more fiction...

Tuesday. It is a quarter past 7pm. My parents won't be home for at least two hours - Parent/Teacher Night always takes at least two hours. Questions, questions, questions for every teacher who struggles to remember who exactly I am. Even though I know the hell that's coming when they hear how little I show up, I feel more sorry for those poor underpaid bastards than I feel for myself right now. Who wants to listen to all of those questions on a night when you should be at home grading papers and watching bad TV?

I drop the needle and suddenly Dionne is singing "my hands are shaking/Don't let my heart keep breaking..." The cool kids listen to The Wall or Rumours when they do this, I'm told. I prefer vintage Burt Bacharach by way of Miss Warwick. It makes me feel like an aging lothario with a bachelor pad. I really like the sound of that patented horn in the background of the ballads, between each line of heartbreak and nostalgia. I could float without anything to inhale if I had to. Tonight, however, the music will get some assistance.

I turn out the lights and open a window. It's unusually chilly tonight, but I need the smoke to waft outside, not down the hall. Sandalwood should help mask it tonight. I'm sure they suspect what I do on the nights I "burn incense and meditate" for hours, but they'll never ask. Bad grades are about all they can handle.

I reach for my lighter, finally ready to start it all. Suddenly, Dionne isn't the only voice in the house. I hear keys drop on the kitchen table. Annoyed voices call me out of my Sandalwood cave. Early? This can't have gone well. All of the teachers must have been quick and to the point. Escape will have to wait for another time, I suppose. I'll have to let that horn float me until then.

File Under: Fiction.