Story XVII: Solomio

A boarding school prank spirals into psychological warfare between a bullied teacher and a college-bound senior. Approximately 20-minute read.

After their teacher was overheard singing in the chapel during Orientation Week, the second formers began to call Master Steiner “Mr. Solomio.” The nickname, misunderstood to mean “all by myself,” leeched outward from the Lower School Circle.

Mocking impressions of Solomio were sung in the man’s earshot from the cloistered safety of groups, from below stairwells, and through insider cruelties in the school paper. By winter term, the new teacher in the Music department was ostracized from every direction. The chill seeped into faculty meeting seating arrangements.

Master Steiner pressed on in feigned obliviousness, his rehearsal practices unrelenting. Even in the depths of winter that year, the tall, slight man could be spotted like clockwork, kicking through the snow, carrying his dog in his arms to protect her feet from the icy pathways.

Punctually at 7pm, he entered the chapel through the main doors. Within a minute, his singing voice began to drift towards the open windows of the L…