Home and a bit out of it - voice cracking, cough-coughing, tooth aching, and I won't take anything yet because I want to suffer a little so I feel less guilty for taking a Paranoia Day.
Got to school. Parking lots empty except for one car in each. The side doors near my room are unlocked and, as usual, there is nothing to stop Joe Schmoe from walking right in and doing whatever, as all the halls seem empty, too.
I type up the lesson plans. Lay out all of the forms, pens, whatever he or she might need. I make the mistake of checking the web to see if anyone took the job in the first sub callout.
No. Damn. But even though I'm here, wearing spirit clothes even, feeling functional (cough/voice/tooth aside), I'm not staying. It's wrong. I just know it's wrong. And I know I need to go. Go. You need to go.
But... what if an admin has to sub for my class? Do I really want them to see how messy my desk drawers are?
So I take about 10 minutes to tidy the room and lock things in the file cabinet that look unkempt in the desk or on the bookshelves. I even rearrange the desks a little.
I'm an idiot, and when I decide to listen to my inner voice telling me that, I leave. Halls are still empty. It is now about 90 minutes before the "before school" classes start. Regular students will be here in about two hours. In other words, no wonder it's empty. I'd be surprised to see another teacher for 15-30 minutes.
I go to my car. Parking lot still empty except for the one car already there, which I don't recognize. The sky is utter blackness still.
As I'm opening my car door, another car enters the lot. "Ah, here comes another teacher, you silly goose." But as I get in, turn the ignition, and watch this car approach, I think, no. This car is low, wide, white... this is not a teacher car. Nor is it the car of a before-school-program parent. (Those tend to be, at the least, the nice sedans of Involved Parents who put their kids in the kinds of special programs where you have to be accepted and better than the average bear.)
The car slows down and pulls up perpendicular to me, making a T of its front to my passenger side. This is by the side doors, as if it's dropping someone off. But who gets dropped off this early?
No one. The car sits for a few moments, then suddenly swerves, going around the back of my car and heading briskly around the corner.
I back out and follow as soon as it's out of sight.
At the corner I stop and watch. The car is moving slowly around the lot, near the front of the school now. It makes half a loop and is now facing me. I'm at one end of the parking lot; it's at the other.
This is weird. Is it going to turn out to the street? Um. Do I need to see what it's going to do? What part of "Why did I come to work?" needs come true from my dream? Am I not going to be satisfied until something bad happens, just because I feel foolish?
I turn to go back across my parking lot, to exit to the street, but the car is now zooming up to me. I'm being blinded by its approaching headlights as I turn the wheel and try to get going. I drive, trying to keep a normal pace. I don't want someone to start feeling like a cat because I'm acting like a mouse.
The car is right behind me. It pulls a bit to the side, as if it's going to try to pull up to my right. But there's no room, and I'm speeding up.
I get to the street and think: left or right? Left: further from home but closer to a busy street. Right: closer to home and away from the worse neighbourhoods.
Just go. And I go right. I slouch, because being a dumbass who imagines bullets flying at her is better than being dead.
The other car goes left.
However, I realize that, in going right, I've chosen to travel the streets featured in my dream. As I approach Sahara and the Strip, one of two intersections I identified as "problem areas" in my dream, I realize that the right lane is blocked. Like in my dream. And the middle lane is congested despite the early hour. Like in my dream. I get in the passing lane. However, in my dream, there were cones and arrows moving traffic. This morning, it's a police car that has pulled someone over.
Still, maybe that's a metaphor.
So now I'm home. Until a moment ago I would've told you that I'm fine, just tired in the way you get at the end of the afternoon when it's been a long day (but you're not ready for bed). That's how I've felt since leaving school, and before that I was simply wide awake, ever since the moment the dream woke me. (Er, I mean, "I woke from the dream," right?)
Now I'm ready to sleep. Who knows, maybe my going in so early this morning prevented something? Maybe someone was going to go in the school, lie in wait, who knows? But they saw a teacher there, figured their timing was off, and went off to go get high or whatever.
I hate sounding so dramatic in this and the last post, but I swear that everything about the strange way the car acted is true, and I don't think I let an overwrought imagination turn ordinary actions into ooo-ooo scary ones. It really was weird. And the whole time I kept thinking, "Okay, no one is going to believe that I went to work after that dream and something weird actually did happen."
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