For her, science had always been a real joy.
Not only did she like teaching science, but the subject of light transmission was one of her absolute favourites. With her back to the class, she was explaining how the transmission of light was simply a case of electromagnetic waves moving through a material. More interesting, she was saying, was the fact that selective transmission comes about when different amounts of light pass through a medium, depending on their wavelength and their visibility, they then cause the media to appear in the form of different colours. She had been so engrossed in her subject, with her carefully penned diagrams that now almost covered the entire white-board, that she hadn’t noticed the silence. She was thinking she would ask for examples of selective transmission when she turned back to the class. What she saw made her gasped audibly.
In the few minutes that she’d been preoccupied with her meticulous sketching of illustrations, she hadn’t noticed that not a single pupil out of fifteen normally very bright boys and girls, was actually listening. Instead, without exception, they were all staring wide-eyed into their mobile phones.
With her hands on her hips, she called out, “Class!”
No one moved. It was as though her pupils had all gone into some sort of trance. She was aware of the fact that what she was seeing had her trembling in a state of nervous confusion. She had never experienced anything like it in more than a dozen years of teaching.
Moving forward, she became aware of a colourful flickering that was emanating from every screen, but before she had the chance to look more carefully at this she saw the eyes of the closest pupil. Eyes, or more precisely, the lack of them. She looked closely in horror at what she saw. No pupil, no iris, just a white glistening ball from eyelid to eyelid.
She snatched up one of the phones to look more closely at the images that were having such a devastating effect on her class. She stood studying the colourful pattern for a moment.
Her eyes went white…