social moreos

After lunch, I have to go to the bank with my co-teacher. I stop in the 7/11 outside the school gates to pick up Oreos because oh my, I am craving Oreos. I open the box and offer my co-teacher a cookie.

"No thank you. There are parents around and we are teachers.. it is wrong image if we eat on the street."

"Really?" I ask, confused but slowly biting into an Oreo nonetheless.

She looks embarrassed for me.

"Yes, it is not behaviour of teacher. But you... you are like a child, not a teacher!!" She laughs.

Ain't nobody too grown up for Oreos!!

three nineteen

When I close my eyes, I’m there again and I can feel it all.

“Wilson is next. Doors open on the left, at Wilson.”

The El began to slow down and grind to a stop. I stood and held the handrail, until I jerked forward, back again, and hurried out the sliding doors. Outside was cold. Chicago cold. I made my way down the steps and out of the El station.

Sometimes the Wilson stop creeped me out a little. Despite the recent attempts at gentrification, it was a poorly lit neighbourhood. I could hear the homeless man under the El tracks singing as usual before I even turned the corner. He always sang so cheerfully and I always wished I could be as cheerful as him in his situation and then I resented herself for envying his hard, lonely song.

I walked the street briskly, turning left on Malden, and down to the end of the street. I couldn’t wait to be out of the cold and pressed the buzzer for 319, waited for the buzz of the door and entered the checkerboard foyer. I would jog the first couple flights of stairs, and walk the last one slowly to catch my breath.

The door was always open.