"A School Dream"

Me during my early years teaching!

         I pulled my car into the fenced enclosure, neatly sliding into the correct slot, my assigned number. Walking around to the passenger side door, I heaved out my black tote, hitching it onto my right shoulder as I leaned forward to heft out the plastic crate filled with essays and a class set of journals. My muscles screamed in protest by the time I reached the Administration building where I quickly checked my box for any important messages, so I set everything down long enough to rotate my shoulders, fill my pitcher with ice, and chat with a colleague about the day ahead.

         Cutting across the patio, I nudged open the glass doors and trudged up a short flight of stairs, turning to the left towards my classroom. Outside my door waited an impatient group of students.

         “Finally.”

         “Geeze, Miss. Can’t they do something about your schedule?”

         “You’re always late!”

         I ignored their lament as they recited the same complaints every morning. My work day didn’t start at my own classroom on my home campus. Instead, my day began on our nine-ten campus teaching a career studies class to freshmen. I “borrowed” a teacher’s room on that campus every day, and her resentment at being displaced meant I had to schlep supplies back and forth because she forbade my students from using her tape and staples. She’d taped little X marks on the floor where I had to make certain the desk legs hit. Her rows must be perfectly straight. Because I had to leave these freshmen five minutes before the end of the class period to drive to my other campus, an administrator asked this other teacher to step in so the students would have supervision. This teacher refused, though. I reasoned that my seniors were capable of waiting in the hallway a few minutes every morning. Unlike the freshmen, I doubted they’d start throwing punches or vandalizing anything. However, they did like to complain.

         My key turned quickly in the lock. One student grabbed the crate while the others filed into the room. Someone flipped on the lights while another student pulled out the bin that contained the class’s journals. The instructions written on the board before I left the afternoon before meant these seniors settled down quickly while I caught my breath.

         The windowless room with its dark-paneled walls and orange carpet constantly carried a scent of mildew. I’d tried to warm the room with overflowing pots of philodendron and scented candles. I’d stapled an old bedspread from ceiling to floor along one corner of the room and placed a small couch with pillows and a floor lamp to create a reading/writing nook. The room, too tiny for the number of desks it contained, didn’t feel cramped because I’d clustered the them into groupings of various sizes.     

            Last night, I found myself back in that old classroom. I hadn’t step foot into that space in eighteen years, yet in my dream last night I lugged my tote and crate, swept up those stairs, and greeted my students. I caught the wafting aroma of mold and cranberry candles. I scanned the instructions on the board on the unit on Abnormal Psychology. And for a moment, I relived in a vivid dream a moment that represented millions of moments from my teaching career.

            This school dream marked the first return to work from my subconscious mind. I don’t know why this particular scene surfaced, but the memory reminded me of the joy teaching brought into my life for many years. I didn’t mind teaching five preparations across two different campuses because those seniors sitting outside my door resented losing five minutes of instructional time. They longed to delve into Freud, Skinner, and Bandura. So if I drift back to work in my sleep, it’s wonderful that I slip back into one of my best memories where teaching school was a dream.

 Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Blessing in Disguise"

 

New couch with new floors!

            Before my dad died, he installed off-white carpet throughout their home to offset the richly dark paneling that walled their home, a typical decorating style in the late 1970s. Only three adults lived in the house, and he figured the more expensive Berber carpet would last for many years.  After he died, Mom moved to an apartment in San Antonio, leaving my brother alone in the home. My brother tended to enter his house through the garage, which meant the area next to that door became an eyesore.

White painted cabinets we did!

            We spent many visits with my brother fixing and refreshing odds-n-ends around his home. Sometimes we focused on yardwork out back. We spent many days with paint brushes in hand when Mom talked my sister and me into painting the dark kitchen cabinets white. I tackled the first round of decluttering the garage, and my brother helped me paint his bedroom a soft blue. We bought a carpet cleaner, but it never seemed to handle the trail that tracked Charles’s footsteps from garage to his bedroom.

            We debated ripping up just the carpet in the hallway, the highest traffic area. After tiling our entire home in San Antonio, we toyed with the idea of taking a couple of weeks off to rip out the off-white nightmare to install tile floors into every room of Charles’s home. This labor intensive project, once we ran the numbers, proved too expensive as a gift for my brother. We shoved the ugly carpet out of our minds and focused on funding his property taxes and car repairs instead.

            Around this time in 2021, a huge ice storm devastated Texas homes and businesses. My brother spent a huge part of the crisis staying at work and in a hotel room his boss rented for employees who had freeze damage. One pipe burst in the master bathroom that flooded Charles’s entire home. When he finally entered his home, it was to find water in the garage and every room of the hideous carpet sopping wet. He entered a nightmare of the scope he’d never handled alone. My sister found a wonderful, reliable general contractor who understood my brother’s limitations. She ripped out the carpet within hours, oversaw the plumber as he repaired the burst pipes, and with her camera documented damage for the insurance claim.

            As the entire state competed for supplies, it took months for the floors Charles selected to arrive. Sheetrock, something usually stacked several feet high at hardware stores, didn’t become available until June in his area. Bit-by-bit, the contractor moved from room to room installing the new floors Charles selected. He wanted tile, not wood. Another flood hitting his home won’t translate into floor damage!

            This month, we passed the anniversary of that terrible storm. Although the experience almost stressed my brother to his limits, he speaks of how much he loves the new floors. As he lived through the disaster, he felt overwhelmed. Now, though, he speaks of it as a blessing in disguise. His home became his haven.

Spare bedroom with new floors!

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Body Art"

Dreams, sometimes, come so vivid that they seem real. Even during the light of day, the dream lingers. This little scenario invaded my sleep the other night and begged to be written down!

           We drove quickly past furrowed fields. Flat land stretched mile after mile, broken occasionally by disciplined groves of orange trees. Without warning, David swerved our SUV onto a dirt road, pluming dusty smoke behind us as he gunned the engine. I clutched onto the car door to keep upright during the sharp turn.

           Suddenly, David pulled to a stop in front of an empty field. To the right, a dilapidated shack reminded me that civilization easily fell to ruins. To the left, a grove of orange trees stood alert, the only witness to our actions. We climbed out of the car. I stood with uncertainty, but David jogged down the dirt road a stretch, eyes scanning right and left as he searched for the perfect item to incorporate into his latest sculpture. I decided to check the shed out of simple curiosity.

            The stench hit me ten feet away from the shack, practically knocking me off my feet. I retched and backed up a few paces, searching out air that wasn’t putrid. My stomach heaved out breakfast. I stood, bent double, one hand holding back my long hair while the other pressed against the fear that twisted my stomach. David must have heard me as he’s footsteps changed from a padded jog to an outright run.

           “What is it? Are you okay?” His concern made me feel a little better.

        Sinking to the ground, I swiped my mouth with the hem of my t-shirt and pointed in the direction of the hut. “Something’s dead. Over there.”

          David’s tolerance for anything that reeks is renown, so he cautiously approached the shed. I watched as the doorway framed him in blackness. He didn’t enter the small building, but stood searching the darkness for a few seconds before returning to my side.

           “There’s a dead body in there!” Excitement tinged his voice. “Wow! This is perfect!”

           “What do you mean? This is horrible!” I started to cry.

           “Look, I think I can scoop the remains onto that tarp we brought,” David’s eyes danced as the ideas flooded through him. “This is just what I’m looking for.”

          “A dead body!” I screamed as I scrambled back to my feet. I clutched at David’s arm, pleading, “Leave it alone. Let’s call the police. This could be a crime scene!”

            Possessed with passion, David swiped my arm away. “Look. No one knows we’re here. We don’t even live in this part of Texas. No way anyone can connect a missing person to us.”

          “But David,” I appealed to his sense of honor, “this is wrong! Someone is searching for this person. There’s a family out there missing a loved one. You can’t just steal the body!”  

   Before I knew it, I was standing in front of David’s creation, which he called Body Art. A grotesque sculpture of woods, branches, fabrics, and severed human limbs adorned my backyard. An arm, hand splayed in an appeal to the gods, reached skyward. A foot rooted the structure to the ground. Horror and terror filled me as my gaze riveted onto the art. My mind raced to explanations I could give the authorities if David ever decided to display his masterpiece.

  I tried, once again, to reason with him. “Couldn’t you buy and use a skeleton for this? Couldn’t you accomplish the same thing without using real remains?”

“What would we do with the body parts then?”

“We’d take them up to the hill country. We could distribute them in tiny parcels, bury them and put rocks on top of them. Scatter them over so many different places that no one would ever find them.”

“Sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” David’s attention turned to me. “I thought you wanted to notify the police?”

“That option left us when you scooped that body into the tarp!” I snapped angrily. “No, this is our only solution now.”

David shrugged his shoulders as he looked back at his work. “I just wanted to do this. It’s done.” He angled his head as he thought, “I’ll dismantle it tonight, and we’ll do as you want.”

Under cover of darkness, we drove randomly through the hill country. We’d pull off the back roads, duck under barbed-wired fences with shovels in hand, and buried the pieces to the body we’d found.

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Naked Nightmare”

        As the school year winds down, all my friends still in education post on Facebook, with fairly high frequency, status updates on their “no sleep nights.” With gratitude, I realize that retirement ended my horribly restless nights and bad dreams. My dream frequency always increased in number right before returning to work in August and then again in the weeks prior to the end of each school year in May.
      These dreams or nightmares invaded my REM sleep relentlessly, leaving me with battle fatigue because of their vivid nature. Two nightmares recurred off and on for years. In both, I find myself back in my first high school classroom. This interior room, with no windows and plain brown paneling and musty orange carpet, lingers in most of my school dreams although I taught in five other classrooms before I finally retired. I’m certain Freud or Jung would have interesting interpretations on why I find myself back in the same boxed room over and over again.
          In one dream, I sit at a student desk aiding a student with a passage in our literature book when the principal’s voice breaks into the quiet. “Mrs. Chapman, report to my office. Now!”I feel my cheeks burn as I hurry down the hallway, stumble down the stairs, and dash madly to the administrative building. When I get to the principal’s office, he gestures for me to sit in a chair as he angrily sorts through piles of papers. Finally, he triumphantly waves a document and announces, “Do you realize you never graduated from high school?”
          My mouth drops open in comical disbelief as I gasp. “What?”

          “Look!”

           My hands shake as I read my high school transcript and realize that for some reason, I never took government and economics! “Why didn’t my college admissions notice this? Why didn’t my high school counselor notice? What am I going to do?” The panic attack hits quickly and painfully.

          “Only one answer,” my sage principal replies. “You’ll finish those two courses here.”
          And the remainder of my dream blurs with me teaching my own classes and attending those two high school classes during my conference period. Each time I have this dream, I’m never certain if I’m a student or a teacher. Of course, in education this reality exists—we are always both the student and the teacher. Every day, I learned as much as I taught.
          My second recurring nightmare finds me in the same classroom as the previous dream, usually standing before my students, giving instructions for the day’s assignments. With every eye riveted to me, I walk across the front of the room, move up and down the rows, pause here and there as I gesture for emphasis. All of my students pay attention to what I say, and I feel pleasure that I have their total concentration focused on me.

          I move back to the front of the room and glance down. With horror, I realize that I have no clothes on. Nothing. Nada. Totally naked! I look back at my students, but they’ve begun their work.
          “No one’s noticed!” I whisper to myself in relief.
          Looking next to me, I notice my clothes neatly folded and sitting on the corner of my desk. So my plan is simple. I just need to get dressed without anyone noticing. Certainty floods me that my students will only notice my nudity if they become aware of my reverse strip tease. Flustered and embarrassed, I sneak over to my desk where I try to casually don my underpants and bra without catching anyone’s attention.
          Never once, in all the years I dreamed this nightmare have I pulled on an item of clothing without one student looking up and the entire class laughing at my nakedness!

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman