Imploded Dreams and Doom
Ms. Bitters stared out at the hopeless cesspool of humanity that was her class. Dreamers and fools they all were. Even as they engaged in time-consuming activities meant to crush their spirits, the students whispered, smiled, and (horror of horrors) giggled. How could they all be so oblivious to their inevitable fates?
Doomed, such a nice word that, rolling off the tongue as if the human mouth had been created specifically for the utterance of that one little word. "Doomed," Ms. Bitters whispered, savoring the taste of the word. One of the poor doomed children turned to stare, but Ms. Bitters glared at him until he went back to pencilling in useless little dots.
An apple gleamed on the creaky oak desk. Ms. Bitters picked it up and took a bite, destroying the apple's apparent perfection. A worm crunched between her teeth, but she didn't care. How like life, all shiny and nice on the outside, but with crunchy little green worms in the middle.
Ms. Bitters hadn't really wanted to be a teacher. When she was younger, she'd dreamed of being an astronaut and travelling the stars in her little spaceship which she'd named Snickerdoodle. She and Snickerdoodle had zipped from galaxy to galaxy making discoveries which benefited all of mankind. But then Snickerdoodle imploded, along with her dreams. A smile tried to cross Ms. Bitters face as she thought of Snickerdoodle, but became lost in the unfamiliar territory never to found again.
"Doomed," Ms. Bitters repeated. Her dreams had amounted to nothing more than a dingy classroom and mewling maggot students. One day these children would learn that dreams were worth less than the paper they were printed on, and when they did, she would be right there to say, "I told you so!"
"Girls can't be astronauts," everyone had said. Indeed, as a child, Ms. Bitters only knew of women becoming secretaries, nurses, or teachers if they didn't stay in the home and pander to their husbands. And Ms. Bitters wasn't about to become a secretary. She knew too much about what Daddy Dearest did with his secretary outside of the office. As for becoming a nurse, well, diseases were a different kind of doom; one that Ms. Bitters wanted to stay away from. All that left her was teacher.
"Doomed." The word filled the classroom like an ominous cloud. By now, though, the class was desensitized to the power of the word.
Why had Ms. Bitters wanted to leave this planet as a child? Simple. She wanted to find someplace where she wouldn't feel like an alien. Tall and gangly, Ms. Bitters had towered over all the boys, not that they'd ever really noticed. Always busy drooling over the doomed air-headed cheerleaders bouncing up and down, they were. When she'd realized her dreams were doomed, she'd learned to become invisible, snaking through crowds like a shadow. No one saw her until she wanted to be seen.
"Doomed." Ms. Bitters opened her top desk drawer. A child's drawing stared back up at her, a rocket ship with a smiling girl inside. Behind concealing glasses, Ms. Bitter's eye began to tic. What a pathetic dream she'd had back then. Its implosion was a good thing, preparing her for the rest of her life. The drawer slammed shut loud enough to get the attention of ever student in the class.
"Doomed!" Ms. Bitters prophesied.