Armageddon

I'm so dizzy.

Yesterday was day one of my indentured service. I don't understand this place. I am cast out to another building while I am being processed for termination. Upon entering I felt as though I was twelve years old again, and entering the first year of middle school. That's curious to me because I never had a first day of middle school, since I attended a primary school and then a secondary school.

The desk attendant/security guard was cordial enough, as she took my time-sheet. Right away it was beginning to feel surreal. I felt ashamed and humiliated to have to check-in. It was as though I was registering in an internment camp - very opposite than the feeling one imagines was felt when immigrants arrived on Ellis Island, having their names written in a book, or at least a variation of their names.

Truly, I feel that I am an inmate here. The guard told me that there are one hundred-thirty people presently assigned here, and we must remain on the fourth floor where we cannot leave, and where there is only one single-occupancy restroom. There are six small rooms in which everybody is corralled and crowded.

Sylvia, the desk attendant/security agent was told to go find a space and sit down, and to "entertain myself" since there is "nothing for us to do here."

I passed a room that was full, and peered inside another room from its doorway. A woman sitting near the door snapped at me, as others stared while some were unaware of me, telling me that I had to go somewhere else.

I was so discouraged that I just resigned myself to stand in the hallway. No sooner had I done so, then Juan - another security agent (note: not School Safety Officer/NYPD, but rather an independently hired private agency) - approached me and told me that I couldn't be there and that I had to go in a room.

"I'll be fine here standing," I said.

"No, you can't stand there all day," he retorted.

"I've done it before and I can do it here," I replied.

"You must go to a room," he insisted.

I told him that I had just arrived and there didn't appear to be any space for me. He opened the door to another room near him, in which was sitting a man and some empty chairs and two tables. The security guard ushered me in and to sit down. I promptly did so, feeling very child-like in the treatment I was receiving.

The fellow in the room told me that I was in Tim's seat and that Tim wasn't there, but that I'd have to give him his seat back when he returned again, the next day. I thanked him, and cautiously introduced myself. His name is Chuck. He lives upstate and has been here two years, for an incident outside of work that supposedly compromises his moral character at work.

I was shocked. I hadn't been there 20 minutes and I was already feeling a great deal of anxiety. After hearing Chuck's story and sharing some of my own experience (insubordination for not reporting to duty when I left the building upon advice of my assistant principal, whom I told I didn't feel safe in a classroom where the student who attacked me remained, since my disciplinary referral was not accepted), Chuck then left the room to talk to somebody.

Another man then came in some time afterwards and sat down quietly. It was his second day and he said he was just trying to figure things out, on the floor.

How long had it been? Hours?
No, only forty minutes. Good grief. I'm surrounded by narrow walls, a fogged window, and flickering fluorescent lights. I try to keep myself occupied. I write and I read. I don't use the bathroom. I feel the walls and ceiling descending upon me.

Finally the hour of redemption arrives; dismissal. Then my cell-phone's battery is exhausted and it turns off. My cell-phone also serves as my watch, so now I don't know what time it is, or how much time is passing. I consider how I can keep track of the time while maintaining my sanity and not focus on the time alone.

I wander out into the hallway and see that there's a wall-clock hanging in another room, visible through a partly-open doorway. I step into the hallway to check it periodically, trying not to go too frequently, but not wanting to miss my dismissal time. Upon reflection I realize that I should have noted the time and then seen how many pages I read of my book until the next time-check I made, and could have kept track of the minutes in that manner. I didn't have the concentration to be that creative just then.

What time is it?

When I start reading, I find it difficult to concentrate on the book and disregard thinking about the time. Then as I become engrossed in the book, I am suddenly struck with the realization that I don't know how much time has passed. I rush up to go take a look at the clock again. fifteen minutes remaining. Hopeful with an end in sight, yet such distant minutes all at once.

When I left I felt free, but unclean.
Knowing I had to return again in the morning was defeating. I walked down the street, which was a commonly busy intersection, but I heard no sounds as the deafening sound of my own voice enveloped me. I tried to not look at anything or anybody as I tried to flee from there, as far and as fast as I could. I wasn't running but my heart was pounding. I felt as if everybody was looking at me, watching me, seeing me exit the building.

I didn't know whether to take comfort in walking out with others in my similar predicament, or to distance myself and perhaps escape any association. After all, I don't know if they even are in a similar predicament as I or not. Even though I have no tattoos, I have been branded.

Although I am grateful that I needn't spend sleepless nights in a tent as desert gales dull the sounds of bullets whizzing by my helmet, I can't help but wonder how long ago it was that I was grateful for the goodness in my life. It seems that it takes catastrophes to appreciate the calm.

Of course, I consider the much more dire circumstances I endured while growing up with my elder sister and mother, always having to move apartments and change telephone numbers in order to flee her ex-husband (our so-called "father"), who would track us down to exact revenge because my mother divorced him in Hong Kong, ending their arranged-marriage from India. Now my life is relatively safer. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, my basic needs are met. I have food, shelter, and love. However, because these needs are met, I have the unfortunate luxury of worrying about how I'll pay for my radiation treatments once I am fired and my insurance is discontinued. I wonder if others feel somewhat guilty of the privilege of sitting in a doctor's office, knowing that so many people do not have access to health-care, only to then be treated so indignantly that I no longer appreciate the visit very much.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Maybe I don't appreciate my job enough, or my students enough, or haven't expressed sufficient gratitude to my boss. Perhaps the universe has consigned me here in this building of outcasts, to teach me something that I must learn.