School - Work

Words by JMD. Image generated with AI, curated by JMD.

Tyler walked towards the line of grade school children all wearing matching red shirts. He wasn’t approaching the kids specifically, but they were in his path. After their school burned down they needed a place to get educated and conveniently enough an empty building needed a tenant in this high class office park, complete with a separate food court, expensive gym, and public display of a larger than life water pitcher. Despite the fact every day resembled a take your kids to work day, Tyler would just mind his own business and never interact. The armed guard, always present to let the kids into the building, punctuated the practicalness of keeping to oneself. But this day, the kids, who have gotten increasingly used to seeing adults go about their 9 to 5, something they never otherwise experience since buses typically would ferry them from house to school, with no connection to the world in between… on this day, one of the kids looked at Tyler’s upper middle-class face passing by and asked a question: “You’re here a lot. Why?”

“I’m going to work. I work here.”
“Kind of like school? Is it fun? Do you get recess?”
“Kid, work is where adults get paid to look at each other stoically while crying silently on the inside.”

The teacher took the child by the shoulders and guided him away, keeping herself between Tyler and the rest of the kids at recess.