by Paul Lewellan
“How
was your week?” I asked. The others in the circle looked over to
David. Unlike them, he was still employed. His coworkers didn’t
know his diagnosis; they only suspected. Or they dismissed the idea
because he was too young to have Old
Timer’s
disease.
“Last Friday there
was this student . . .,” David began. He looked at the notebook in
front of him, turned to the page from Friday. He stopped.
“What
about him?” I prompted.
“Her.”
David shifted in his chair. He was wearing the sport coat and dress
slacks he’d worn to school that morning, but had taken off the tie
and traded his loafers for Nikes. “You’ll really think I’m
losing it . . ..”
“No
one is here to judge you.” I waited. “You were telling us about
a student.”
“Of
course.” He glanced down at his notes and started again. “I was
at my desk at the back of my classroom.” He gestured as if to show
us the location. “I looked up and saw a young girl seated across
from me. She wore a white and black cheerleader’s uniform with a
large G on the front of the sweater. That told me I was at Goldwater
High School.”
“As
opposed to . . . ?”
“Sometimes
I get confused and think I’m back teaching at St. Stephens College.
Anyway, I knew where I was. I looked around. On the wall were my
posters of Boll, Gordimer, Solzhenitsyn, Solinka . . ..” I noted
that David could recall the Nobel Prize winners for literature, but
not the school where he taught. “I got flummoxed. I didn’t know
who she was.”
“What
did you do?” asked someone anxiously from the circle.
