Tag Archives: School

I’m Looking Through You

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Trying to write, computer keeps shutting down from being too hot. Maybe it’s what I am writing that is too hot. Maybe it’s the email attachments that are too hot. Maybe it’s Chris Murtagh. Or Mark Walden. Or Keith Moh.

Maybe it’s a lot of things. But in any event, I should write as much as I can before the computer crashes. That means you should ignore or overlook all errors, both spelling and grammatical.

I asked Bill is his Mac was working and he bought a new cable for it a few weeks ago, just never got around to hooking it up. He tried to tell me where the cable was for the Mac but it wasn’t where he said it was.

He did say he was taking half a day from work and would hook it up so I could use it tonight. Well he did come home, the mail was here and there are four boxes of Crystal Light precariously set on the edge of a table.

Plus there is a plastic supermarket bag in the middle of the floor filled with garbage which wasn’t there when I left the apartment this morning. And there is no cable hooked up to the Mac.

Right now I have a fan blowing full blast into the now uncovered computer tower on the floor. Seems to be doing the job. Plus it’s not the 90 something degree heat that was going on all day.

Today I went back to work. My Monday, your Wednesday. I didn’t want to go to work but really didn’t have much of a choice. The mantra continues. Sometimes the mantra is an albatross, sometimes it actually makes sense. Tonight it made sense.

It was just Calvin and Sean and myself tonight, after Don Birch left at 7PM. I write with what seems like the grim computer reaper standing behind me. The computer could shut down at any moment. Must continue writing.

Work was a bore.

It’s now September 1. Some kids are going back to school. Occasionally the feeling of despair that I felt when I was but a child comes into my frame of reference. How I hated school.

From day one. I think the only good time I had in school was actually 8th grade, 1976. I couldn’t wait to get out of school. The idea of college which I did hold as a possibility was dropped when in Junior year of high school when Sister Reginald told us that we were there in her class because we had to be there.

When we went to college, no one was going to make us go. It suddenly became clear. If I don’t want to do something, chances are that I won’t do it. If I don’t have to go to class, then I won’t. That would be a total waste of money.

Plus, my parents did not pay for my brothers and sister to go to college, so they weren’t about to pay for me. And they made just enough money that I wouldn’t qualify for student loans, and forget about scholarships.

I hated school, and education so much, all I could do was try to not fail ( and risk a beating by my father). I did so well in not failing that I didn’t really learn anything.

Luckily for me I knew some very intelligent people and learned all I could from them, as well as accumulating as many life experiences as I could. Like do not put a metal snap from your pajamas up your nose.

There.

I’ve written. The computer did not crash yet.

96 Tears

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Fiction

Young Ava Wolfe got her act together when she was just 14. She set out leaving her parents home somewhere in the suburbs and headed out on the highway with just a shoulder bag and an idea. What that idea was she never said. It wasn’t much of a highway, not a super highway, just a county road actually but the locals called it a highway.

Ava knew that there were super highways out there. She heard about them, saw them in books she said. It wasn’t an easy life for Ava. For 14 years she was known as Lisa’s sister, and Ava was itchy to get out of the shadow of her little sister. That stuck in her craw.

The shadow of a younger sister was humiliating. An older sister or brother, Ava could easily understand being in their shadow. But a younger sister, who’s only claim to fame was winning six spelling bees in a row was too much.

Still Ava put on her brave face and looked east. She knew there was something out there for her, and that it was only a matter of time until she found out what it was. Until then she still had school, and she kicked a can while walking alongside the shoulder of the highway.

Not too many cars out so early in the morning and the sun was just rising. She disliked going to school in the darkness. Not that she was scared. Nothing really scared Ava. She missed the sun, the warmth and the light.

She side stepped a dead possum which might not have been dead she thought as she gingerly approached it. She thought the possum was playing possum, but when she saw a pool of blood and a distended tongue hanging out of it’s pointy face she figured that it was dead.

The school wasn’t too far away and she wished she had the courage to cut school for the day, like she had heard that some kids do. She knew that wouldn’t be that good an idea though. Too many people would notice her absence. So Ava dutifully stepped over the barrier separating the highway from the woods and walked the well trod path towards her school.

The sun was starting to give off light as she accidentally walked into a spider web. Ava made a noise of disgust and tried to rub off whatever was left of the web on her clothes. Ava saw her favorite teacher’s car in the driveway.

Mr. Davis. She liked him a lot, but didn’t know what to do about it. She heard that he might be gay but that didn’t matter. She did notice he didn’t wear a wedding ring though which gave her hope. Ava wasn’t like those other girls writing over and over Mr & Mrs So and So hundreds of times in their notebooks.

No, Ava had it running endlessly in her mind that someday Mr. Davis would pick her for some extra credit and would declare to her when they were all alone that she was the woman for him. Ava even went so far in her fantasy to have Mr. Davis declare that he was gay, but suddenly had special feelings for her, which he never felt for a woman before.

As Ava crossed the parking lot, she felt something hit her back. She turned around to see the dead possum she passed by earlier on the pavement. In the distance she heard laughing. It sounded like Martin, her sister Lisa’s friend.

She hated Martin. She saw him wiping his hands on his jean jacket, wiping the blood of the possum on it. Turning back around she saw Mr. Davis turning away from the window in the faculty lounge. She hoped he didn’t see what Martin had done, but felt he probably had.

And so began another day in Young Ava Wolfe’s life.