I am enjoying my new job, my new life; enjoying the time I now have to myself. I find my position as a legal secretary far more satisfying than I could have predicted. I am saturated with the relief of no longer being a teacher. All is going well when suddenly I get a call from my old job: There is a teacher shortage, and I have to come back. I want to say no, but they inform me that my official quit date has not arrived, and I have no access to the proof I need to show them otherwise.
Filled with impotent anger, I take precious time off work from my new job, terrified that somehow I'll lose it and have to teach forever; filled with dread, I walk back down the halls that still suffocate me with the haunting smell of decriptude and despair that leaks from the mortar of a building fallen from glory to ruin. I try to slip into my classroom unnoticed; I fail. Students drift into the room to confront me, rage at me, mock me. Some are kind. Most are not. I am tired. In the midst of their questions, beratings, insolence, I am inexorably aware of the clock ticking toward the first bell. In a few minutes I will have to teach them, and I have no lesson plans. My nerves, my bones remember this potent cocktail of stress, anxiety, and indifference.
The bell rings and I attempt to call the room to order. The students laugh at my raised hand, my raised voice counting backward from five. They point while they laugh, and I look down and realize that I am wearing a long summer gown, low-cut, beautiful but utterly unsuited for teaching. The boys are all leering, their eyes bright. Now I must try to rise to authority over their view of me as a sex object. The vice principal walks past my room, a malicious half-smile on his face. I flip him off. Everything disintegrates in a kaleidoscope of chaos. I wake up sweating.
I still have nightmares about teaching.
