asked the students what she did.
and without a halt
they all said, "Opened a circuit."

Although, she may have also
saved that tiny increment of ergotic entropy 
that prevented the greenhouse effect from initiating that day,
or, in the enveloping darkness of the classroom,
made one child so wish for the world of real light
that one day we would marvel at her watercolors,
or, lowered electrical consumption to a point that triggered
higher utility costs that forced one of her students families from their home,
or, caused an alien scientist, light years away, 
to wonder if the slight fluctuation of light in the middle of the day
from a point in the middle of some land mass was
an anomalous or periodic event.

In any case,
more paths were closed that day than opened.




			Brandywine
			4/22/98