One Woman

part two

            “I’m slipping,” she told Joan.

            “What do you mean by that?” said Joan.

            “I see things that don’t belong in the classroom, like guns.”

            “Guns?”

            “When I go to pick them up, they vanish, leaving my hand bare,” she said.

            She explained to Joan that she had dreamt of reaching for leaves on the lower branches of elms, knowing all was possible like wearing a pink blouse with a collar of fur. “I once dreamt of the truth as being as simple as my name.” Joan could not follow her logic. The television images of schizophrenics cornered Joan in a crease of fear left to smolder.

            Joan sent her home like she would have a teacher with a bad cold or a bit of the flu. This was good. This was appropriate.

            Joan then went to the woman’s classroom. Still written on the whiteboard was the woman’s quote for the day:  Today is Wednesday, December 8, 2002. Today we live, we love, and we breathe exhaust fumes from large buses crowded with people, and we love all of them, even the ones who wear their clothes inside out, their tags showing. We love them anyway. Joan erased the whiteboard. Tomorrow she would telephone the woman and tell her she was a great teacher, but she was also a schizophrenic and as a result of that, she could not be trusted to be safely alone in the classroom with children.

*

            The woman was in her study, standing at her easel, painting an image of wildflowers rooted too deep to lose themselves to wind when the phone rang. Joan did not say hello.

            She simply said, “Kristina?”

            And Kristina responded, “Yes.”

            “Are your friends still with you?” Joan had known that Kristina’s friends had been there surrounding her with support.

            “No.”

            Joan went on to say her peace, peace dangerous to Kristina’s psyche.

            Kristina folded into herself, searching for truth that would allow her to put on her shoes and leave the house in search of a free bird. She hung up without saying another word.

            Tomorrow, there would be no students. What is the truth in this? A revolver would have ended it all. It would be a good year before Kristina could thank God that she hadn’t owned a firearm. It would be a long time coming before she could make sense of what happened. She too watched television, but weren’t people smarter than prime time?