Friday Morning

Getting out of the taxi I forget how to use my hands and I take a while to pick up my bag and my folder and my sunglasses, which I quickly put on because the sun hurts my bloodshot eyes. My long shadow is cast in front of me and my arm looks too long and I hope it's just the shadow and not what my arm really looks like to other people. I'm hungover in a dazed and confused and obvious way, I catch my gaunt reflection in the glass door and my hair is way too long now and bits are sticking up but not in a cool fashionable way.

Walking into the staffroom I leave my sunglasses on, maybe limping a little and I feel like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire - the "I am cloaked in failure" airport scene - and that's what I hope I look like to other people. It's only 8:15 but I start thinking for the second time today about AKB48 and the importance of them always appearing young and innocent.

Sitting down and thinking about AKB48 even more and I've almost figured everything out but Commentary Sensei starts doing his running commentary on everything he is doing and he is mumbling once again about the printer not working and it makes me so furious that I can't think about anything. I just go to the toilet and make myself sick even though it's a peasant toilet and now my hands and knees are covered in sick and other men's faeces.

Softball

Two third grade girls asked me to join their softball team and they bounced and yelped like screaming banshees when I said yes. I went outside and shuffled over to my team where a bat was thrust into my sweaty nervous hands. I took some practice swings in a corner and stretched a little because I didn't want to throw my back out or dislocate my shoulder or blow out my knee in front of everyone. I could sense the high expectations of the students, especially the girls. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing with a thousand memories of sporting disappointment.

I stepped up to the plate and did the Ichiro thing and it didn't get much of a reaction and my lack of natural charisma became apparent to everyone. Someone threw ball at me and I don't know what the parameters are for 'ball' or 'strike' so I just swung and my bat triumphantly struck the ball and I exploded off the plate and ran towards first base, but the previous batter already at first base just stood there shaking his head. At some point someone shouted "Out!" and I started skulking back to the dugout and I thought about throwing away all my underwear and buying new underwear because everything has shrunk. I was too confused and embarrassed to comically play off my failure so I turned my head away from the field to hide my face and someone said "Don't mind" out of pity and I am 25 and they are 15.

It all reminded me of the time we were playing football in high school and the cock of our form looked at me and said, "Just get off, James." And looking back at it, that day was probably the beginning of everything - when anxiety was placed yet unknown somewhere over me and it begin to descend. The two girls that had so enthusiastically asked me to play softball with them now totally ignored me.

Later someone explained to me that when I hit the ball it just pathetically spun behind me and I was caught out by the... wicket keeper? Our team went out to field and I stood on third base. Things started happening and someone threw me the ball and the runner came toward me and I didn't know that you are supposed to touch the guy to get him out so I just stood there in haze of despair and everyone laughed at me. I comically looked around cluelessly like a small child or a dog might do.

No one asked me to bat again. At one point there weren't any fresh batters left and one boy just batted for a second time, rather than call me up. Later, when I'd given up on everything and was just sitting on a wall, another male teacher totally smashed the ball to the other side of the field and I thought about my printer and my floor lamp and the arrangement of the plugs in my flat and how it might be improved.