Ryan Morris sat at his desk and looked out at his junior high classroom of students, working away on the pointless assignment he’d given them. He didn’t want to teach today; he couldn’t teach today. He counted up all the mistakes he’d made over the years and thought of how things could have been different had he not made them. They have no frickin idea of whats coming for them, he thought to himself, each one of these little fools thinks they’re going to head out and have an amazing life rife with success and fulfillment but that’s not how life works. For what wouldn’t be the last time today, Ryan fought back the tears.
Ryan had once been like the students he was now in charge of teaching; optimistic, energetic, and eager to make his mark on the world. He’d always played it safe, he didn’t do much if any partying preferring to read and learn. He studied hard shunning athletics and got into a good state university. It was there that he’d met the woman who would soon be his ex-wife. Back then Lauren was a feminist, she rebelled against “the established order.” She said she liked Ryan because he wasn’t the typical male specimen, because he was evolved like her. They lived the life of intellects, reading obscure texts and debating the finer points of philosophy. As soon as they graduated, Lauren asked Ryan to marry him. She was like that, always going against the established order.
Now, it was eight years later, and Ryan didn’t exactly know how his life had gotten to this point. Ryan hadn’t taken noticed of Lauren slowly changing over the years, until it was too late. She’d gone from a wild and free spirit to everything she had claimed to stand against, and what was worse is she hated who he was. That was what really surprised Ryan, how much she seemed to be disgusted by him. He was, after all, still the same man that she’d fallen for in college. That wasn’t enough for her anymore. After college she’d worked for a non-profit protecting endangered wildlife, now she was an attorney at an energy conglomerate. She use to think his open minded sexuality was liberated, now she told all their friends about his “sexual perversions.” Hadn’t she thought that his “perversions” as she called them, where hot before? She was the one who wanted to explore them. How dare she now use them against him.
Her announcement that she wanted a divorce hit him like a train. He wanted to try to make things work. He attended the mediations, acceded to her demands, took total blame for all of their problems so far, and as a result was cleaned out by her. He was such a wimp, she’d always worn the pants in the family. She knew exactly how to play him so that she’d get it all, she had no intention of getting back together with him. Ryan, at her request, had moved out their house and into an apartment. The rent on the apartment that had eaten up all his savings, his savings was the only money granted to him in the divorce. He’d missed last months rent payment and today was the last day to make these months on time. He was going to be evicted. He would have to live in his car.
The bad news continued to pile up. Lauren had told anyone who would listen about what she called “Ryan’s lured sex addiction.” She told them about the other men “he’d” brought into their bed, and how he liked to watch them “violate” her before they would do “unmanly” things to him. He could barely believe it. She was the one who proposed and then supported these fantasies. He was open to them, but really just trying to keep her happy. Well enough of the parents in the district had heard the rumors, and this morning the school’s principal had informed Ryan that they wouldn’t be renewing his contract for the following year. After this semester, he’d be out of a job.
After class was over, Ryan used his prep period to drive his car, or should he say apartment, over to the nearest strip mall to get some vodka. What the hell? He thought, he was already fired. There was no saving his job; he was just going through the motions to feed himself. Chances were they weren’t going to let him finish out the semester, they’d find some little reason to let him go and that way the union wouldn’t put up to much of a stink. Who wants to defend a deviant after all. He walked into the liquor store and up to the clerk. “I want as much kick as I can get for as little money” Ryan muttered glumly. The old clerk looked up into Ryan’s eyes and gave him a small knowing smile. “I might have something” he started, “that will turn things around for you.” Great, Ryan though, even the clerk knows.
Ryan looked around the store, it didn’t look like a liquor store, and there were odd items and vials on the assorted shelves. Had he gone in the wrong store? The clerk returned with a small glass flask that seemed to glow light blue. “Go back to work” he instructed “drink this, and have fun.” Ryan looked at the flask, he was skeptical. “How much?” Ryan asked. The clerk raised his hands and said no charge, and Ryan was sold. He took his item and left back for the school. Upon his return, Ryan dumped the contents of the small flask into a coffee mug and strolled into his class just in time for the tardy bell. Ryan handed out the same assignment he’d given his last class, one he had no intention of ever grading, and sat back ready to repeat the same mental torture he’d performed on himself last class. Except this time he’d be getting drunk, he thought with sad smile.
With the class quietly working on the worksheet. Ryan raised his glass intending to take only a little sip of the eerily blue liquid. Once the first drip hit his tongue, he couldn’t stop. Ryan drained the entire mug in one pull. Ryan dropped the mug, it broke upon hitting the ground. His felt an icy coldness starting at his fingers and toes moving in, pushing all the heat in his body towards his core. He started convulsing and seizing. The students had heard the mug break and were now fully aware something was amiss The class was in chaos. Several students rushed forward to try to help Ryan, a few others ran out into the hallway yelling for help. Ryan felt himself losing control of his body as the coldness moved closer towards his heart. He could smell that he had peed himself but could no longer feel anything below his waste.
It felt like everything that Ryan was, was being compressed down into a space too small like he was being squeezed, but of course he wasn’t. In the fading cold darkness Ryan felt one last urge, to throw up. His mouth unclenched and dropped open and he dry heaved right in a crying student’s face. What went unseen by all, was that Ryan had left his body. His consciousness compressed down had just been transferred into the poor helpful student, their own consciousness having been pushed out to evaporate into the ether, to drown without a body to host it. Ryan didn’t know what had happened as he looked down on his now lifeless body. He recoiled in fear, “What the fuck!” he screamed in an unfamiliar voice. Just then Mr. Johnson, a teacher from the next classroom down came running in, with more staff to follow. They worked frantically to assess and control the situation all while Ryan did the same. Ryan could not have know at that moment but he'd just been transferred into...