I knew the fart was coming long before it happened, and I was really anticipating it with some excitement.
Theresa told me once that I had ‘impulse-gratification’ issues. This was obviously some expression she’d picked up off Oprah, but she did have a point. I mean it doesn’t occur to me, even if I’m on a date, to hold in my farts. I just let it gush out, and then take deep breaths to try and inhale all the stink before it spreads. Denying your urges, restraint, this is what causes cancer.
I don’t know what the Japanese teachers (that is the real teachers) thought of me, this 187cm gorilla that strides in for an hour every Monday morning and can’t communicate with anyone, and strides out, having done nothing, taught nothing, and achieved nothing, and yet is probably getting paid double what the real teachers who spend all day wiping toddlers arses are getting.
But after another all night karaoke binge for no discernible reason, this particular Monday morning was something special. I dragged my hungover carcass to the kindergarten. I was hunched over double. My saggy muscles could barely haul my bulk up the stairs and over the baby-gate.
As usual the kids screamed in terror at my arrival, and scattered like pigeons. And I sat down among the shitty, snotty, slimy little creatures.
Natsuki was the only one who would ever come near me. She only did this because she enjoyed excavating bits of snot out of her nose and putting them in my mouth, or my ear. I would hold up the flashcards. « Its an apple ! It’s a banana ! That’s it ! Good on ya Natsuki. » I’d give her the card as a reward. She would go and tear it up, or hide it, or use it to intefere with her little playmates, who were hiding in fear in different corners of the classroom.
Let me iterate: I taught these kids NOTHING.
This particular morning I had huge sopping sweatstains forming replicating self-similar fractal paisleys under my armpits. A waxy secretion seeped from my pores, like maggots squirming from maggot-holes attracted to carrion. My skin was lacquered with a secretion – when I washed my face after class, the water immediately beaded and raced around, like mercury.
It was while washing my face – after class, mind you, when it was too late – that I first saw my reflection that day. My teeth were all grapestained from red wine. It looked like I’d been down on my hands and knees eating the loam of gravesoil before class. My teeth were lines of half decayed tombstones.
There we were. Like a swamp. I was hot and mucky, it was damp. My teeth felt like they were falling out, loose and rattling in their gum-sockets. My scalp felt tight like the skin of a drum.
Eyes were lolling in my head and I don’t think they were mine. I was beaming on automatic, above on a flying fox.