Once there walked a girl. She moved strangely from world to world. She never stopped but always looked; she looked for a life she read in a book. And in her haste, her fleeting, sudden tastes, perhaps she missed her chance. And as she weaves, wandering through trees and dropping leaves from her eyes warm water leaks. For the division between knowledge and action is infinite.
It is conceivable that in my desperation to find employment, my judgement became clouded. As I walk back from my latest interview, I ponder the convoluted situation, thinking of what misguided motivations could have possibly culminated in the past three hours.
Suffice it to say that my time as a temp was killing me slowly, so I grabbed my life preserver and bailed from that sinking ship into the roiling, frigid waters of unemployment. The fruit of athletic loins, I navigated the murderous tides patiently, ebbing and flowing, surfing the swells that threatened to sink me, until finally, on a warming Friday morning I crawled ashore and rested, for a mere moment, on the sunny banks of opportunity; one precious interview! However unseemly the situation, I arose rested and ready, shaking a shadow of doubt from my freshly laundered clothing. Today I can do anything.
As it turns out, the job, which I was hired for upon entry, demanded exactly that, anything, everything... and I did it, all of it. I met my employer with a smile and mildly averted eyes; I felt uncomfortable, in the beginning, looking at his small, strapped body, straining in his wheelchair towards my desperately willing eyes. He had severe Cerebral Palsy. I held water to his mouth and typed as he dictated emails, to this mother, friends, distant relatives. I laughed as he made nearly inaudible jokes about my qualifications; he should have asked for a certified nurse, a MALE nurse. I did not flinch when I held a portable, red plastic urinal to his groin for five minutes as he talked to spoiling himself. The ensuing cleanse would, unsurprisingly, be my responsibility. (Insert thoughts of suicide here). Nor did I utter a sound when he asked me, again leering, to hold his medicinal marijuana pipe to his mouth and light it as he drooled on my knuckles and I stood hunched in a plume of potent smoke. (Insert socio-political caricature here). Not one, but two bowl packs. His inadvertent incoherence then considerably heightened, my tasks became nearly impossible. Two absurd hours later I spouted some delirious excuse and sped out the door, slightly inebriated and completely humiliated.
Deep in colorful thought, I walk into a coffee shop and slump over a double, non-fat latte. I wait for my lover. We eat a pastry. I call into my new job and quit, not a day after my recruitment, apologizing and explaining lamely that another, more suitable option arose. I will work eight hours a week as a teacher.
The sky darkens and foam licks my toes, mocking, deceptively light as my foundation gives way to urgent, salient, steely waves, selfish in their mighty endeavors.
On Monday I teach. I have one student.
