sound.

Friday, 11:58 am.

Alone in my cool classroom, I sit and read. On my right, a soprano from the choir sings strains of an unfamiliar aria in the schoolyard, her beautiful voice wafting through my door. Through the open windows to my left, birds chirp happily, eagerly announcing the impending arrival of summer. A hundred metres down the way the entire grade 12 class has assembled for their final assembly as today is their last official day of lessons. Intermittently, their raucous laughter and thunderous applause crackles through the air, raising the hair on my arms. And above all, the ever-present cacophony of students' voices - chattering, laughing, screaming, whispering - fills the warm late-october air...