***hello again my dear patient readers. Thanks so much for your warm praise-
I don't deserve it but will gladly take it anyway. I've been busy with
school, reading 'Henry IV' of all things-but your kind comments brought me
back. Hope you enjoy. More will follow soon.***
When he drove into the parking lot of Upton Sinclair, he felt a stab of regret mixed with shame at the sight of his old parking space---the one beneath the oak tree that grew outside of the biology lab. He remembered the faint smell of chemicals which drifted out from beneath the door and which always filled him with the slightest feeling of jealousy. Mr. Russell, the Biology teacher, would smirk at him whenever Dimitri walked by, as if to say 'Don't think, for a minute, that anyone will ever take you seriously.' He hadn't thought it bothered him much, considering his own dread of science and math and his refusal to be defeated by those who thought literature less important or useful than other disciplines.
But after he left the school he began to wonder whether he would have ever found himself in the same position-chastised at a board meeting where no one was sure of what had occurred--had he been a physics teacher who took a student to the observatory. Probably not, he thought to himself.
He sat in his car with the envelope of papers sitting on his lap like a stretched-out cat. He traced the letters he had scrawled earlier with his index finger, starting at the top of the G where he could see the point where he'd first pressed the black felt pen and not stopping until the very last point of the e which he'd written in one motion of his wrist, the tail pointing upward with uncertainty, as if wondering whether another letter would follow.
The same way Grace had looked at him that last day in his classroom, making him feel like the Grim Reaper, arriving to take away all of her youthful optimism. But at the same time he had refused (and still did refuse) to believe himself so important to her, specifically. It could have been anyone, he told himself, any person who had some insight into the world of teen angst could have helped her see how wrong she was in thinking she would never matter to anyone. It just so happened that he was the one who took the job.
As he thought this, he held the envelope in both hands, took one last look at the name scrawled across in a moment of recklessness, and tossed it onto the back seat. But as he turned back to the steering wheel and reached for the keys in the ignition, his eyes caught the blurred image of a figure standing before him. He looked up to see Grace staring at him from the door of the biology lab, her face pale, her eyes red with anger. He took his hand off the ignition and swallowed.
When he drove into the parking lot of Upton Sinclair, he felt a stab of regret mixed with shame at the sight of his old parking space---the one beneath the oak tree that grew outside of the biology lab. He remembered the faint smell of chemicals which drifted out from beneath the door and which always filled him with the slightest feeling of jealousy. Mr. Russell, the Biology teacher, would smirk at him whenever Dimitri walked by, as if to say 'Don't think, for a minute, that anyone will ever take you seriously.' He hadn't thought it bothered him much, considering his own dread of science and math and his refusal to be defeated by those who thought literature less important or useful than other disciplines.
But after he left the school he began to wonder whether he would have ever found himself in the same position-chastised at a board meeting where no one was sure of what had occurred--had he been a physics teacher who took a student to the observatory. Probably not, he thought to himself.
He sat in his car with the envelope of papers sitting on his lap like a stretched-out cat. He traced the letters he had scrawled earlier with his index finger, starting at the top of the G where he could see the point where he'd first pressed the black felt pen and not stopping until the very last point of the e which he'd written in one motion of his wrist, the tail pointing upward with uncertainty, as if wondering whether another letter would follow.
The same way Grace had looked at him that last day in his classroom, making him feel like the Grim Reaper, arriving to take away all of her youthful optimism. But at the same time he had refused (and still did refuse) to believe himself so important to her, specifically. It could have been anyone, he told himself, any person who had some insight into the world of teen angst could have helped her see how wrong she was in thinking she would never matter to anyone. It just so happened that he was the one who took the job.
As he thought this, he held the envelope in both hands, took one last look at the name scrawled across in a moment of recklessness, and tossed it onto the back seat. But as he turned back to the steering wheel and reached for the keys in the ignition, his eyes caught the blurred image of a figure standing before him. He looked up to see Grace staring at him from the door of the biology lab, her face pale, her eyes red with anger. He took his hand off the ignition and swallowed.