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Teachers’ Pets, and Fools for Love

Marco Di Marco's “Moving Like Geckos” has a fraternal twin in last year's queer issue. Polish writer Eva Schilling's  “Fool”  also features a teacher-student pairing; in this case, though, the characters are female, and the classroom is not in an urban university, but in a provincial (and far riskier) high school.  Caught between rumor and reality, Schilling's conflicted Alina struggles with her passion for her dynamic student, Anka. As in “Moving Like Geckos,” the power structure is inverted: the instructor may have the authority, but the student has the upper hand.  “Admittedly there is no female form for 'fool' in Polish,” Alina notes sardonically; but like the Fool in the Tarot, she stands “at the edge of the abyss.”

English

Marco Di Marco's “Moving Like Geckos” has a fraternal twin in last year's queer issue. Polish writer Eva Schilling's  “Fool”  also features a teacher-student pairing; in this case, though, the characters are female, and the classroom is not in an urban university, but in a provincial (and far riskier) high school.  Caught between rumor and reality, Schilling's conflicted Alina struggles with her passion for her dynamic student, Anka. As in “Moving Like Geckos,” the power structure is inverted: the instructor may have the authority, but the student has the upper hand.  “Admittedly there is no female form for 'fool' in Polish,” Alina notes sardonically; but like the Fool in the Tarot, she stands “at the edge of the abyss.”

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