Short Story Collection

My Teacher Lived Through History

I love my History class. It's like no other history class I've ever had. Mr. Andino describes the events in such detail it's like he was there. Whenever I do a research project, I find that Mr. Andino is the perfect source. However, only the big events of his retelling can be verified. Mr. Andino will make comments like "Of course, that made Plato really mad. He almost didn't write that book." or "Lincoln almost missed the play because his youngest son wouldn't get ready in time"

Today was the day I decided to ask him about how he got all this insight into these events. If there is a book with that much detail, I want it.

The lecture today was very interesting. It was about how democracy started in Athens. From the way Mr. Andino was walking about it, it sounded like he witnessed it first hand. He would say "Now there was a lot of arguing over this idea" and "The first vote was thirteen-thousand to seventeen-thousand." It only made me more determined to find out how he knew. I looked up what he said and found a bunch of articles and other sources on democracy in Athens, but nothing on what the voting results were or which topics were argued the most.

After the class was over, I went over to Mr. Andino's desk and asked him how he knew all the small details of historical events. He said "I knew someone was going to ask eventually. You can't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you." I nodded hesitantly. I was really confused when he said this. "I lived through all of it." I started to laugh. The thought was ridiculous. No one can live that long. I looked back at him and he wasn't smiling.

"You're serious?" I asked. There's no way this is possible. This has to be a prank. He nodded slowly. I wanted to believe he was lying. This doesn't make sense to me, but something told me he was telling the truth. I still wanted to make sure though. So, what better way to do that than ask questions you had to be at that event to know the answer to.

"What shoes were most the men wearing when they voted?" I know it's random, but it was the first thing that came to mind. "Most of them were wearing traditional sandals, the richer men were wearing more elaborate sandals." I was surprised by his answer. I didn't expect him to know, and even if he was there, I wasn't expecting him to remember. I continued asking him questions until I was satisfied. He didn't stop me. I ended up being late to my next class, but it was okay because Mr. Andino gave me a late pass.

How cool is it to have an immortal teacher? 

A/N: I'm not sure how I feel about this story.