

He turned and twisted and moved his head ever so slightly to the side to see his alarm, about to go off. He knew he would have to get to work soon, but the forty-five minutes of ephemeral napping were not enough to combat the fatigue that had been plaguing him for months now. Like a half-dead man he got out of bed and stretched his arms and dragged himself to the bathroom where the mirror awaiting his languid salutations.  When he mouthed good morning to himself he noticed his putrid breath, the result of yet again falling asleep without brushing his teeth, lights on, and after drinking coffee. I’m on my way to a fully developed case of meth mouth he thought. How funny to see the before and after photos, like in some anti-drug ad or the news.
The job was beginning to take its toll on his body. Besides the impending decay of his teeth, his back and feet were in a constant state of ache and pain. Skipping sleep for days at a time and sitting in a desk for hours and walking to work in old, worn, and ill-fitting leather shoes was tearing his body apart. He felt more 60 than 22. Besides the mere physical ramifications of his work were the taxing mental demands. Not the type that required leaps of higher level thinking or creative problem solving, but the massive amounts of stress inducing paperwork and the expectations of the boss. Being disrespected all day long by a group of thirty twelve year olds didn’t help much either. The life of an urban schoolteacher. A failing urban schoolteacher. An ineffective urban schoolteacher. Was it worth it? All this time spend thinking, time taken away from the planning and the relationship building and all the other jazz of the job that consumed the hours of the day. How could it be that one worked for seven hours straight in a night without putting a dent into the work. But it was just that kind of thinking and soul searching and rationalizing and whining that dragged out the work time for him. He needed to move on and brush his teeth and shower and get ready and all that. One hand ran through his greasy hair. Time for a shower.
And it’s raining. The perfect addition to the long and grueling two hour commute, walking through the rain and transferring buses and then navigating through mazes of vacant lots and boarded up houses on Chicago’s west side. But why think about it. That just takes up limited space in the brain. The toothbrush stung his sensitive gums and his spit was red with the juice of his body. Have to see the dentist sometime, he thought. Then he just stood there for a second and stared into the mirror. Sometimes it just felt better to do nothing.


