4.

Oddie parks, gathers his book bag, water bottle and heads inside. Along the way he spots a penny, head up, not that it matters, he picks up all pennies. This one is battered and dirty and without looking at it too closely, Oddie tries to guess the year.

“1998,” he says softly, then looks down at the coin in his palm. 2009. Last year. Last year it was all different. He was out of work and feeling pretty low about that but he still had his wife, his family, sure it was just animals but they were always so glad to see him.

He slips the penny in his pocket and heads inside.

5.

Oddie greets the front desk clerk, punches in, checks his mail, heads to his classroom. A sign next to the door reads ‘Mr. Smith, Dean of Social Sciences.’ Mighty impressive, Mr. Smith. Head of a Department that consists of two people including yourself. Sigh. Well hell, it’s better than not working. And after all, Oddie is good at his job. He eyes the setup of chairs, the posters on the wall, the examples of student work. Another school year almost done. The last days of May are upon us, when concentration flags and a young man spends hours of each school day battling down a semi-permanent erection. Oddie knows how these poor bastards feel. A lot has changed in the twenty-five years since he graduated. The chicks are hotter, as his buddy JJ might say. Possible. They sure wear less clothing. Oddie has learned to keep his distance when they try to get too close. They’ll slouch up next to him, their adolescent tits hanging out like sacks of meal. You have a sexual organ and therefore you must be examined and understood. The guys don’t understand why the chicks are hot for their teacher. He’s 42 years old with a gray beard and a shaved head. He looks like a stoned pirate.

That’s me, thinks Oddie as he writes the morning’s agenda on the whiteboard. A stoned pirate trying to get back to his one safe port.

The bell rings and students begin arriving. Oddie stands outside the door nodding a greeting to each as they arrive. Good morning, Mr. O. Good morning. What’s going on, Mr. O? They slap his hands or give him a pound. Good old Mr. O. If only they knew what a fucker you are.

6.

Staff meeting at lunch. It’s a team-building exercise. Everybody take out a penny. If you don’t have one, one will be provided. Oddie has one cent of cash on his person (and about zero bucks in the bank, same as always), the penny he found this morning.

“Okay,” says the Principal, an attractive married Jewish woman, not unlike his wife. In fact her first name is his wife’s Hebrew name. “Look at the year on your coin. If you were alive in that year,” (sounds from both the older and the younger members of staff, grateful chuckles from one, sighs of pain and missed opportunity from the other), “then I want you to recall what you were doing that year. Take some time to really meditate on the idea. Where was I? What was I doing? What were my dreams? Do that for a minute or two and then we’ll go around the circle and each person can say something.”

“What if you weren’t alive when your coin was made?” says the math teacher.

The Principal opens her coin purse, peruses the selection, removes a penny and hands it to the teacher.

“Thank you,” he says as if she’d just given him a kidney.

“No problem,” she says.

Oddie closes his eyes. Where was I at this exact moment last year? Probably sitting in front of the computer looking at Craigslist. Looking for a job. Sleeping off the morning’s hash trip. Jesus, what a dumbass I was, thinks Oddie. But even so, my wife was coming home each night, often with the groceries, ever hopeful that I’d have good news, listening to the tales of woe, the fool in the suit running around Los Angeles trying to convince the world that he was suitable for employment. Wasting time, money, gas.

Oddie breathes into those memories and makes them evaporate. Four breaths. If a man could only take four breaths before he acted, he would spare himself 10,000 pains. Q says that. Four breaths. One. Two. Three. Four.

Oddie opens his eyes. Something has changed. The teachers are gone, except Mrs. Art Teacher, whose room this is. She’s eating lunch and looking at the computer. A group of students, most of whom Oddie doesn’t recognize, are eating Hot Cheetos and playing around with their telephones. Texting. Sexting more likely.

Stranger is the way Oddie feels. Out of body. Yeah, that would be about right. He has a sense of his own presence but feels more like an observer than an actual being. And where the hell did the meeting go? Did I nod off and everyone went back to class? Jesus, have I been drinking that much? No. Hell No. Two beers last night, same as it ever was.

Oddie glances at the clock. 12:25. The meeting began five minutes ago. He sees the calendar below the clock. Funny, Mrs. Art Teacher hasn’t changed the calendar. She still has 2009 hanging.

Two students walk in who Oddie recognizes as seniors from the 2009 class. They’re not visiting. He can tell by the way they carry their backpacks and sip their cans of soda. It’s 2009. There’s even a banner on the wall. Seniors, 2009! Good luck! We’ll miss you!

WTF. In the language of the kids, what the fuck? What is happening? Am I stoned? Am I dead? Am I tripping balls? Has all that acid that I ate in the early 90’s finally catching up to me? WTF, WTF, WTF?

7.

“Oddie,” says the Principal. “Oddie. Oddie.”

She walks over and touches his shoulder. Oddie emerges from his state of meditation. He sees the room, sees the calendar on the wall. 2010. There’s even a banner on the wall. This one is blue. Last year's was red. Seniors, 2010! Good luck! We’ll miss you!

“Oddie,” says the Principal. “Are you okay?”

“Was I snoring?”

The room of teachers laughs.

“No,” says the Principal, smiling. “You were whispering ‘what the fuck’ over and over.”