It's the dead of night and I'm trying to suppress my full bladder's demands to rise from bed, brave the icy floor, and use the bathroom. I shrug these urges successfully for one, perhaps two quick dreams, but then I must succumb to my immutable need.
The floor is as cold as expected, maybe colder. The crisp air makes my skin prickle after the memory of shared body heat. I move quickly in order to get back to warmth.
Being warm during the night is to be expected, but warming back up after suffering the stark cold–that is most fulfilling. So as I quietly slide into bed and am met by my bedmate's embrace, with the blanket insulating our combined heat, I experience a rare yet pervading peace.
As I reach this apex of relaxation–a feeling that can only precede sleep by a few heartbeats–I am tugged from my divine state, for I hear an alarm clock coming alive.
It's 4:45 on a Sunday morning.
No matter, my level of ease in addition to the early hour gives me confidence that I'll be able to find sleep despite the disturbance.
I shift to my stomach, breaking the embrace that had so comforted me seconds before. She mumbles words that can only be dreamt as she shifts away from me. This disentanglement is normal–my mind oftentimes needs solitude for sleep anyway. But that solitude is also why noises such as the alarm can so delay me in achieving the stupored state.
Now, without her, my mind hones in on the alarm, which happens to be a radio emitting more static than music.
Minutes pass. Sleep evades. The alarm carries on.
I come to accept that nobody on the other side of the wall is going to silence this dogged interruption in what had been a blissful night.
I reluctantly open my eyes, remembering that ear plugs litter this room like assorted makeups in all too many other girls' rooms.
I grope the nightstand for the ear plugs, but also for much more than that: I grope it for hope–hope that the soft foams can deliver me from this developing annoyance. And then, much to my delight, my hand alights on one, and I'm certain I'll find another nearby.
Except something is wrong. My chagrin permeates my being, for on this nightstand there is just one ear plug, which is arguably no better than none. One plug is trivial, meaningless–like the reason barring the neighbor from silencing the alarm, it detracts nothing from my present misfortune.
Alas, I plug one ear and continue to hope. Even when hope is faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it continues its march toward deliverance. And I let it. What else can I do?
More minutes pass. My bedmate enjoys her soundless sleep, so opposite to the conundrum I try to solve just inches from her.
How naive she appears to me, now. She is blissfully unaware of the problem. If she were to wake, she would search for peace as concertedly as I do, but she won't wake. She simply...can't. Because this is my allegory.
My mind continues its churning, and eventually it extracts a solution: toilet paper. Toilet paper, when torn and properly rolled, can act as a makeshift plug.
So I rise once more from the warm bed. The coldness does not affect me as harshly this time–hope renewed functions as my heated shield.
I tear toilet paper, meticulously folding and rolling it into a homespun plug. I insert it, return to bed, and close my eyes, hoping for the best.
But, again, I am deterred. The sound of the radio easily infiltrates the thin tissue.
I have little left to reconcile. Time, I've decided, can be the only conqueror in this twisted game of dashed dreams. What I want is simple, yet its fruition surpasses any strategy I can mount. Yes, time can be the only thing to silence the noise, but even then the alarm will have bested me, barring me from my desired sleep for as long as it's been made to play before shutting off of its own accord. There is nothing I can do to alter that truth.
My reality exists in this room. The alarm is in another room, elsewhere, invisible yet ubiquitous. The two rooms merge, but only in certain dimensions, and not nearly enough for me to alter the state of the alarm.
And all the while she sleeps peacefully right next to me.
It may help if I divulge that the sleeping person next to me represents my students; the alarm clock is the many varied reasons and systems that cause students to fail academically; and the "I" is teachers, or more specifically, me.
The floor is as cold as expected, maybe colder. The crisp air makes my skin prickle after the memory of shared body heat. I move quickly in order to get back to warmth.
Being warm during the night is to be expected, but warming back up after suffering the stark cold–that is most fulfilling. So as I quietly slide into bed and am met by my bedmate's embrace, with the blanket insulating our combined heat, I experience a rare yet pervading peace.
As I reach this apex of relaxation–a feeling that can only precede sleep by a few heartbeats–I am tugged from my divine state, for I hear an alarm clock coming alive.
It's 4:45 on a Sunday morning.
No matter, my level of ease in addition to the early hour gives me confidence that I'll be able to find sleep despite the disturbance.
I shift to my stomach, breaking the embrace that had so comforted me seconds before. She mumbles words that can only be dreamt as she shifts away from me. This disentanglement is normal–my mind oftentimes needs solitude for sleep anyway. But that solitude is also why noises such as the alarm can so delay me in achieving the stupored state.
Now, without her, my mind hones in on the alarm, which happens to be a radio emitting more static than music.
Minutes pass. Sleep evades. The alarm carries on.
I come to accept that nobody on the other side of the wall is going to silence this dogged interruption in what had been a blissful night.
I reluctantly open my eyes, remembering that ear plugs litter this room like assorted makeups in all too many other girls' rooms.
I grope the nightstand for the ear plugs, but also for much more than that: I grope it for hope–hope that the soft foams can deliver me from this developing annoyance. And then, much to my delight, my hand alights on one, and I'm certain I'll find another nearby.
Except something is wrong. My chagrin permeates my being, for on this nightstand there is just one ear plug, which is arguably no better than none. One plug is trivial, meaningless–like the reason barring the neighbor from silencing the alarm, it detracts nothing from my present misfortune.
Alas, I plug one ear and continue to hope. Even when hope is faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it continues its march toward deliverance. And I let it. What else can I do?
More minutes pass. My bedmate enjoys her soundless sleep, so opposite to the conundrum I try to solve just inches from her.
How naive she appears to me, now. She is blissfully unaware of the problem. If she were to wake, she would search for peace as concertedly as I do, but she won't wake. She simply...can't. Because this is my allegory.
My mind continues its churning, and eventually it extracts a solution: toilet paper. Toilet paper, when torn and properly rolled, can act as a makeshift plug.
So I rise once more from the warm bed. The coldness does not affect me as harshly this time–hope renewed functions as my heated shield.
I tear toilet paper, meticulously folding and rolling it into a homespun plug. I insert it, return to bed, and close my eyes, hoping for the best.
But, again, I am deterred. The sound of the radio easily infiltrates the thin tissue.
I have little left to reconcile. Time, I've decided, can be the only conqueror in this twisted game of dashed dreams. What I want is simple, yet its fruition surpasses any strategy I can mount. Yes, time can be the only thing to silence the noise, but even then the alarm will have bested me, barring me from my desired sleep for as long as it's been made to play before shutting off of its own accord. There is nothing I can do to alter that truth.
My reality exists in this room. The alarm is in another room, elsewhere, invisible yet ubiquitous. The two rooms merge, but only in certain dimensions, and not nearly enough for me to alter the state of the alarm.
And all the while she sleeps peacefully right next to me.
It may help if I divulge that the sleeping person next to me represents my students; the alarm clock is the many varied reasons and systems that cause students to fail academically; and the "I" is teachers, or more specifically, me.