SIGN OF THE TIMES

I hit the wall at work (at home).  My constant twelve-to-fifteen-hour days have taken their toll, but I am finally at a near-stopping point.  The planning, thank goodness, is complete.  The hardest part about this whole thing is being away from all of my materials and resources and actual flesh-and-blood students and co-workers.

At long last I am allowed into school for one hour -- that's it; exactly sixty minutes -- to pack up my room.  Anyone who has ever taught anywhere for any amount of time will attest to the reality that sixty minutes is barely enough time to grab our own personal stuff, dispose of any food items that might have rotted away over the last eleven weeks, and possibly lock down things we'd like to keep, such as electric hole punches and independent reading books.

I go in, stuff whatever I can into the trash can, the recycle bin, and my closet that never locks, and I move stuff around to present the appearance that perhaps I really did try to "put away materials."  The administration has been cleaning out lockers, so there are gray trash bags lining the hallways like some kind of post-apocalyptic laboratory.  I am alone in my end of the building for a while.

Then comes the squeaking.  Something is moving through the trash-bag infested hallways, and it is making an "eeeeeeeeeeek eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekeeeeeeekeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkeeeeeeeeee" sound as it approaches my room.  I look out and see a teacher from across the hallway wheeling a decrepit plastic cart toward her room.  Loaded onto the cart are empty trash bags and cheap folding totes, and the effect creates the illusion that she is wheeling dead Jabba the Hutt down the hallway.

That's when it hits me: This place is a morgue.  It's a morgue of a dead year, dead dreams, dead memories, dead possibilities, dead learning.  The school year has been forced off the highway into the trees at breakneck speed, and it pretty much died on impact.  Oh, sure, we have all made believe that it is alive and thriving on life support, but let's face reality: This year is brain-dead.

I pack up what I can carry in both arms, about sixty pounds divided into four bags, and waddle my way out to my car not so much because of the extra weight (I am strong enough to carry a full-grown human) but because I am short and forgot to tie up the handles, so I am literally not tall enough to carry my own junk out of the school.  Of course, my car is parked far away and under a tree, so this quarter-mile journey feels like a death march, and my arms ache by the time I set things on the tar to reach for my keys and pop the trunk.

As I am shutting everything down and walking toward the driver's door, I turn one last time to take a final look, as if I cannot even fathom that this is the end of it all for the year.  That's when I see the sign.  Yes.  Oh, yes, of course.  Such a perfect, fitting, poetic sentiment staring back at me, blocking the view of my room's windows.  Well, stupid sign, just don't be a predictor of my fate in September; this has been hard enough, cruel enough, distasteful enough already.  I snap a picture of the sign and, with a wry grin, get into my car and pull away from the school one last time, watching the words disappear into my rear view mirror as I turn away into the street:

Do not enter.