TWO O’ CLOCK PM, FROM SEEING A CLOCK
March 9th, WHATEVER YEAR
DEAR JOURNAL….
F-ckin’ hell! The White House admins kept runnin’ me ragged yesterday, so I couldn’t write at all! Can’t those insufferable slavedrivers find another patsy to help them rule with an iron fist? Well, I better not keep going on or I’m back to that awful flat in New York. Well, yesterday as I worked on the phony report, someone knocked at the door. I half-mumbled, “Come in,” and in came the middle-school teacher I was supposed to talk to with my fake story later in the day. I was so goddamn nervous about her seeing me fabricating the murdered girl’s story if she’d heard what really happened, and even if she was none the wiser it definitely was heartwracking to have to talk to this kid’s teacher after my boss secretly killed one of her students.
“Are you…”, she started saying before pausing when I interjected, “Yep, I’m the guy some asshole who works here likes to call Slim.” “Oh, well, I’m Mrs. Beecker, I was Melody Sloan’s teacher before her untimely death. I came here to check if that report on her death is ready yet, so the authorities in the area know exactly what happened here,” she said. “We’ve contacted the local morgue and the police department, and although we’ll have it done by today or tomorrow morning at the earliest, they’re still busy working out all the facts & details,” I said, my heart sinking as I lied to someone who meant so much to a wonderful little girl who was just becoming a young woman when my boss snatched her away from us. “Thank you sir, I’ll stop by here after dinnertime to check back if they’re done,” she said before walking out the door.
As much as I was filled with self-loathing and remorse for that fleeting encounter, I continued writing my cover-up committed by a man who means as much to me through getting me out of the ghetto as that teacher did to the 12-year-old girl who taught her all she needed to know. Hell, that was all she needed to know for the short time she was with us on Earth. Goddamn it all.
The teacher picked up that report that supper. The girl’s single mother is doing well all alone, since of course she probably would’ve done the same thing if her dad died.
Well, this is my day off, so I’m just gonna be watching TV all day, and I guess the other paragraphs are all I have to say.
One of the things I just saw on the news was about the girl’s “suicide”, where I saw her mother weeping about how she’s lost everything, husband and daughter. I’ve got a feeling she’ll be dead too before long. Loneliness.
I’ll be back in work on time tomorrow. I’ll write then.

