Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Ms. Owens thought to herself as she stood in the middle of her classroom with the lights off just minutes after dropping her students off at P.E. She hoped the forty-five minutes of structured play and team building would burn some energy out of her rambunctious second graders but either way she enjoyed the reprieve the time gave her larynx. 

She inhaled a deep breath trying to ease the tension that contracted the muscle of her shoulders like a coiled cobra but the stack of work resting on the corner of her desk, the parent conference she needed to have for the student that viewed chalk was a food group and the other student that was certain that pushing others was the correct response to ever disagreement needed to happen. Then there were the various meetings that ate up the time of her planning period and she rarely was able to achieve the original goal for the time set aside for her to begin with. 

The breath she breathed out didn’t expel the stress and anxiety she needed it to. As she contemplated if she had enough time to go to the bathroom before heading to an unplanned PLC or having a fight with the temperamental copy machine, the ding of an email arriving snatched her out of her thoughts. 

“What is it now?” She tiredly breathed out rounding her desk and rapidly typed in her password, surprised that her brain still had the capacity to work since her body was miles past exhausted. 

She clicked on the email and the red letters that greeted her eyes prompted her head to shift to the side. Her eyebrows rumpled as she read the twelve-font words. 

Her lips parted as she orated the words to let her ears register what her lagging brain struggled to comprehend. “We are watching you. We own you. You are ours. Do as you’re told or you will be terminated. With kind regards, The District.”

Another ding blared from the laptop. Ms. Owens jumped. She let out a nervous chuckle. There was no way that email came for the actual district. She shook her head at herself for indulging in believing that it could. She chalked it up to being stressed, frustrated, and overworked. 

She read the alert in the corner of the screen, meeting with the principal in five minutes.

“The only thing dying around her is my bladder.” She said letting out a sigh before hustling to the principal’s office to hear the critiques they jotted down from the unplanned observation.