young teacher

i was frustrated. i'd gone through at least a half dozen teaching assistants and the semester wasn't even half over. the leaves of the palm trees outside glistened in the sunshine and bent enticingly in the warm trade winds. the sapphire blue of the ocean could be clearly seen through the floor to ceiling windows that took up an entire wall of my classroom. my students were distracted and screwing around and i knew i was wasting my time even going through the motions. i sighed deeply as i wrote the days work on the board. i tried not to listen to the chatter from the class behind me and stay focused on getting the correct information up in front of them. as i turned around i caught the tail end of the descent of some unknown object that had been tossed across the room. i walked over to the windows to draw the blinds so the projection screen would be visible. as the room grew dark, i saw that all of my clothing had been outlined in one of the fluorescent dyes we used for experiments. i looked like a glowing rudimentary drawing. i started to try and figure out how in the hell they had accomplished the feat, but stopped myself when i realized it was just pushing me further off track. i pressed my eyes closed as the class erupted into laughter.