It Was And It Wasn't

My cover was nearly blown yesterday when I submitted an request for union help on the beat.  I was unceremoniously dumped.  Ah, those pacing guides, the P.G.'s.  The bane of teachers in the current system.  And what is at stake?  A shifting landscape, much like the sands of time.  A map of the curriculum.  A detailed document, alive on excel. It seemed that the only way check if there was still life left in my body was to check my airway, breathing, and circulation.  I couldn't find it on the map.  Was this a trick?  My teaching nowhere live and living but a series of numbers, old Soviet Bloc initials, very Bond-like but I was not altogether game.  The plan?  The Crucible, Canterbury Tales.  Old stories of imagination, passion, and silliness.  Life and Death. The struggle to survive afer basic needs are met.  I still detect a heartbeat, a faint one.  A fainthearted yelp, swallow, and ribcage movement.  Another throwaway.  Another bit for the trash heap although it has taken my life to add to it, to make a mess this large and step away from it, never to take a second glance.  Isn't that what the greats in the biz do?  All in a day's work?  I searched the faces of my fellow bureaucrats.  None of them flinched.  It was muddy as usual outside of U-Building.  The usual slickness on the moss, the moldy edges of the building, mildew all the way up the side of H-Building like a cancer, a forgotten fire, a stain.  Where would all my gathered information go?  The teachers were so afraid of their workplaces that they couldn't even leave minutes on the database for fear of repercussion/Pep-T/bad gossip.