Gold Day. Formerly A Day. Day 31.

The following events took place yesterday in the afternoon.

The first hint of danger was the way the air seemed to suddenly still. I could hear my own breath rattling in my lungs made feeble by the constant exposure to children and their sickly ways. Still. All was still. It was as if a river running swiftly had rounded a bend and slowed suddenly as it flowed into a deep pocket stagnant and fetid. I could see a fly hanging in the air and it seemed to hang there a bit too long as each sweep of it's wing pushed it's black endomorphic mass back into view directly in front of my eyes. Something was awaiting me and fate has no mercy for those that choose charity over riches.

She was standing in my doorway. Judgment. I had met the goddess of judgement and she had taken the form of a high school senior. Thuggish and defiant she stood before me and I could look through the hole in her soul to her heart, black and pitted like a rusting machine that had once belched smoke and produced nothing else. Where was my shelter? There is nowhere down here to hide from the gods and fates once they cast their malignant gaze upon you.

She began her sentence like all malign forces. "Hey. You remember that drawing I made of you on my packet?" Yes. Yes how could I forget. She a judgmental entity, sullen and boastful had returned to me. She wasn't finished.

"So?" she asked? "Did you like my artwork?" She then proceeded duplicate it and enlarge it on my whiteboard. "What do you think of this?"

It was hideous. But was it accurate? Did my nose really look like two downward pointing lightbulbs? Then she told me her SAT score. I felt they must have been grading on a curve that day, but fearful I said only my sister had a similar score and that she too was an artist.

"So are you the only one in your family with no talent?" I said nothing. She asked again. "Are you the only one in your family with no talent?" I knew the answer and the pain I had suppressed for so long began to stir again.

"I'd like to think I have some talent for some things." Even as I spoke these words I knew they weren't true. I was unmasked. An intellectual ogre. I had produced nothing of import. Every gift I had ever been given I had gifted to others. I had kept nothing for myself and now judgment herself stood over me the cleaver of her question cut through me and I was halved. Made smaller.

Then she spoke again. It was a question. Or an order. Or both.

"Oh, I need you to write me a recommendation letter for college."

Me: "OK".