First Day Back

The first days of classes were a slog. I felt like I was playing catch up with my friends. They all got to play games together or go on trips. But I was working my tail off. The jocks were busy letting out testosterone they couldn’t express all summer since they were in practice with no cheerleaders or other popular girls to hit on or bang. And the popular girls were, well, doing what bitchy teenagers would do. Put down people for no reason and tease those aforementioned jocks. So I just got to paint and wallow in isolation.

Around lunch time I went over to Mr. Leeman’s room. The art building as a whole was a small one. A lot of the classrooms were arranged to have windows looking out over the fields. That said teachers tried to face the students away from them. Not to avoid distractions but to prevent the sun from obscuring their vision. Most of the rooms were white with minimal free space. Teachers tried to put art up that the students had done. The art building also had a small shop, where they were able to make frames and a few other small projects. Shop wasn’t an actual class but students were allowed to do projects in there if they had a teacher’s permission and supervision. Mr. Leeman’s room was the most open, featuring desks in half the room and easels in the other half. He tried to teach smaller classes but often wouldn’t so students would often rotate between the two.

Mr. Leeman was the art teacher that pulled me up from just casually doing art to considering it more seriously and practicing it. I owed him a lot. He was a bit younger than my father but much taller. 6’2” he was pretty lanky like me. Some greying hair and glasses gave him an older master kinda look when he would wear the wizard costume he traditionally wore on Halloween.

“Had a rough summer there Mike?” He asked. It was lunch so I would often hang out in his room and paint outside of class.

“How could you tell?” I said, not looking up at him. I was sitting at my desk working on a self portrait. I didn’t do many of these. They were perfect distractions from difficult times in my life.

“Well for one, you are doing a self portrait. Two you have barely touched your sandwich. And three I heard Daisy mention something about Jeff in the way she used to talk about you. Doesn’t take much to put that one together” He said. At this point he was sitting at the desk opposite me. He had recently started a new piece. It wasn’t often he worked on his personal art projects at school. I was one of the few people he could do that with.

“Ya and it doesn’t show any signs of improving with the rest of my year. What a way to finish my time here.” I said, taking a bite of my sandwich. He had a point there, I shouldn’t let good pastrami and swiss go to waste.

“Well since we’ve no place to go…” he said in a sing-song voice. “Let us eat Let us eat Let us eat.” Mr. Leeman had a tendency to take what people would say and turn them into improvised song that fit the tune. It was cheesy but clever. “Besides Mike, with your portfolio you’ll be visiting colleges and getting outta here in no time. And trust me, college is a whole other world.”

“I appreciate the idea Mr. Leeman, but I don’t think I’ll be able to afford a degree. So I’ll probably just do art on the side and go back to the grocery store.” I said between bites of my sandwich. Not trying to sound too dour about it.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself Mike. You never know what’s around the next corner.” He said offering me a cookie from his lunch. As I offered a cheers to his cookie the bell rang. I began cleaning up and putting whatever food I could down before making my way to the next class.

Rounding a corner I ran into a door that swung open out of nowhere. “Ow!” I exclaimed falling to the ground after hitting my head. Fortunately I wasn’t carrying anything so I just had to get back up. I wasn’t dizzy or anything, didn’t feel like a concussion. But then again i’ve never had one. Looking at the ground before me I saw a pink key fall out of the door handle. I heard footsteps walking away from the door in a hurry. Grabbing the key I tried to see who was walking away to return it.

“You dropped your key!” I shouted. But they were either already gone, or didn’t care. Looking at the door it was different from the regular classroom doors. All the doors were wood but this one looked a lot heavier. It even had that pink handle. It smelled, sweet, through the crack as it closed. I couldn’t get a view. I thought about trying to open it again. “This, is the door Ashley mentioned.” I had no idea what was beyond this threshold. What did that rumor mean by my fantasy?”

“I gotta get to class” I thought, between this and cleaning the art room I was going to be tardy if i spent too much time not moving. Pocketing the key I continued with my day as usual. Turning back I saw the doorknob turn back to it’s normal color. The rest of the door followed suit, kinda like a wave flowing out from the door knob over the door. Whatever that legend was. This key HAD to be a part of it.

I ended up sticking around after school checking in with some friends before everyone left. I could have gone home much earlier. But I had to grab my art stuff. After school Mr. Leeman leaves his room open for a few hours for students to check in and work. I showed up a bit late and stayed for about an hour before grabbing my supplies and heading out.