The third grade teacher felt the dread and nameless fear that only the most poignant of hangovers delivers. Symptoms were elusive and mental, no headache or nausea marred their being.

The world was still dark, and on the short drive to work the teacher wondered how they themselves learned to read when they were young. One day they just could. That’s how it always is with things that matter. Things that matter just happen.

They turn the radio on. “The Macarena” begins to play. They jolt their hand unthinkingly like a cat swatting a bug, turning it off.

A crimsonpurple sheet of clouds, an almost cross-stitched pattern, stretches across the new day’s sky like a grand unfolded baby-blanket.

Ten minutes pass and the light spreads like layers of sheets coming off a flashlight lens. On the right, off the road about two hundred feet ahead, a car is smoking. It’s a country road and the anxious teacher thinks about the nearby trees catching fire. In their mind they play out the whole ordeal: the car explodes, flames spew from the mechanical shrieks of the car, sirens.

After they drive past, the car really does explode. The orange showers of flame from the car resemble the sky above. The teacher feels their dread confirmed and they turn around, but when they think about possibly seeing a dead, charred body, they turn back around, call 911 at the next gas station, report the incident (was it an incident?).

As the teacher pulls into the school and sees the administrators, teachers, and students making their way into the building, they pause, remember the car and the maybe-person inside.

“I’ve relied on myself my whole life, and I know nothing.”

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