End of 1st Year

By May other teachers were always asking me, “Are you coming back for another year?” and revealing a small smile I replied, “Maybe.” In reality, I had made no other plans, and things could only go up; it wasn’t possible to go down. On one of the last days of school, I took the kids to the computer lab. I leaned against a wall and watched the students play their computer games; there was no fighting over the computers this time. They were just acting like kids, and for a moment, I remembered they were just seven and eight year olds. I thought, “See, I can do this.” It was one of the rare instances I thought like that, and I let it convince me I was at the right place. Things had fallen apart after January, but maybe I was still fulfilling my destiny, and maybe I just had to wait until next year. Maybe pigs will fly.