Mr. silas pelf
686 Words
The air of Room 309 was thick with the fumes of youth and financial ignorance. Mr. Silas Pelf stood beside a whiteboard, and even under the fluorescent glare, his symmetry was startling. His face was a study in sharp, classical lines, framed by dark hair that seemed to fall into place with impossible precision. He was handsome, undeniably, in the unnerving way a highly polished weapon is beautiful. It was a beauty that carried the chill of perfection, suggesting a man who used every calorie efficiently.
He was lecturing on the 1929 stock market crash, his voice a low, even baritone that had drawn more than one student’s gaze away from their notes.
“The desire for more is the only reliable force in history,” Pelf stated.
He was gaunt, but not weak. He was slender to the point of being almost skeletal, a frame that accentuated the severe tailoring of his jacket. His pale blue eyes were magnetic, not because they promised passion, but because they offered a laser-like, unsettling focus. When they rested on a student, they didn't see potential; they saw quantifiable value, debt, and eventual loss.
As the bell shrieked, signaling the end of the period, Pelf didn't move. He simply watched the twenty-three pennies that one girl dropped disappear into the grime under the radiator. His expression, perfect and cold, remained unchanged. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his worn, steel penny, turning the metal over with a thumb that was long and surgeon-precise.
His handsomeness was his quiet deception, a surface of impossible perfection designed to draw in the curious. The bell marked the end of his day life, but the beginning of his true work. He was the Consegrue, and he had come to collect. The silence in Room 309 was now absolute, broken only by the thin, rhythmic scratch of a pen.
Mr. Silas Pelf was not correcting essays. The desk was bare of student papers; instead, a worn, leather-bound book lay open—the Ledger of Sufficiency. Pelf ran his long, precise fingers over the cracked spine, his handsome face set in an expression of detached finality. This was the true curriculum.
He was grading lives.
Each name on the parchment represented a soul who had transgressed the fundamental cosmic law: to desire more than the necessary. Most entries were simple F's—the neighbor who hoarded expired coupons, the cashier who took an extra fifty dollars from the register. Petty, common Greed. Their imbalance was trivial, their consequence a life of nagging dissatisfaction and pointless accumulation. They were not worth the Consegrue's personal attention.
Pelf’s eyes, the pale, assessing silver of struck flint, traveled down the page until they found the current entry. It was highlighted in a corrosive, bloodless red.
Name: Valen, Arthur.
Vocation: Financial Titan.
Imbalance Index: 17.4 text{ Billion} uparrow (This Quarter Alone)
Transgression: Theft of Sufficiency – Cornering water and grain markets, starvation of 6.2M.
Pelf marked the final grade: A (Avarice).
"An exemplary score," Pelf murmured, his voice as dry and cold as dust. "The perfect execution of acquisition without contribution."
Unlike the others, Arthur Valen hadn't just desired more; he had deliberately engineered less for everyone else, believing his distance and wealth provided immunity. He was not a thief of money, but a thief of balance. He had created an existential debt that the cosmos now demanded be paid.
Pelf closed the Ledger with a quiet snap that echoed in the empty classroom. The handsome facade fell away, revealing the raw, ancient force beneath. The air temperature dropped noticeably, settling on the exact, chilling entropy of zero gain.
He stood, his shadow stretching across the geometry of the classroom floor, and stepped out into the afternoon light. He was no longer Mr. Silas Pelf, the quiet economics teacher. He was the Consegrue, and the price of Arthur Valen’s life was now due. he never delt with it quick though he watched for weeks at a time so this was just the beginning.
- Writer
