Delayed gratification was a foreign concept until now. Jane’s body was bowed. One hand gripping a cold sandwich, the other thumbing through the answer sheets, she was fighting a dilemma. She could either laugh all the food out or choke. She found a third option. She would not breathe until her lips stopped trying to peel back laughter. Until surviving became more important than the nonsense these children had written down as essays. Everything was an exaggeration. Yes, they were supposed to make up stories but one wrote about having so many wives he bought an estate to house all of them. One told a story about being an entertainer who clapped for a living with his legs. Let’s not forget the girl that said she’s the real Rapunzel and her hair grew out, not as hair but ropes. There were many more like that- Things you didn’t expect to hear from 7-year-olds or maybe she should have.
Not all her substituting jobs turned out to be this entertaining. She could be in a school, fully employed maybe even be a principal by now but substituting called to Jane in a way most things didn’t. She worked for a few days or weeks then she was back home doing whatever she pleased. Today was her last day here. She wanted to score these essays before she left. Her eyes wandered to the book, the children had gift-wrapped and presented to her, stapled to it was the class photo they had taken in the school garden. “Something to read tonight”, she thought. When she got home that night, she poured through the pages, reading story after story, then it clicked and she realised where she had read similar stories. This was where Nancy copied her Rapunzel-esqe story from and Tony the class clown with the many wives and J- She couldn’t remember his name but she kept reading. The children must have copied their essays from here. That was another person’s business now. After hours of reading, giggling and reacting to the outrageous stories, she stretched from her bowed position and walked to a half-empty refrigerator for some refreshments. She laughed thinking about the hair, no rope- she struggled. What was that girl’s name again?
This was odd. Usually, she knew every child in her class, down to freckles and moles and awkward traits. But now she forgot a name? Tried as she may. Somehow the more she read, the more she forgot something about them. A name, a mole, a smile, a scar, a whole face. she walked back to the book, every page was blank except one- THE END. She looked at the photograph resting just beside the book , she looked at the photograph they took that day as a class- she was the only one in the garden, to Jane it looked like a garden. She just couldn’t remember where it was or why she had a book with blank pages… oh well.
It’s wild to me that there are 100 prompts, 100 Sober Sundays… Even wilder that there are people who have read one, some or all. Thank you…🖤x
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