Kiss me,

Snaking

Tongues into my head

Sucking out my reason,

Bring to life my dead

With words of passion

Without love.

Still a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest,

For hearing all destroys us.

I try

But can’t digest.

Expanding minds,

Exploding

Beyond all recognition.

Insanity,

Like snaking tongues,

Dismantling cognition,

Sucking out my reason

Like snakes inside my head

And tongues

That kiss with passion's promise

But leave us, then

For dead.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to say, unable to pull my gaze away from my reflection.

“No worries,” Beatrix answered. “Let’s head down to the kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I am famished.”

I nodded and turned to follow her back out into the hallway, unsure if I really was hungry myself or how long Ross’s words would linger in my mind. And as we finally made it to the correct set of stair that would lead us to the kitchen, I crossed my fingers that the uncertainty of the two would resolve themselves prior to entering the kitchen. Especially the prior, rounding the bottom of the stairs and quickly passing the large living room, as a strong whiff of something warm, sweet, and cinnamony filled the hallway which became stronger when Beatrix pushed the kitchen door open. The aroma of whatever Agatha was pulling out of the oven was almost as intoxicating as the scent that seemed to exude from Aldric whenever he was near by… almost.

“Good morning,” the doctor greeted the two of us..

“Mornin’ Doc,” Beatrix said.

Though I immediately wanted to ask what Aldric and her were talking about on the phone, I held my tongue and answered with a good morning of my own. I took a seat next to Beatrix. I was decided, with determination and however unhopeful as I still was, to not let Ross’s words ruin the pleasure I was starting to feel in presence of these two women. More particularly, to what laid on the plate Agatha placed in front of me. She said it was called a “cinnamon bun, something I had never had before. My adoptive parents were very strict when it came to sweets. Unless it was someone’s birthday, I was never allowed to have any. It’s not that I had never seen a cinnamon roll before, I just never knew what they were called. They, along with every other candy or pasty, were simply callled “cavity sins.” My adoptive parents weren’t particularly religious nor had I ever heard this term outside of my parents, but it was a term I had thought was common until my peers started to make fun of me for using. Just when I had thought “Albino girl” was the worse nickname I could have been called.

Regardless, I intently observed the two women, Agatha taking a seat directly across from me, to see what the correct way to eat the large pastry. With a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, Agatha divided the roll into smaller bite size pieces. Beatrix, on the other hand seemed to pull the roll apart similar to peeling apart each layer of an onion or unraveling a ball of yarn.

For all the good things that I didn’t buy,

all the good friends I couldn’t keep,

all the kisses that I failed to deliver,

all the Hellos that I did not wave,

all the “thank you” notes that I didn’t send out,

all the hands that I never got to shake;

all the hearts that I wasn’t able to heal;

all the laughters that we could have enjoyed,

and all the tears that we could have shared together;

all the love-affairs that I failed to transcend into friendship;

all the tender feelings that I eventually letting go;

all the promises that I broke;

all the dreams that I shattered;

all the hearts that I walked pass without making a ripple inside;

all the songs that I failed to remember how to reverberate;

all my good years that I did not learn how to cherish;

all the bad years that I failed to learn how to regurgitate;

and all creature-beings, big or small that I intentionally or accidentally hurt or killed…

I am here calling all of you with all my past regrets into my life,

I am here to shake hands with you,

and invite all of you to my birthday party,

I share all my good days ahead with you,

with all my resources, unconditional love, and

undivided compassion and attentions with you.

Please accept my apologies,

for failing in recognizing

the preciousness and importance of your presence

in my life.

Please show me,

how to enhance my awareness to the very tenderness

of your heart even better;

teach me how to expand my sensing, touching and feeling of your treasurable pristine soul even deeper,

and allowing me to extend my deepest gratitude to your very existence in my heart even further.

I first met Mr. Locum in the 6th grade. Uninitiated to the dubious character of the middle-school teacher, I began the school term guileless, and trusting. From Pre-K up through 5th grade, each student has one teacher, the full burden of responsibility falling upon a single individual.

Accountable to the ever-watchful PARENT, elementary teachers tend to behave.

By contrast, middle-school teachers are burdened with only one-eighth of the blame. Any artifice of indulgence or compassion is promptly abandoned. As a result, middle-school teachers-degenerate scourges to the good name of society that they are-run their classrooms with a heavy hand, exacting to the tiniest degree the hopes, dreams and souls of their condemned serfs.

Woe to the pubescent, pimply population that must pass through those doors!

There are, naturally, exceptions to the rule: engaging, well-adjusted middle-school instructors. These comprise the Mother Teresa’s of the world, or else the lobotomized. Both are rare. No, by and far, your average middle-school teacher has more in common with Mao than ever with Gandhi.

Delving too deeply into the dark inner-workings of the middle-school-teacher-mind, however, is sure to yield far more (or else far less) than would be comfortable, and, at any rate, this story is only about my experience with one of these dissolute scoundrels.

Mr. Locum.

To get an accurate representation of the reprehensible Mr. Locum, first picture the individual you detest more than all other persons. Do you have it?

Add now to this image greasy locks, matted above close-set eyes, or else paper on a pedophilic mustache and wire-rimmed glasses (according to your preference). Inflate in your mind a mean, little scowl, matched with full, flaccid lips.

Mr. Locum.

The hostilities began on Day One, at his instigation. He implemented... a seating chart!

Even an 11-year old knows that Geometry class cannot be endured while seated at the front of the classroom, but things of this nature Mr. Locum often, and pointedly, ignored.

Adding to his offenses, homework was assigned on the first day, and every day thereafter! To be due on the following day!

The final straw of rancor between us, was his nerve-wracking habit of clicking his pen during lectures and exams. Click. Click. Click. Click. On and off, on and off. Over and over. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. The nervous disorder I acquired from this clicking, (especially if it came too near) surely accounted for my low test scores.

As you may now have intuited, Mr. Locum despised all children. He took, however, an especial dislike to me.

Who can say why the shark chooses one seal out of a whole pod? Perhaps they choose their prey indiscriminately, but perhaps again I was only the slowest, weakest seal.

My homework came back, large F’s scrawled in red across the top. My tests varied only in that notes were added in the margins.

“Insufficient reasoning” read one.

“Poor proof. See me” said another.

My best friend Thomas (seated cruelly at the far end of the room), endured almost equal abuse. Day after day, Mr. Locum devised new barabarities. Euclidean distance geometry! Congruence theorems!

After a full week of conics, Thomas and I determined that a seal can only endure so much. On a Monday morning, 3 weeks into the term, we decided to execute our first pièce de résistance.

Mr. Locum, like most foul Geometry teachers, keeps a drawer of calculators: a machination aimed at curing test-day-lost-my-calculator-syndrome. Knowing this, Thomas and I snuck into the dreaded classroom during lunch.

Nothing but desperation could have driven us to that foul lair, and each moment we awaited his pale, sinister eyes to come leering in from the doorway.

While I programmed the calculators, Thomas took the job of tacking holes into every visible photograph of the villainous Locum. Eyes first: punch, punch, punch. An added Sharpie mustache here and there, perhaps a black tooth.

In the meantime, utilizing the handy alpha key, I left short messages of hope for the next users.

“LOCUM IS LOUSY!”

“I HATE PROOFS!”

“GEOMETRY SUCKS!!!!”

Thomas came to help, and we programmed them all, chuckling at our own wit. Finishing, we hurried back to the lunchroom, watching sharply to see that our absence had not been missed. We were consoled when we saw that Mr. Locum was absent from the cafeteria, ‘He must’ve eaten in the lounge’ we whispered, but we should have known that something was amiss.

Walking slowly down the hallway after Chemistry, Mr. Locum awaited us, a sinister smile etched into his face.

“Hello, children,” he murmured softly as we drew near, smile widening. Click. Click. Though he said this every afternoon, it seemed more ominous today. We crept to our seats, quiet for once, awaiting the hand of retribution.

Mr. Locum was not long in delivering.

“Pop quiz today.” he announced with quiet triumph, those loose, gray lips pinching back a tide of mirth.

Click. Click.

A murmur of disapproval swept the ranks, but when he held up a single, slender finger, silence was immediate.

“No, no,” he entreated softly. “No, today things will be done a bit differently.”

He chuckled thinly, eyes flashing.

Click. Click.

“Today, I will draw names. Those selected will complete the quiz.”

Click. Click.

My stomach dropped as he reached into a red Solo cup. Producing a colorful craft stick from its depths, he scrutinized the name.

“Ahh,” he sighed glibly, eyes roving the classroom, “Mr. Williams... what luck.” I watched in dismay as Thomas was passed a thick, stapled packet.

Click. Click.

Once more, the pale fingers disappeared within the cup, and once more, he pondered the outcome.

“How interesting,” Mr. Locum wondered aloud, ”...that this happens to fall on two of my dullest students. Ahh!” He clicked his pen approvingly once more, dropping the second packet onto my desk.

Our scribbles filled the silence of the classroom.

Enraged, we plotted our reprisal that evening, hidden behind my mother’s hydrangeas. Opting to wait until the latest fiasco had blown over, we staged our second coup for the upcoming Monday.

Monday morning, with shaking knees, we crept back to the den at lunch.

This time, we relieved the desk of its burdens of paper. Graded and ungraded homework, tests, files and photos went into a garbage sack.

Concealing our load between us, we carried it outside, and dumped it unceremoniously into the trash. Revenge, again, was ours!

At the close of Chemistry, we hurried to our seats, heads lowered, to avoid that perturbing smile, but for once, Mr. Locum was not in the doorway to meet us.

He stood by his desk instead, fingers pressed whitely against the wood, cold rage glimmering behind his spectacles.

I trembled, awaiting reprisal.

“Hello, children,” Mr. Locum intoned quietly.

Click. Click.

“If you will kindly point your attention to my desk, you will see that some miscreant has chosen to discard all of your, and more tragically, my, hard work.”

Click. Click.

The students turned in the direction of the desk, cowering beneath his flinted eyes.

“In light of this criminality...” Click. Click. ”...the principal has determined...” Mr. Locum choked out each phrase, clicking furiously between, “...that as anything we would have worked on...” Click. Click. ”...has been thieved...” Click. Click. ”...we should instead...” Click. Click. ”...watch a movie.” Mr. Locum spit out the final word as though it gave him personal injury, as gasps of surprise filled the room.

An hour and a half of Dungeons and Dragons was indeed an improvement on hyperbola’s and even Mr. Locum seemed cheered after Profion was eaten by the dragon.

Thomas and I congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon euphoric. Evil had been conquered-a villain vanquished! Mr. Locum would think twice before inflicting a pop quiz on us again!-for even the principal was on our side!

Riding high on the securement of our victory, I arrived home. Racing through the door, my joy was full!

The house was eerily quiet when I entered however, and a voice floated back from the living room.

“No, you’re quite right about that. Yes, certainly. Yes, I understand, sir. Mhmm. Mhmm. I’m sure it was him. Mhmm--I’ll handle it. Thank you for calling, Mr. Locum. I certainly appreciate it.”

My father: the person I feared most-far more indeed than Mr. Locum.

I contemplated: had he heard me come in? How fast could I pack? Where would I go? Surely, Thomas was in an equal or worse conundrum. I turned to flee, just as the phone beeped, ending the call. My heart exploded in a frantic flurry of fear.

“Son!” my father barked deafeningly. “Come here!”

- - -

The bus ride to school the next morning was unbearable, each bump and jolt intesifying the pains on my backside. Thomas, wincing next to me, felt it too. Our rage sat impotent through congruence theorems that afternoon, but on the bus home, we conspired furiously. Mr. Locum had crossed the sacred threshold of our homes, and vengeance was to be had!

Unable to meet after school, due to our groundings, the bus replaced the hydrangeas as our covert to scheme.

Hours spent drawing up numberless plans and blueprints, drafts and prototypes, were revised and abandoned.

We considered blackmail.

We considered arson.

Finally, we settled on murder.

Certain that nothing short of death could end the atrocities of the depraved Locum, we settled on a plan of action.

On the following Tuesday (Monday being historically unsafe), everything was ready to be put into effect.

At lunch, we were pictures of innocence... Not until Chemistry did the dominoes begin to fall...

While Thomas distracted Mz. Gerela (nicknamed Mz. Gorilla for the chest hair she prominently touted), I scurried to the back lab.

Carefully unscrewing the fountain pen I had selected for my task, I laid it on the lab bench.

Into its confines, I measured a slosh from one test tube and a squirt from another; some yellow paste here, some shavings of metal there. A final drip of something grey to finish the job, then a careful re-screw of the pen.

I placed it on his desk beside our graded pop quizzes.

“F” they both read.

“Hello, children,” began the familiar intonation. In one hand he held our pop quizzes. In the other, the pen.

Placing my red-lined quiz before me, he sneered maliciously.

“Section 4.9--composite shapes. We’ll start by...”

He stopped suddenly, his soulless eyes chancing on my upturned face.

Perhaps it was my flicker of interest that drew his suspicion. Perhaps it was my indifference at the giant red “F” that warranted his alarm.

Whatever the reason, he paused. Long moments passed.

Click. Click.

BOOM!

A shrill scream echoed through the room as the click of the pen evaporated in the sound like a bazooka leaving its’ tube. The burgeoning mushroom cloud of the explosion cloaked the room in grey.

I sat silent, hopeful.

Through the dense smoke, I searched anxiously. Was that a human form I saw--or a shifting phantom of the mists? Was the black hand reaching to us from the smog real or imagined? My eyes caught and held every particle of soot as it swirled through the room.

Then, there he was. Out of the plastic debris stepped Mr. Locum.

The soulless, subhuman succubus had survived! Battered and blackened, but unbeaten!-he stood before us, melted pen-remnants clutched in fist. Oh! The sorrows that passed through my soul!-knowing as I now did that the fiend could not, would not!, be killed!

Though his eyebrows were missing and his shirt scorched, he stepped forth from the smoke to issue his doldrums, as though there were no interruption.

“Section 4.9--composite shapes. We’ll start by reviewing centroids.”

A collective sigh of disappointment swept through the room as we opened our textbooks. Pens and pencils out, we settled to our torment. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

A sudden thump and a scream stopped us in our work.

“Make it stop! Please, make it stop!”

We stared confusedly at the huddled mass on the floor.

“Mr. Locum?”

Mr. Locum raised his head blankly, seemingly as confused as ourselves, when suddenly, one last pen-click sounded.

Click.

Mr. Locum dove in terror back to the floor and giggles filled the room.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

“No! Please! ...It’s coming for me!”

I settled back, gratified, to the sounds of laughter, and of pens clicking all about me.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Every Geometry class would now guarantee entertainment.

So weak; you felt intimidated.

I was obviously out of your league.

The time I wasted, stroking your ego;

You should have been bowing at my feet

The evil thoughts; the wicked plans;

All the pain I could inflict.

The fantasies that crossed my mind;

How I could make you not exist.

What if I posted all the pictures;

What if they knew how much you cried?

How you begged that night, down on your knees;

You would do nothing but deny.

Such a sad excuse for a man;

So weak in your manipulative monologues.

My Mom was right; "You always get fleas,

when you lie around with dogs".

So many days, I felt the cloud cover,

creating a darkness over my heart.

When all you were had finally lifted,

My revenge was, it was you, who fell apart.