Master of None

Saturday morning blues. I creaked open my eyelids, hoping to catch a glimpse of the myriad colors that once captured my home. The vibrancy which I once trusted to light up my life, left me deserted with ignominy. My eyes skimmed across the ceiling, the scratched pieces of wood resembled a mirror staring right back at me. The pale wooden planks surrounded me like a hoard of hungry wolves, each second drifting closer like predators. The acrid scent of isolation made the air smell like an intoxicant, luring in my vulnerability like a dame of the night. The stench, eerily similar to decomposing roadkill, was now a perquisite in my day. Each breath felt dubious, each moment an excuse for the complexity I called life. My bed sheet stained with vulnerability, the pillow resting under me a headrest of a guillotine. My hair felt static, the goosebumps on my skin fading away into forlornness.

I tilted my head towards the window, yearning for the sunlight to crash against my face like cold water, but five years into this morning routine, and the tap had finally dried out. A lost soul who tried to invigorate others I thought. The idea brought about a laugh, yet was the truth. A truth which I couldn’t gulp in one go. The hopeful smiles staring at a man incapable of feeling. The quixotic dream I once had of being a figurine of inspiration, had translated into a fleeting thought. The residue of chalk which scorched across my fingertips had become a burning sensation yearning to be extinguished. Each word muttered across to the hopefuls, lusting to be forever reticent. The expensive textbooks burned to ashes; the text inside now alien. The pseudo smile that I gave every morning saying hello, and the noticeable boredom as I lectured. The occasional drop of ink, the rare sight of a scribble, the obsequies corrections; all signs of my own cracks. My phone read 15 messages and 14 calls and yet I failed to muster the strength to face another day of drudgery.

I reluctantly pulled myself up from my bedside. The cracks in my knees reminded me of the signal of my strength; or the lack of. Dripped in guilt, dipped in dementia and yet trying to mask under a veil of solace to hide the bruises. Bruises which didn’t resemble any scars, any cuts, any cracks in the armor yet palpably succeeded in masquerading the suffocation. The race tracks in my conscience were already riddled with oil, each drop a memory which triggered a tear and all it needed was a spark. I opened the drawer by my bedside; my body now in autopilot. I grabbed 3 pills; each colored neon. They rested in my hand as I texted the number on my phone which read “Principal Johnson”. I gulped the glass of water and tablets along with it as I stared intently at my text:

“Mr. Jennings will be absent for a while”