JUST WRITE: Alone and observing

PERIOD THREE 4.20.12
Sitting. Yet again procrastinating. At my foot, projects beckoning me to grade them. Inside should be poetic genius. I’m in search of greatness with every verse I read. Isn’t that a teacher’s dream – to inspire creativity in her charges? But alas, I’ve moved this box of poetic possibility from the left to the right. It’s been my foot rest, as it is now.

The smell of now-soggy hash brown circles churns my weakened stomach. But that best part of waking up combats the fowl grease with coffee goodness in sweetly wafting oscillations of fairly still air. I wonder how that is? I wonder how I’m surviving on decaf. Sweet caffeine, I miss you.

Perhaps it is odd that there, just a little beyond the fritters and café, is a “I Can’t Believe…” container. Recycle plastic, save the earth. My banana peeks out and my can of ravioli hides next to a still-wrapped spork (which will no doubt melt in the gooey goodness that will be my piping hot lunch).

The desks of this classroom are empty. They’ve been shifted from their precise rows haphazardly. Over there, a discarded assignment waits in vain for his pupil to reclaim it (and take responsibility for his work). It won’t happen and shortly, I’ll salvage the copy for someone else. Brown dictionary is under one desk, its binding still creaking forlornly when the rare user opens it.

The chortle of student laughter seeps through the cinder. But I am alone. Keys click and occasionally, the printer roars to life , takes a deep breath and a stretch, and then falls silently asleep again. I’m not ready for it yet.

I really ought to do something productive. Read The Book of Jonas, perhaps. A review was, after all, due on Tuesday… or Monday… but wait, that’s slipped past me. And the book is at my beside – waiting, probably, for some attention.

The little window of my orange door shows only more cinder. No clue what the weather has become as the hours tick further from the early morning dew time when I arrived. Occasionally, a passing shadow: a person unaware of me, destination determined, pace set.

I think, now, I might be lonely. Strange, this building surges with life, with the future counting down the days to their assumed freedom post cap toss. But I am well past that point. I’m alone.

This is an installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. It's my first.{See the details here.}