a dangerous glimpse of the future.

Friday. School gets out at 3:03. Students slam lockers hard as though putting a period at the end of a week-long sentence, race through the hallways, then through the parking lot. It's raining and chilly, but it's Friday, and they can't leave soon enough.

Teachers too. The teachers leave too. Except for Jean. Jean stays. She lives in Elgin, and it's raining, and she thinks it's warm in the school and she has so much work to do. She stays. Even Mr. O leaves, and he practically lives here. Jean stays. She logs onto the computer and looks up some content area information and writes an assignment for the juniors that she finds vague and unsatisfying.

It's late. Everyone is out in Rochester, doing Friday things, and Jean is sitting in the classroom watching the rain out the window. At least the classroom has windows. Two even. It's raining on both sides of the room. The trees are still bare; it is the first day of spring.

After an hour, she hears a vacuum outside the room. The custodians are cleaning. One walks into the room; Jean hears the key struggle for a good three seconds before he enters, and he starts to vacuum without seeing her in the corner, typing at the computer. He carries the vacuum on his back, as though it's a jetpack or he's dressed up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween or just for fun because--how else make it through a Friday. He sees her after a minute, he hasn't heard her typing. He is startled, but smiles. He finishes his vacuuming; Jean and the janitor continue on with their jobs as though there is no time to break even for eye contact.

He leaves. Five minutes later, a second custodian comes in. He struggles with the key, too, and then he wheels a giant garbage can into the room. He doesn't look over, doesn't hear Jean typing or clicking her mouse on more Wikipedia links (Wikipedia is the source of Jean's innate hypocrisy).

He turns off the light.

He takes the brown garbage can and dumps it into his gray garbage can, leaving the plastic bag in the small garbage with the gum still stuck to the sides. He leaves.

*
...He turns off the light? Yesterday was such a day of self-pity. Raining, the first day of spring. Grocery shopping for one with no money, pissed at the shitty grocery store and their high prices, buying frozen food because I know I don't have the energy to cook real food. Or food for anyone. Not for myself? Why not just eat cereal? I can't plan meals, I can't buy fresh food because I don't eat it in time, before it goes slimy and squishy and soggy.

Nobody to go home to, not even a house where I feel comfortable. Plenty of books to start, though. Working late, wishing I had the brain power to work longer, because there is nothing else for me to do. Rainy days are for wine and games and movies and running from car to destination while screaming about the cold rain to a companion. Rainy days are for slow dancing. Not for going to bed at 8:00 after falling asleep while reading an Updike story that I didn't even particularly get. Not for that. Not for self-pity. Not for visions of the future, of a life where I become so insignificant that someone turns off the lights on me, that I just leave the lights off because I don't have the energy to turn them back on.

I'm going to die alone. Oh my God.

What the fuck. I miss you.