Dreams (Brian Katcher)

 

 

It's 7:50 in the morning. I'm standing in a wreck of a classroom, not even remotely set up. I'm wearing skuzzy street clothes. The children will be here in ten minutes. I have no lesson plans, no schedule, no class list. In just a few minutes everything is going to hell and I there's nothing I can do.

I've been a teacher for 28 years, and yet every year I have that dream in August. Why do our nightmares plague on our fears and shortcomings?

The play started ten minutes ago and I just got to the theater. I'm in my street clothes and have no idea where my costume is. I'm due on stage in two minutes and I don't even know what the scene is about. I'm desperately searching for a script, but everyone has been off book for weeks. This whole production is going to be a disaster, and it'll all be my fault.

Been doing community theater for nearly thirty years. Nothing like that has ever happened, and yet a few times a year I have that one.

I've signed up to teach again in the Mexican city where I taught in the late 90s. Why would I do that? I have a wife and daughter. They'll never understand! What the hell was I thinking?

I haven't seen her in thirty years (and often times, she didn't exist in real life). But it just occurred to me that we never officially broke up. She suddenly has shown up again, expecting to pick up where we left off. How am I going to get out of this one?

I graduated high school over thirty years ago. I have a master's degree. So how am I back? Where's my locker? What's my schedule? 

Why would I come to work/school/shopping in just my tighty whities? 

 I'm sure the psychologists and philosophers have their thoughts on this. But in the meantime, I'm getting very little sleep.