The Mayhem

In the silent moments between 5:30 and 6:00 am, the mayhem lies dormant, a hibernating behemoth chuckling through its last dream. When it awakes, it will stand and stretch and yawn through the first concerns of good-meaning people, who will poke their heads through the classroom door I keep ajar before the first bell rings. Soon, the mayhem begins to saunter, then to skip, then to pound through the day: through the parent who can’t accept that his child has dyslexia, through the lesson planning without time, through the forehead-crinkled students whose ambition outweighs their maturity. It vaults through Macbeth; it marches through Night. And just when you think it has slowed to a manageable trot, you realize the mayhem slipped into your bag and has climbed up onto your shoulder as you drive around and around town through the sludgy exhaust to collect and deposit the three children whose lives you value with pristine clarity. By the end of the day, when the mayhem snugs itself under the covers with a glowering smirk, you wonder who vanquished whom. But then, perhaps it isn’t mayhem at all. Perhaps it's love.