The Flickering Light
3 min readJun 13, 2022
Josh bit his lip in nervousness as he limped in pain through the corridor. The tube light was flickering on and off and on again. Making buzzing noises outside the empty classrooms of Ravern Public School. He took a little support while holding on to the wall and managed to limp to the office.”Oh Mr Jackson, welcome back! What happened this time? Did you scrape your knee again? “Um, no Miss Dane, I sprained my ankle and can’t walk. May I please come in?” “Sure you can, we’ll just take a look at it and bandage it.” Before he knew it, it was lunch time. The faint voices of children screaming made Josh realise he would miss a whole 40 minutes of soccer.
Sitting in sick bay for 2 hours is for sure as boring as it can be. What caught his attention was crying in the middle of the playground. The noise stood out from all of the screaming. One of the grade ones had fallen over. His elbow was bleeding enough to fill a bucket. The teacher who saw him pointed to the office but he refused to go. Then Josh realised it was the light. Honestly, he thought to himself, that light gave me the creeps as well.
Two days later, word spread round a ghost was in the school which was the reason the light was always flickering. After that day, no one dared to go near the office. The light was flickering every day. Usually the school’s playground would be open for children to play. Due to the tube light nobody came to the school to play.
It was a massive old dusty looking tube, attached to a dark yellow long rectangle with two holders hanging down which helped hold the curved tube. It was definitely old, scary and ugly looking.There was nothing to help the students with their fear of the ‘ghost’.
“It is just an old light, there is nothing to be afraid of.” stated principal Brian at their assembly.”The school has many pending developments and we can’t afford to change the tube light.” Even after the long talk at assembly nobody would step foot near the office. The teachers were exploited to walk from their class to the office and back.
Eventually, the higher grades got used to it and weren’t so scared anymore but the younger ages especially grade ones were still praying to get the light removed. Getting used to it did not stop the older grades to find ways to get rid of the light.
During a usual lunchtime, a grade six threw a soccer ball at the light. The holders loosed up and the light began shaking. Then, it started dangling on one end. Eventually it fell to the ground and shattered to pieces. The noise attracted many students, even those on the other side of the playground.
The boy had to sit in detention but the rest of the school were speechless. The ghost was gone! There was nothing better. All the teachers were saying that their students have never been happier since the ‘Free Day’.
