Sketches 2020

terror made me tear up with joy and
fear, but weirdly both at the same time.
Nothing helped to ease my embattled
heart that raced like a cheetah wired
on Red Bull and coffee. The exact
contents of that adrenaline-fueled
interview escape me, but I do recall
mentioning my time chaperoning
younger children. My interviewer also
seemed overly pleased when I told her
my Chinese name, 小 熊 (Shee-yow Sheeyong),
which translates to Little Bear, a
nickname I chose during a Chinese
course I took at Macomb a year prior. At
the end of our talk, where thirty minutes
felt like a couple hours, she gave it to
me straight: I had a job offer to travel
to China and teach English.
That night, the grin never left my face
and sleep never found me until a
gleaming, new dawn broke the next
day. Although Aaron was proud of me
when I turned in my two weeks’ notice,
my employer was less than thrilled,
and the disconcerted shifting of his
gray, broom-like mustache told me so.
My worrisome mind took a back seat
on the day that I finally left my job; the
glistering prospects of a shiny, new
future eased my clutch on that stained,
old blanket–my comfy life. The next
month leaped by, and before I knew
it, I was holed up on an 18-hour flight
and surrounded by sneezing, coughing,
snoring humans.
One person might think “he probably
enjoyed that upgraded seat!” Or maybe
“I bet he was too excited to sleep!” But,
truthfully, I spent that entire flight
panicking in my cushy seat because
I realized that the time for turning back
was long-expired.
Much like my tube of toothpaste that
the TSA confiscated at the international
checkpoint, I could only say so long to
my fears at the gate. When my plane
finally plopped me back down to the
Earth around two in the morning, I
found myself in the dingy city of Hefei
(Huh-fay). After exiting the plane and
slinking out into the arrivals area, I saw
my name on a big sign–beauty to my
weary eyes–held up by a small
Chinese man. Turns out his English
name is Hades, as though my journey
did not already feel like a trip on the
river Styx.
57