When You Finally Get Up To Close The Drapes, You'll Realize That A Classroom Full Of Children Has Been Watching You Cry For The Past Twenty Minutes Day!

When you're finished wiping away your tears, maybe you can get started on all that egg on your face. You knew when you moved in that there was an elementary school with several floors on direct eye level with your bedroom. Hell, you've been able to discern math problems on the chalkboard when the light's been right. So you promised yourself that you would always remember to close the drapes before even the thought of seducing yourself towards self-abuse might enter your mind, and you've been very good about it. Except for that one month.

So why not cover up when you feel a fit a sobs coming on? Crying, for you, is just as erotic as genital masturbation. Or maybe you knew all along they might see. You hoped that when the teacher announced that she had to step out for a moment and everyone should read quietly, a small black boy with a wandering mind would let his eyes bounce around the room until they found their way out the window and across the street and in through another window where someone's head is hunched forward and the shoulders are shaking up and down really fast and jerky.

The little black boy would get up and stand quietly by the window and watch without comment. And the little white girl who has a crush on him would go and stand beside him and ask what he's looking at.

"That man is crying," he would say. The girl would correct him, "That's not a man, that's a lady" she would say rather prissily to go with the prissy little dresses her mother makes her traipse around in. The boy would say, "It looks like a man." Then they would just watch you like they were looking at snowflakes fall. Soon, their classmates would join them by the window, a couple at a time, until nearly every child had gotten up from his seat to watch you bellow out your sobs from your shaking, shivering frame. (One boy would stay in his seat because he had gotten pushed to the ground and kicked in the face just before coming into class and so he himself would be busy crying for most of the class period. The other handful of children who would remain seated are weird.)

When the teacher would return to the class, naturally she'd be ready to freak when she saw all her students out of their seats. But since they would be silent, she'd know there's something good going on outside. So she would stand at the rear of their congregation and search the street outside for smoke. And then she'd see you, and she'd try to make out your face to determine if she knows you.

So, there you go. When you finally turn off the waterworks and you rise to the window to close the drapes, you'll see across the street, framed by the expanse of seven foot tall classroom windows, a display of curious kids' faces, their eyes wide, their mouths shut tight, their teacher standing behind them looking uncertain.

I'd at least wave goodbye, or I mean hello. Or something.