I’m sitting here in the garden, it’s late, and the night air is cool. It used to be I’d be up prepping lessons, or marking papers, or just unwinding after a day of… well, of being a teacher. Sixty-two years old. Retired. And I don’t even know what to do with myself. It’s not like I didn’t think about this. Planned for it, even. Had the garden all laid out, books to read. But the bells aren’t ringing anymore. No children’s voices. No schedule. It’s just… quiet. Too quiet. Like when you get back from a tour, and the world is suddenly just… soft. And you keep waiting for the noise to start again, for the next order, but it never comes. Just this soft civilian hum that makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong by just existing. I mean, I spent thirty-odd years shaping those kids. Trying to instill some discipline, some sense of purpose. Some of them needed it, believe me. Some of them probably didn’t understand why I was so hard on them, why I pushed. But I always thought, I mean, I *really* thought I was doing the right thing. Giving them what I never had, or what I had to fight for. Something to make them strong. Now I look back and I wonder if I was just… what was I doing? Was it for them, or was it for me? To feel important. Useful. Like I had a mission. Because when you’re out there, you always have a mission. And here? My mission is to water the petunias. I don’t even… whatever. The worst part is I feel like I let some of them down. Some of the quiet ones. The ones who probably just needed someone to listen, and I was so busy trying to whip everyone into shape, I missed it. I saw weaknesses where maybe there was just… something else. Something I didn’t understand. I tried to apply the same rules to everyone, the same way I learned. But people aren't all the same. And now there’s no way to go back. No way to fix it. Just this empty feeling, like I stood on a platform for decades, yelling instructions, and now the platform is gone and I’m just… standing in the dirt. And I don’t know what I was ever really doing, or why.