afternoon lasts forever

afternoon lasts forever

fiction
edward w pritchard

Double periods are difficult to teach; two double periods in a row gets a teacher through the morning but it is hard to do it everyday.

About November of her twelfth year teaching  the toll of teaching double periods began to exhaust Mrs. Kersey. One afternoon, standing in the hall between classes she realized that she had been teaching the same day over and overall for as long as she could remember. As she thought about it for the first time, after a long morning of double periods, she became aware that she was always at the school, always teaching her twelveth year, and she never got to go home to see her family any more.

Mrs. Kersey became aware that her afternoon would last forever and she was stuck standing in the hall waiting for the bell to ring to begin to teach her afternoon class; stuck forever and forever with no way out.