still clenched tightly around his mother's neck. Riaz stood, rooted to the ground. He didn't know how to even move one foot ahead of the other in that instant. "I said," Zaheer's hand had seemed to fist tighter, earning a gasp from his mother, "Walk away."

Riaz sat on his bed, overhearing every one of his mother's whispered apologies as his father tried to teach her. He knew what Zaheer would do. He would remove the vase over and over, and have her place it in the exact position over and over and over again till she remembered. Her stuttered apologies echoed as his father kept removing the vase till his mother learnt her lesson.

There was a time when his mother would talk to him. She would smile at him and laugh with him and play hopscotch with him. He was so proud that he had the most beautiful mother in the whole class. He had inherited her green eyes and dark blond hair. He had even inherited her hundreds of freckles and that had made him so happy when he was a kid. He loved being reminded of his mother.

His beautiful, bright, happy mother.

And then one day, his father broke her.

Like a china doll that he could stamp on, he extinguished every bit of light within her and had left her a cracked, ugly, shell instead. And his father reveled in his success. He seemed to breathe it in and luxuriate within the idea of breaking someone. He was toxic and he survived by infecting those around him. He lit up at the thought of darkness and chaos.

He was fear personified and he delighted in it.

...

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us- if at all- not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

"It's a paradox, Sir." The little bee piped up from next to him.

"Explain, Miss Domingo."

"They're there but they aren't at the same time. They're a nameless shape and colour because they're indistinguishable to themselves. They don't realise that they're hollow because they're so busy moving nowhere and harnessing all their effort into it that they've mistook their vain efforts for plausible, actual actions. They're living in a moment which has passed them yet they think they're passing that moment but they're stuck."

"Interesting analysis." Mr Walker seemed as if he was about to smile but had changed his mind at the last minute. "Mr Adam, look to the front please."

Riaz's whole body jerked as Mr Walker pulled him out of the trance he did not even realise he was in. Was he really even looking in the little bee's direction? He shook his head of his taciturn thoughts and tried to concentrate on what was being said.

Smile.

Riaz picked up the note, barely bothered trying to figure out where it had come from.

He crushed up the note as the bell signaled and threw it in the bin on his way out.

...

Please don't. Please.

Help me.

The hand that had clenched around her began to lose its grip. It seemed as if its life force was slowly being drained.

Help me. Please don't. Please help.

The hand scrabbled against hers, scratching wildly at her palms, tearing into it.

Blood stained her bedsheets. Blood that could never, ever be washed.

Tasneem could feel the tears pouring down her cheek before she even awoke. It was the tears that stemmed from guilt so deep that it seemed to drown her as she walked. He could hear her crying. He was standing right by her door and he would hear every sound that she made.

She kept her eyes closed. She turned the other way, praying he would get tired of looking at her back and walk away.

But she was wrong. His footsteps were light as he entered her room and neared her bed. His breathing was much calmer than her own as he walked right up to her side and knelt down to look at her face. Slowly, carefully he wiped the tears that ran across her face. She wished she had kept her eyes fully closed not knowing that he had tasted them before he stood back up and walked away.

She breathed out only when she had heard his door close and sat up slowly. Sweat soaked her hair and ran in rivulets down her back. She walked to her bathroom to wash her face, ridding herself of his presence. She looked up in the mirror and felt an odd sense of melancholy.

Was this the girl that people see when they look at her?

She knew it was her yet she felt as if her mind and body had disconnected for just a few seconds as she looked at herself, not really realising that that was her.

Was that what the boy next to her saw too?

She shook her head of her desolate thoughts as she unbound her hair from her braid and began tying it again.

...

His mother had forgotten to dust the units and his father had noticed. He couldn't go down again. He couldn't bear the thought of interrupting them... he was scared to see what he might interrupt. All that was known was cloth ripping and gasped apologies and a meticulous explanation of how dusting should be done.

Over

And over

And over again.

Farhana was in her room. He was thankful for that. She had alreadyfelt disgust for their mother and hearing that would push her further into her notions. She did not see the other side of his mother. The side of her that was still fixed and whole. The side that reminded him that this life was not normal. She didn't understand. She didn't hear...

He turned the page of his book, allowing a small slip of paper to fall into his lap.

My teacher wasn't half as nice as yours seems to be.

His name was Mister Unsworth and he taught history.

And when you didn't know a date he'd get you by the ear

And start to twist while you sat there quite paralysed with fear.

He's twist and twist and twist your ear and twist it more and more.

Until at last the ear came off and landed on the floor.

Our class was full of one-eared boys. I'm certain there were eight.

Who'd had them twisted off because they didn't know a date.

So let us now praise teachers who today are all so fine

And yours in particular is totally divine.

Riaz read it and reread it once more.

The smallest of smiles graced his face.

Maybe the little bee wasn't that bad after all.

A/N- The poem used during their English lesson is called The Hollow Men by T S Elliot.

The second poem is by Roald Dahl and it's called My teacher wasn't half as nice as yours seems to be.