/yesod

Tag: classrooms

  • ratio

    I raise my head and when the professor calls on me I ask “Are these real numbers?”

    She pauses and narrows her eyes, hand frozen in mid-motion on the chalkboard where she’d been writing out the tables for the various ratios she was explaining. “How do you mean?”

    I stand up and go to the front of the class, gesturing to the board. “Do these numbers actually do what you’re saying they’ll do every single time, or are there situations where it changes?”

    I look back at the rest of the students. “See, I’m not afraid to ask the stupid questions for the rest of you. You’re welcome.”

    The professor gives me a look. “Why would they change?”

    “I don’t know. I’m not good at math. Numbers don’t make sense to me.”

    There’s a shift in her posture and attitude towards me, genuinely interested and concerned. “Do you have trouble understanding or writing the actual characters?”

    I try to assure her that I am not dyslexic, that I actually have a facility with writing and language… but I wake up before I can finish.

    —

    I lay there in the early morning dark, mildly frustrated that I wasn’t able to let her know that it is just the abstract nature of math that I have trouble with and not some kind of disability.

  • daycare rescue

    Somehow, I have become two people. There is the adult version of me, as I am now. And there is the teenaged version of me.

    Together, we are plotting to rescue my youngest daughter from her daycare. The details of why she needs rescuing aren’t explained but, armed to the teeth and sick with worry, we make our plans.

    (Even in my dream, the proximity of guns and children disturbs me. My younger self tries to reason with my older self, to convince him that it’s better to go to the police. But he/I refused.)

    We sneak into the school one night — something else that isn’t explained, why it’s nighttime — doing our best to bluff our way past the receptionist. Explaining why there are two of us is difficult.

    My older self is relieved when my teenage self says “I’m her older brother” — good thinking, kid.

    We do our best to keep the guns hidden as we make our way through the halls. But one of the kids sees the sawed off shotgun my younger self carries under his/my trenchcoat and we’re off to the races.

    Teachers and parents and children scramble everywhere in a panic. With the police on the way, we rush into a classroom and get my/our daughter out safely. No one has been hurt, no one has been caught.

    But back at the house, the police are waiting — painting the cheap stucco walls of our neighborhood with screams of blue and red.

    My older self says “Take care of her for me…” leaving my younger self to hold onto his/our daughter while he/I (the older version of me) leads the cops away. He doesn’t get far. And neither do we.

    It is terrifying, stressful, and heartbreaking. And I am relieved when I wake.