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😈 ​​Hot Déjà Vu

by Sarina Dorie

 “Good afternoon, class,” I say in the cheeriest tone I can muster. “Get out your scoring guide and we’ll go over your current pottery project.”

The heat is broken again and it is hotter than the Sahara desert. Fluorescent lights in the classroom flicker above my head. The stench of sweat and the chatter of churlish teenagers overwhelms me. I’m nauseated from being in the heat all day.

My head throbs and it is difficult to concentrate. The scene of forty glaring students wavers. I feel like I’m having déjà vu. Did I eat my lunch today? No, I suppose I was too busy grading papers.

 “Ms. Reynolds, why do we have to do this? This is stupid,” a sixteen-year-old girl says in a snotty voice I’ve come to recognize as the norm in my work hours.

“Huh?” I look down at the scoring guide in my hands. Oh, yes, that’s right. I was telling my students about the criteria for their clay assignment. I continue reading the worksheet, trying to muster the energy to talk louder than the chatty Cathys in the back. I have to stop after a moment and use what I consider my polite teacher voice to say, “Just a reminder, I need you to be respectful and listen so you will understand what we are doing today. Ahem. Jonathan. Lauren. Wyatt.”

I just have to make it until… the clock says it’s 2:11 PM. That means we have nearly an hour left. All I have to do is make it until the end of the day. Then I only have three more days left this week. There are four weeks left until the end of the semester. Then one more semester until the end of the year. One step at a time, I can survive.

A cool breeze blusters in through the open door to the parking lot. Brief and teasing, it only makes me crave the temperate, 60-degree weather all the more. Sweat trickles down my face and my dress sticks to my back. Forty teenagers fan themselves and complain about the lack of windows.

 “Why is it so fucking hot?” a teenager mutters from somewhere in the middle of the classroom.

My voice sounds mechanical, like a robot’s. “Appropriate language, please.” I don’t add that I am close to swearing myself. I told the custodians, the secretary, and the principal that the classroom is too hot for students to concentrate, and they need to put in a work order to have it fixed.

“Fuck this. I don’t need to take this shit from you. I’m leaving.” A boy stands up and flips me off.

Again, I try to use my patient, nurturing teacher voice. “Sit down, shut the fuck up, and stop swearing.” Hmm, that didn’t come out the way I intended. The heat really has gone to my head.

Two students walk out. Thank God! Does it make me a bad teacher to want them gone? Lauren says she is going to tell the principal that I swore. I keep reading the handout. By this point, I’m shaking with fatigue and want to cry.

Why am I here in this hotter than hell classroom, surrounded by crabby teenagers who hate me? Something isn’t right about this situation. I swear I remember doing something more meaningful with my life, like becoming an artist, but maybe that was just a dream. Did I fall asleep at my desk? Maybe this is a bad dream. I pinch myself. Nope, this shit hole is my life.

After reading another two lines, I give up on the instructions and tell the kids to read it themselves. I know I’ve done better with my classroom management in the past, but I am too tired to try today. I lean against my messy desk, knocking two clay projects and a stack of papers to the floor. A pinch pot shatters.

 “Mrs. Reynolds,” a girl says in a high-pitched whining tone that grates on my nerves. She hits a bag of clay against the table with a dull thud. “This clay is too hard.” Oh yes, it’s the one student in the classroom who actually wants to learn, but the clay has dried out.

“Add some water and wedge it,” I say.

She whines, “I already did, but it isn’t working.”

“I don’t know what to say. Only half the class paid their art fees. I can’t buy more supplies. You have to work with what we’ve got.”

Her voice rises to that nails-on-chalkboard pitch. I put up my hand up and stop her before she gets too far along. “Come back when you can talk to me like an adult.”

She stomps her foot and pouts. “Stop treating me like a child!”

I don’t bother to answer. I sit down in my chair, a little too hard, and something inside it pops. The back of the crappy chair falls off. Kids in the front row snicker. My ass isn’t that fat. The chair was a piece of junk in the pile of furniture to be hauled to the dumpster at the beginning of the year. I grabbed it because we were short a chair. I hated that chair.

Another student approaches, a scoring guide in hand and an unhappy expression on his face. “Why did you give me this grade? Why am I getting a penmanship grade? This is art, not writing class.”

“Huh?” I ask. He rants on. The heat-induced malaise has made me too tired to think. I slump onto my broken chair and hold my head in my hands. I am so tired. The night before, I dreamed I was dead, lying in the cold earth. That would be an improvement to this heat—this exhaustion.

“This isn’t fair,” the boy goes on. “I deserve an A. Are you listening to me?”

I wonder if I have mono. Maybe if I have mono, I can get a doctor’s note to stay home from work for the next seven months. The fantasy provides a moment’s relief until some kid takes a handful of clay powder and throws it into the air, imitating a jump shot. Powder flies everywhere. I’m seized by a fit of coughing.

Before I can issue a detention, a crackly female voice says over the intercom, “Ms. Reynolds, please take attendance.”

I did take attendance. Didn’t the computer save it? No, it froze again. After the computer takes a thousand years to restart, I see all the data I entered today is gone. Including the grading I did before school, during my prep, and my lunch break.

I saved it! I know I did! I told tech services I had a virus. Why didn’t they believe me? I hate my life. I hate the students. I hate my job. What did I do to deserve this? I glance at the clock.

No. Not possible. It’s 2:10 PM. I swear the last time I looked at the clock it was 2:11 PM.

I can’t take it anymore.

I run out the door to outside. The cool sprinkles of rain bring momentary relief. I don’t care if students are unsupervised and blow clay dust into the air or steal all the expensive clay tools. Let the school fire me! I’m going to Starbucks and getting an iced latte.

Every step is like moving through mud. Something is wrong with the parking lot. Instead of cars, there are boulders. Flames block my path to my car.

“No, no, no,” says an adult male voice.

I blink and see the principal walking toward me in the rain. He’s in a business suit, but the rain doesn’t soak into him. It sizzles against his skin and steams into the air around him. I blink.

“We can’t permit you to leave. It’s against your contract.”

“My teaching contract?” Fuck that!

I need this to be over, but looking at the boulders and fire and administrator blocking my path, there is no escape. I reach into my apron pocket and remove the box cutter I’d used that morning. The metal blade catches the glint of firelight. I slit my wrist, but nothing happens. No blood. No pain. No sweet death to relieve me of this torment. Upon closer inspection I see there is no blade. I would swear there had been a moment ago. Am I going crazy?

The tsks. “Well, that’s a new one. You haven’t tried that before.” He guides me back into my classroom.

All the teenagers are frozen in place. For once, they are quiet. It still smells like a locker room and is as hot as hell. A sinking sensation weighs down my gut.

The man chuckles.

“Oh god, that’s why I’m here, right? I’ve died and gone to hell.” I shake my head, unwilling to believe it even as I say it. “What did I do to deserve this?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t Buddha say, ‘Life is suffering’? When the pupil asked why, he simply said, ‘No reason.’” His lips curl into a wicked smile.

That’s when I notice his hooves. Oh shit. I am in hell.

“We went a little overboard today, didn’t we? Laid it on too thick,” he says. “Tell me, what exact moment gave it away?”

I shake my head and run out the other door into the…

Dizziness washes over me. I suddenly feel disorientated. The fluorescent lights of my classroom are too bright at this early hour and something feels off. Did I remember to eat breakfast, or was I too busy grading papers before work again?

Teenagers glare at me like it is my fault they are required to be in this hellhole. The heat is broken again and it is hotter than the Sahara desert.

“Good morning, class,” I say in the cheeriest tone I can muster.