He stared at his hands. He had weathered fingertips. Chalk dust filled the creases and outlined his fingerprints. Both the right side of his thumb and the left side of his index finger where he held his chalks were flattened. It’s amazing where chalk can go; it finds its way into just about everything you carry. To his consternation, he would find that damnable powder on his bed sheets, a taunt first thing in the cold morning to start another day of teaching.
Charlie would take jaunts around town trying to escape the mundane world that had become his reality. Sometimes it would actually work; he’d find something even just slightly amusing and with great effort work it up into an engaging experience. Though labored, it gave him a quaint respite. But then he’d dig his hands into his jacket and find it again. That chalk, just the texture was enough. And it would snap his consciousness back to the hard light. Monday he’d be there again for five interminable days.
For a time during that first year, he spent most of his free time scrubbing the bathroom, his bedroom and kitchen spotless. He mused about a cleaning service for disgruntled teachers whose occupational hazard was the chalk that inflitrated their lives. He would get a union rep to collect fees and get paid handsomely for it. He would give seminars:

The first step to cleaning chalk is to vacuum clean the loose chalk.
Second, use a white cloth dipped in warm water. If you do this quickly this may be all you need. If not, on to step three.
Three, make a cleaning solution consisting of two cups of water and one tablespoon of liquid dish soap.
Four (and this is where his added-value would shine), use this cleaning solution to push down repeatedly on the carpet. That’s right, do NOT, I repeat do NOT wipe; absorb it, absorb it.
Five, use a sponge and apply cold water to the area before drying it off with a clean white cloth.

Voila! You’re all done and now you can get on with the rest of your life!

He played this scenario in his mind or rather it played itself in his mind incessantly. Why? Comic relief? Self-loathing? Dissipating cognitive dissonance probably. Whatever the case, that first year, Charlie had become a master at cleaning chalk.
After the first year, on the last day of school, he went home and started to run his fingers through the water when he stopped and stared at his chalk-stained hands. He looked at himself in the mirror and wearily told himself, “One more year, Charlie. That’s another thirty grand.” You could call it an ephiphany. It was a moment of clarity after all. Charlie told himself what he needed to hear and what he needed to hear that day was he would be thirty thousand dollars richer.

Five years later, his hands were permanently stained and tattooed, a diffuse white glow about his fingers. He’d spread them out after classes ended and stare at them. He had developed a habit, rubbing his thumb and his index finger together, he felt the calluses and the grotesque unevenness that coldly reminded him of where he was.

The bell rang and students began to file into the room. Groups of reluctant seniors took their seats. In one year, they would graduate moving on to the best years of their lives, or at least see some novelty. After the same year, he would come back to this very room again and write Mr. Byrd on the blank chalkboard again and underline his name twice before turning around again.

He turned around to face a group of uninterested students, who wanted nothing more than to get out of high school. They were eager to move on to colleges and meet new people and get a job and find who they are and get a taste of the real world, a place falsely advertised to be exciting and adventurous.

Staring at the twenty teenagers in front of him, he said, “My name is Mr. Byrd, and I will be your English teacher.” He discerned bored looks being exchanged between the students. The first year wasn’t like this. He started with observations about his senior year; the anxiety, the excitement. He would sympathize with their pains and frustrations. He would soundly condemn their parents for all the practial pressures they were applying. And then he would finish with an assiduously prepared joke.
Now, however, there was a clear distinction between him and his students. No longer fresh out of college and already five years into teaching, Charlie was just another graduate whose bona fide got lost along the way to adulthood. The perceptive ones could tell. And he half-heartedly tried to make note of their intelligence.

He called out the names of his students without looking up to make eye contact or to see whose name belonged to what face. He no longer bothered with memorizing the names of his students. He slowly went through the list. He knew from experience it took roughly five and a half minutes. That would leave just another fifty minutes before it was over.

“Alright, I hope you got your books for this term. If not, we will be reading Brave New World, Metamorphosis and Slaughterhouse-Five. I suggest you get your books as quickly as possible because I’ll start assigning readings today.”

Quiet groans escaped some students. Not as many as last year, he automatically noted. As he got through the requisite rants, his mind drifted to the first time he had read these books. He saw a vague glimmer of the joy he once felt.

The fact is, he loved these books. He loved them and he did not want his students reading them; they butchered quotes and misinterpreted passages. He loved reading silently and taking time to understand the words and the sentences. He soaked in passages, appreciating their beauty, their simplicity and their complicated meanings. He felt like he made a secret bond between him and the author. But being a teacher meant having to read these students’ essays where words like “Firstly”, “Because of” and “In conclusion” only disintegrated the novel to him. He felt like students were trying too hard to impress him, using gaudy and vain language, when in fact, he would be more impressed if a student gave him a thesaurus.

He passed out the syllabus, explaining the assignments and his grading policy. Down to forty minutes now.

“I’m not going to ask a lot from you guys. But I do want all of you to get out of your comfort zones and think outside the box. Step into the authors’ shoes and be the characters in their books. Say out loud some dialogues or talk to your friends during lunch for just ten minutes about the books we are going to be reading this term. This isn’t just a class dictated by grades and essays and reading assignments. It’s about learning to loving, hating, judging the characters in the book. It’s about identifying yourself or someone else with them,” he droned.

Pretty damn good speech but this was exactly what he told his students that first year. He added hand gestures and personal experiences. See, it wasn’t always like this. Even though he would have the job for just one year (or so he thought at the time), he wanted to be an inspiring English teacher – the John Keating of George C. Marshall High School.

Now, as he said these words, which his 23-year old self wrote the night before his first day of teaching and rehearsed all night, all he wanted to say was, “None of us wants to be here so let’s just get through the year without any trouble so we can all get the hell out of here.” But he learned over time that teaching wasn’t much different from being an actor. He had to act like he genuinely cared about his students, like he wanted them to do well and like he desperately wished them to not only grow as students but as people. Good joke, good joke, he thought to himself.

He had to pull back deep into his mind and remember even just the visage of what he felt, the sensations, the sentiments of these books and channel them through his tired facial expressions. Yes, these books will change your life! Wait, no. These books will teach you what it truly means to be human. OK, good enough. Mustering up enthusiasm that wasn’t there was exhausting.
He went home that night and wiped his hands on his pants, leaving traces of chalk on his pants.