Leftovers for the Living

A spin off short story. This is a scene that is alluded to in my novel 'Inside the Suit' - enjoy!

The corridor outside Señor Gil’s office was still and airless, as if even the building was holding its breath. Sunlight stretched across the tiled floor in pale bands. From down the hall, the faint clatter of cutlery echoed from the canteen, accompanied by a burst of laughter and the metallic slam of a tray against the counter.

Rivera stood beside a row of faded blue chairs – las sillas de la muerte, as the students called them. The death chairs. It was where they sat waiting – after fights, after failures – in that heavy silence that always lingered before a meeting with the Headmaster. Rivera didn’t sit.

His arms were folded, jaw locked, eyes fixed on the patch of floor where the light stopped. The heat clung faintly to his skin; even the breeze from the courtyard felt warm, drying rather than cooling.

“Entra,” came the voice from within. Followed by: “A school is a garden. And weeds spread fastest when the soil goes unattended.”

Rivera recognised the tone – Gil had already begun his performance before his audience had even arrived. He stepped inside.

Gil’s office was cooler than the corridor, the air faintly scented with eucalyptus polish and something vaguely medicinal – a popular local moisturiser that everyone’s grandmother used. Frosted windows let in light but blocked all view, sealing the room off from the rest of the world.

The desk was aggressively tidy. Not a computer or loose sheet of paper in sight – only a few carefully arranged items: a basil plant in a clay pot, its leaves curling at the edges; a wooden spoon; a long matchbox; a tin of furniture polish; a broken compass; and what looked suspiciously like an earthquake detector. A mug labelled Mejor jefe del mundo held no pens, only stillness.

The room felt like it was waiting. As if it always had been.

Rivera’s gaze skimmed past the odd collection on the desk, and for a fleeting, unwelcome moment, he pictured Marilena’s hands, red and chapped from the sink, stacking yesterday’s trays.

Gil was standing, his large frame partially turned toward the frosted window. He had the posture of a man halfway through a monologue – one he’d been rehearsing all morning. His white hair bloomed like a halo, and his sleeves were rolled with theatrical precision.

Gil gestured loosely toward the painted words on the wall: Belonging. Connection. Excellence.

“We cannot tend to excellence,” he said, “if we’re trampling over connection.” He had the stillness of a man who mistook being listened to for being understood, and the voice of someone who filled silence with metaphors – not to confuse, but to comfort. He spoke like a fable in search of a listener.

Rivera said nothing. He’d heard this line before – maybe in a staff meeting, maybe in an assembly. Maybe both. The theatre of it grated today.

Gil turned to face him fully now, then gestured toward the chair opposite the desk – a prompt to begin the next act.

Rivera sat. Stocky, solid, his grey hair cropped close, a faint scar just visible beneath his shirt collar. His record was sealed now, but the rumours weren’t. Still, no one questioned how quickly silence fell when he entered a room. There was a tension in his posture that suggested he was bracing for something – or perhaps holding something back.

Gil remained standing for a moment longer, fingers steepled, as if weighing something invisible in the air between them. Then, with slow ceremony, he lowered himself into his chair – not slumping, but settling, like a curtain falling.

“I’ve had a concern brought to me,” he said.

Rivera let the words hang, offering no reply. His expression was unreadable.

Gil leaned back slightly, still composed. “That you called yesterday’s food leftovers for the living. That it was said in front of students.”

Rivera met his gaze. “That’s accurate.”

Gil nodded slowly. “You don’t deny it.”

“I don’t.”

“The students didn’t report it,” Gil added. “They wouldn’t – not to me. But it travelled.”

Rivera shifted slightly, something hard flickering behind his eyes.

“The rice was clumped. The meat was more bone than anything else. The students had peach juice and dry bread for dessert. That’s not lunch – it’s keeping them upright.”

Gil didn’t flinch. “They do deserve better. But the kitchen’s doing the best it can with the funding we receive. You know that.”

His voice remained level, though a weight had gathered behind each word. “Marilena has worked in that kitchen for over twenty years. She’s served food to three generations of the same families. Yesterday, she went home early – in tears.”

The fan overhead ticked as it rotated, stirring the still air without cooling it.

“I didn’t name her,” Rivera said eventually. “It was not an attack.”

“But she felt it.”

Gil turned toward the basil, brushing the edge of a wilted leaf with the back of his finger – a gesture somewhere between reverence and regret.

“I eat there every day,” he said, voice low but deliberate. “Sometimes I help with prep. Last week I chopped onions for the arroz brut – tears and all – while the Year Sevens tried to rank all the Disney deaths from least to most traumatising. It wasn’t just food, Rivera. It was ritual. Fellowship. The quiet stitching of a community.”

Rivera didn’t respond. He’d once seen Gil mowing the school lawn in his shirt and tie, sleeves pulled up like a martyr. He’d rolled his eyes then, and nearly did again.

“I know,” Rivera said.

“And yet you said what you said.”

“I was frustrated,” Rivera said, then paused. “But that’s not an excuse.”

“No,” Gil agreed.

The silence that followed was neither hostile nor comfortable.

Gil opened the drawer of his desk and drew out a single sheet of paper. “This is a formal warning. For the record.”

Rivera glanced at it. “Because I criticised the food?”

“Because of where and how you did it,” Gil said. “Because people listen when you speak.”

Rivera signed the form. His handwriting was small, compact.

Gil folded the paper without looking at it and set it aside.

“I’d like you to apologise to Marilena,” he said.

Rivera looked at him for a long time. “Will she want that?”

Gil met his eyes. “She deserves it.”

His voice softened. “There were voices who didn’t want you here, once. But I trusted you. I gave you that chance – when others said a man with your history had no place in a school. Maybe now it’s time to offer someone else the same grace.”

The fly that had been circling earlier buzzed once against the windowpane, then went still.

Rivera nodded once, a tight, reluctant gesture. “Está bien.”

Gil watched him carefully. “You’ve done good work here, Rivera. Real work. Not just lessons – anchors. You’ve kept students steady who might have drifted. They respect you. So do the staff – even the ones who don’t admit it.”

Rivera’s expression barely changed, but something in his posture loosened – a single uncoiled thread.

Gil’s voice dropped, quieter now. “And that kind of weight... it doesn’t float, Rivera. It sinks. Plants don’t grow well under stones.”

Rivera stood. He paused before the door.

Gil spoke again, quietly. “You and I don’t always take the same road. But I know we’re walking in the same direction.”

Rivera glanced back over his shoulder. “You walk your road, I’ll walk mine.”

Gil didn’t move. “That’s enough for me.”

Rivera gave a short nod – the kind of gesture you perfect when you’ve been given more chances than you deserved. Acknowledgement, if not agreement. Then he stepped back out into the corridor.

The heat met him immediately, as thick as the stillness that had followed his words in the canteen yesterday. He’d seen the shock freeze on a few faces before the usual clamour rushed back in – not shame, exactly, but the sharp aftertaste of a truth spoken too harshly, landing on the wrong target.

The blue plastic chairs sat untouched, hot to the touch, gleaming faintly – like punishment waiting its turn.

The door clicked shut.

Somewhere, a bell rang. The day continued.