It is early Monday morning on the last day of September. Before 6am, I sit in absolute silence in the reading room and listen to all the things which are empty. The air outside is black and the warm corner light glows over the edge of the coffee mug and the damp hem of the thick plaid blanket. It rained around 4am and in a few days I will need to start searching around for socks and shoes with closed toes. I see myself going through the tedious process of removing all the plants from the porch and trying to find the best place to put them; a location where they receive maximum waning autumn light.
I look out the window and consider my day. I decide that when the cars move on my street, the moon moves with them. The red tail lights flicker and fade away in the rain. The moon is gone. As I drive in along the edge of the golf course, there are mini ponds set in the fields sporting layers of filtered fog stacked up on top of each other. All around the ponds these layers look like tubes riding up to heaven. I know there are trolls and leprechauns in that air and I keep both hands on the wheel in case my car starts to vanish in the thick fog, or in case a deer leaps out at my vehicle from the swamp side of the street.
The trick in our building is to ride the elevator without other people. I drag my bags through the front doors of the school and keep my eyes straight ahead looking at the entrance to the corner where the elevator travels. A group of people climb in and one waves as if to ask me whether or not I want them to hold the doors. I shake my head and I step back in a waiting posture to avoid crowding on with them. I look left at the wall and read a poster which states boldly, “It’s okay to not know what you are doing”. I like that. I approach the elevator and I listen as it moves up to the third floor, the faint ding of the bell sounds, muffled doors slide and I hear a voice and then I hear the box in the wall make the same trip in reverse. The door opens and I enter alone. I ride up three flights passing the 44 steps on my side of the building. The stairs are divided into 4 sections of 11 steps apiece. On the other side of the building in at least one stairwell, there are still 44 steps but they are divided into a set of 16 steps, 6 steps, and two sets of 11 steps. I don’t like this side. The uneven chunks of numbers is irritating.
One of my seven year old fellow travelers stops by my office. He’s on the lam again. We talk. “People are telling me to do things I just don’t want to do”. I ask about his Dad, who is no longer living with the family. He hops up on the window ledge in the hallway and stretches out like he was on a bed. We talk a bit more. I ask him if he wants to walk me to the bathroom. He says “No”. He waits back in my office with my student teacher while I take a jog down the other hall. When I return, one of the vice-principals is in my office talking to the seven year old about football. I hear a reference to snacks. The two of them strike some sort of a deal and they disappear down the hallway together. I close the open window on the ledge where he has been lying. It’s beginning to rain again.
I do not really eavesdrop but I love a good dialogue. People tell you everything in time. Just listen long enough and deeply enough. People will tell you more than you would ever wish to know. I can’t explain it and I don’t often understand it. It just is. They talk and they talk and in the end it sounds just like the quietest whisper of a driven leaf on a grey chalk day.
690 Saint Paul 