The following was slipped under my office door when I arrived to work today. I made some edits, but left most of the original so the author’s voice and intent was not changed. I have no idea who wrote it, or if the names were true.
– Coyote Rush
At 6:58 a young man walks towards a fairly large high school in a fairly small town, walking away from an average size parking spot. He feels no pressure as he approaches the school even though he has only been there to watch basketball and volleyball. Walking closer to the set of doors closest to where he parked the car, he is about 70% sure that the door will be locked and he will have to walk an acre to the nearest doors. He pulls on the doors and they swing open.
Stepping inside, the school looks like all the others: cement blocks painted white and lockers painted blue to show school spirit. Continuing down the narrow hall that is somewhat truncated because it appears to be a random wing of the school. He continues down the hall looking at the classrooms as they go by. Stopping at room 102, he sees a halfhearted attempt to be artsy. “Mr. December’s Woodworking.”
He continues down the hall which spits him Into the main artery of the school. Teenage girls wearing too much makeup and too little clothing on, throws Hunter Robinson into a time warp momentarily. His brain and body reunite with his 18 year old memory of himself. Don’t worry Hunter is not a pervert it is a natural thing. After a moment Hunter regained control, straightening his shirt and clearing his throat simultaneously.
Ignoring the adolescence girls that prance around with perfume clouds encircling and quantity of threads barely equaling the number acceptable to be deemed clothing, he continues to the office. Not having a clue if he is walking toward the office or toward the boiler room he asks the first person that is in striking distance. She points at him and then stares at him oddly and continues to while he walks away.
In the office were two women both speaking extraordinarily loud and rapidly on the phone. The women at the first desk gave him a finger that on this planet meant “one minute.” A little later she looked up at Hunter, put the phone on the receiver, killing the call.
“You must be Hunter,” she said.
“Yes, Hunter Robinson,” he said.
“I thought it must be you because I have never see you here before. You’ve never subbed here before have you?” she said.
“No, however, I have been in the school to watch basketball and volleyball games.” he said.
“Oh, then you will most definitely need a map of the school.” she said.
“No, I actually walked passed the room on the way here, I know where I am going.” Hunter said.
“Oh, how lovely, you won’t require a map. You have A lunch which begins at 10:30 am.” she said.
Hunter blurted out, “That’s lunch? Isn’t that more of a breakfast, or brunch, or a snack before lunch?”
She didn’t respond, instead she handed him a pile of papers and a pile of keys.
“Here are the papers you need to keep attendance on, have a student deliver the report as soon as you can at the beginning of the hour. Oh, and also, Mr. December has no preparatory period, his only break is at lunch.” she said.
“Is there substitute plans for me in the classroom?” Hunter said.
“Let’s hope” she said almost with a devilish inflection.
Hunter grabbed the pile of folders, papers, keys, along with his lunch and walked down the hall trying with a substantial amount of effort to not toss the heap into the hallway. Reaching the classroom, Hunter fumbled for the key that would grant access to the room, all the while balancing this almost cartoonish pile against gravity. He unsuccessfully tried unlocking the door several times, then it seemed almost by luck that the door opened. Why the room came as a surprise to Hunter was unknown, it was not a typical classroom because it was a woodworking shop. Still, everything was different for Hunter:
there were hanging electrical outlets, saws, large quantity of wood scattered in no definitive order, there were also three large volleyball trophies sitting on the floor amongst the sawdust and whatever grime happened to come close, but this was woodworking.
None the less it took him by surprise and he needed a moment to gather his surroundings. He searched for a desk that looked “teacher appropriate.” Hunter decided on a desk that was closest to the door. This brought upon his next ordeal, “how do I turn on these lights?” he thought. Along one wall there were six large gray power boxes, equipped with levers to turn off and on. Hunter hoped that he wasn’t going to be forced into deciphering how to operate these power boxes. His main reason for concern was stumbling onto and then turning on a self destruct button. He stalked the wall like a predator after its sustenance. He continued painstakingly slow down the wall examining and absorbing every inch of the wall. In between a large wooden cabinet and one of the gray power boxes there was a single innocuous white light switch. In slow motion Hunter apprehensively flicked the switch upward. Hunter expected a computerized voice to announce, “Thank you for selecting self destruct, the building will self destruct in one hundred and eighty seconds.” Hunter also feared this would reflect poorly on his substitute skills and really hurt his chances on being called back for another job opportunity. However, instead, eight ancient halide bulbs clicked on, glowing dimly, beginning their heating process that would eventually fill the room with a white yellow light. Hunter thought to himself, “Okay, I didn’t blow up the school, good start!” He took his spot at the “teacher’s desk” to go through the lesson plans that were left for him.
Dear Substitute,
Thank you for being here today. First take attendance and have a student run the slip to the office. The first thing the students should do is work on “Trees” which is a word search. Students should do this individually. Give the students roughly thirty minutes to work on this assignment. After the thirty minutes the students can choose from five movies, The Blind Side, Kung Fu Panda, A Clockwork Orange, Star Wars Episode I and Requiem for a Dream. Also, I am not saying that you are interested nor will you need it, but there is a half gallon of gin in the mini-frig in my office.
Thanks,
Kurtis December
P.S.
If you can avoid it any cost, resist being alone in my room by yourself for an extended period of time. There has been known and recorded paranormal activity that the school officials and district is investigating as well as trying to keep very low profile.
After reading this not Hunter couldn’t decide if he should take Mr. December at his word or for being a school jester. He entered the office of the shop room hoping to find a refrigerator to keep his sandwich and rest of the lunch cool. Under the desk of Mr. December’s desk Hunter found the refrigerator. He opened the door to find the half gallon of gin snugly placed inside, just as Mr. December had said. “Well, he hasn’t lied yet”Hunter thought, but this is a weird start of the day especially at 7:05 a.m.
First block started at 7:25 a.m. After a few students walked in late Mr. Robinson had a student that appeared to be slightly depressed take the attendance to the office. When the student returned Hunter passed out “Trees” word search. He had the students work on the assignment for a half hour just like Mr. December had instructed in his daily lesson plan for the substitute to follow. After the half hour ended Mr. Robinson conducted a student vote which would result in the viewing of a particular movie. After the students made their pick know by raising an arm indicating their preference in the cinematic adventure, Kung Fu Panda was placed into the DVD player.
Hunter was secretly excited about the students’ decision because he had never seen the movie before. Jack Black proved to be his old comical ridiculous self, full of laughs at his own expense,(his own Panda sake) even if he was portraying a panda. The bell went off before the story had progressed very far.
Second block came in like hell on ice skates, shouting and yelling all sorts of gibberish. The boys talking about fire trucks, four wheelers, foam insulation, fog horns, and foreclosures. The girls walked into the room talking about rainbows, roads, rabbits, reindeer, rubies, rattlesnakes and Realtors. When their conversations collided with one another the fire trucks were driving doing rainbow roads avoiding reindeer by blowing fog horns. After a few “heys” and “shut ups” Mr. Robinson lowered the volume of the class enough to tell them their assignment and surprisingly they stopped all their talk about randomness and got right to work.After another half hour was dedicated to the wordsearch known only as “Trees” the class voted to watch The Blindside. Three minutes into the movie, every single student was bawling uncontrollably. Hunter was surprised at this because he had seen the movie but nothing emotional had even happened yet. “It was still the previews for heavens sake” he thought. The class continued this emotional train wreck, increasing in its ridiculousness. Students were sprawled out on the floor in puddles of their own tears, other students were ripping out pages of their textbooks and using them as Kleenex. The bell rang and suddenly every student snapped right out of their devastation, becoming the loud and obnoxious group they were when they entered the room.
At 10:03 a.m. It was lunch and it was far too early to anything. (that’s what she said.) No hunger nagged Hunter, so he walked the halls thinking that he recognized one of the names from another place in time. He was walking down the hall on his way to that teacher’s room when a random teacher stopped to ask if she could help him. He said he was looking for a teacher that taught science or something and was a coach of something, it was obviously a good description. Hunter couldn’t remember any of the important facts so it made it seem like he was making up some story just to roam the halls and look at all the perfume laced teenager girls. He explained to the concerned teacher that he was a substitute teacher looking for a teacher he thought he knew. The female teacher told him that she had to ask because she didn’t want some random creeper walking the halls of the school. Hunter asked her if he fit that description she said no, but he didn’t believe her.
Hunter had narrowed his search to one room and told himself it had to be that room. When he got to the room he had hoped she would be outside welcoming her students into her class, but she was not. So, he filled his destiny at this point and creepily peaked inside. He couldn’t get a glimpse of her to see if he had chose the right room. So, he gathered his courage and walked inside. He saw the teacher and it was not the face he expected it to be. Rather than retreating immediately, Hunter felt compelled to explain why a stranger had walked into the room with a giant smile that faded immediately after seeing her face. He walked up to her and tried to explain the situation, but when he opened his mouth everything wen wrong. Everything Hunter said seemed to confuse the teacher more and more.
“Do you need help?” the teacher said.
“No, I don’t need any help I don’t think, I was trying to find someone, but you weren’t it, sorry. I felt I had to explain myself.” Hunter said. The teacher sat in her chair staring blankly at him.
“What teacher are you subbing for?” she said.
“Mr. December.” Hunter said.
The misidentified teacher’s body language changed completely. Sitting up in her chair with perfect posture her eyes opened fully as she said, “How is your day so far?”
“Pretty good, why?” Hunter asked.
“Good, good, no reason.” she said.
“Ok, well have a nice day, sorry.” Hunter said.
She didn’t respond, but didn’t break her trance as Hunter turned and walked out of the room.
Feeling slightly uneasy Hunter Robinson decided to to wander the halls of the school in a circle not sure where he was going to end up during his lunch, because who the hell would be ready to eat this early? He strolled by computer labs, science labs, stripper poles, biological weapon testing facilities, the gymnasium, the cafeteria, and the Large Hadron Collider. Upon returning to Mr. December’s room Hunter felt a trickle from his nose, he wiped it with a finger and found it to be blood. He attended to his nose as two random men appeared apparently from a back entrance that he didn’t even know existed. The men asked, “Are you the sub?”
“Yes.”He said.
“Oh, good for you, glad you’re here, we’re just looking for some stuff and we will be right out of here, trust us.” they said.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” Hunter said.
Hunter went back to the office to throw away the bloody kleenex and check if the bleeding had ceased/ It had stopped bleeding for the most part, he turned around to find the lights out and the men had disappeared. Hunter tried not to think anything of it.
The third block of students came in full of food. When they walked you could hear the contents of their stomachs sloshing back and forth. With each step they sloshed, finally they plopped into their seats as if they weighed 600 hundred pounds of loose hamburger. Every small movement of the students sounded like a different part of the digestive cycle. Gurgling, sloshing, gases transferring, liquids moving from high density to low density replaced voices. This continued for 103 minutes. Hunter did not have a single conversation with any of the students.
The bell rang and Hunter was more than happy to see the class of stomachs out of there.
Hunter was starting to think that maybe there was more to this paranormal thing that Mr. December had mentioned. He hadn’t gave it a lot of thought until that last class. And things were beginning to feel a little different.
Hunter had about seven minutes before the students had to be in the classroom. He made it to the sink in about three steps and began washing his face and hands. He turned on the faucet and then started splashing water on his face, in his hair, down his shirt. He turned off the water and spun around to walk back to the desk. With the first step he took toward the desk he heard an odd squish and looked down to notice he had sunk about eight inches into the floor. Hunter looked back up as if to say, “What?!” then looked back down to discover the cement floor had been replaced with swamp land. He could barely struggle his way to his desk. Hunter looked toward the door to find at his horror a student standing right in the doorway. The student looked beyond mystified, from the student’s view point, Mr. Robinson had been in a battle to the death with the floor, trying to conquer walking across it. Finally, the student said, “You’re the sub?” student said.
“Yes, I am, how are you?” Hunter said.
“Uh, I’m ok, are you?” student said.
“Yes, fine, super, grand, great, couldn’t be better!” Hunter said.
“Yeah……. okay.” the student said.
“Take your seat.” Hunter said as he once again tried to regain control.
Hunter made attempts to gather his composure with futility. His voice came out like a mixture between a frog and a robot, “Okay, today you are going to this wordsearch named Trees. Then we are going to vote on a movie. The students got right to work, but that did no ease Hunter’s mind. Hunter watched the students as they all started changing, and I don’t mean puberty. I mean, it looked as if their bodies had lost its ability to hold shape. The students appeared if their bodies were slowly melting into a goo like substance. Hunter Robinson at this point was 99% sure his mind had snapped. Maybe there was some air leak into the room was causing this hallucination. Hunter walked into the office closing the door behind him. He knelt and tried to come to his senses. “Open the door, it’s not out there.” he said to himself. He peaked out the door to find the students progressing in their melting. This did not settle his mind at all. He thought to himself, “this can’t hurt at this point.” He reached for the mini-frig, reached pushed aside his lunch and grabbed the booze. Hunter paced in every direction as he searched the office for a cup or a glass. Finding a large coffee mug he poured the gin until it spilled all himself and the floor. He tilted his head back, loosened his throat as he let the alcohol slide down easily. Hunter let out an extra forceful “whew and the office immediately filled with booze vapors.
He emerged feeling slightly more confidence and relaxed. These feelings were premature. Hunter cracked open the door to face the students who had now melted into blobs that were sitting on a chair with eyes starring right back into his own. “okay… Let’s pick a movie to watch for the last part of class,” Instantaneously the class in unison with blob like smiles said “We will watch you.”
At this comment Hunter went: blue over gray, jumped the shark, flew the coup. And so on. Hunter was still functioning on humanistic reasoning that nothing was really ‘that’ wrong.
“Trust me,” he said, “Kung Fu Panda is far greater of a cinematic adventure than I am.” The class’ belief would not budge, they felt that ‘Mr. Robinson’s live action show in real time was quite possibly the best thing to hit the air since this small blue planet burst on the scene God knows when. Despite the disapproval from the blob students Hunter pivoted on the swamp ground and put in Kung Fu Panda. A giant guttural grown swelled and filled the room. When he managed to unstuck his shoes from the muck, he heard “No! We will watch you!” He looked over his shoulder to find that the bloobs had moved rows closers and seemed to be right on top of Hunter. He decided that he had to make a run from the class. The television, went to static, Hunter ran as fast as his feet would let him in the muck, only to get to the exit as saws, tables, and other woodshop material smashed into the door preventing his escape. He slowly peered over his shoulder at the “class” to see that the blob students were all on one desk, the desk closest to Hunter.
“Oh! Hey there, everyone!” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Robinson” they said as one.
“Could you inform me to what you plan on me doing in this episode or movie?” Hunter somehow managed a stab at humor,”Or at least, what is my motivation for this scene?”
“We’ve been watching you for a long time, Mr. Robinson.” they said.
“What does that mean, what happened to you?” he said.
“What happened to us,” they snickered. “What happened to you?”
“This is too much, I have to get out of here, let me leave.” he said
“You’ve never been anywhere, but here, Hunter.”
“This is some dream, am I right? Please tell me I’m right.”
“You’re right, Hunter.
That is where this letter becomes completely incoherent. Letter s that form no words. Forming sentences that desire with their heart to be paragraphs.
Let us wish for a quick return of Hunter Robinson.
Hoping For News,
Coyote Rush
