I’m teaching and I turn around. There’s a man sitting at one of the desks. He’s staring at me; a blank look boring through me. He’s not old, but he looks it. His eyes are glazed, his face is dirty, disgusting, his hair matted from days and nights on sidewalks. Dried saliva cakes the sides of his mouth, a grotesque chalk marking his slack jaw. A fly buzzes around his face, but he doesn’t move. The fly lands on his eye, sawing its legs together as the man sits still as death, his eyes still looking straight down through me.
I wake up with a gasp. I start to cry, but I never bring home my books. I leave them at school. I leave them behind. Instead, I take sleeping pills on the weekdays and alcohol on the weekends. With just enough, I can suffocate the dreams. But now, now what am I? When I turn around, am I looking at myself?
1 comments:
I feel I need to clarify somethings. First, the sleeping pills is an exaggeration; I was taking vitamins that are supposed to aid sleep. But taking sleeping vitamins doesn't sound cool, so I apologize for any alarm I may have caused.
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