The school social worker’s office was a glorified closet, barely large enough for its small wooden table and a few plastic chairs.  Motivational posters clung to the walls, a miniature rock fountain trickled in one corner, and balanced atop a tall stack of self-help books, a four-cup coffeemaker ran clear, heating cold metallic water-fountain water for chamomile tea.   

Despite the influx of students in various stages of crisis, it was a relatively secluded, cozy place -- by far the best spot I ever found for finishing forgotten calculus homework in a hurry.  So after stumbling in one day by accident, I made regular practice of eating lunch inside those walls, hunched over that tiny table and half-listening to other people’s problems between punches at calculator buttons and scatterings of eraser dust. 

Because the social worker liked me, she allowed this, as long as the other students didn’t mind.  And, for the most part, no one did.

The teacher assumed David was sleeping, so she left him alone.  He had transferred in an out so many times, shuffled between his mother’s home in Georgia and his father’s in Virginia, that his failing was a foregone conclusion.  She didn’t care.   

But to rest his head on the too small desk space, fused via too short metal rod to a too small wooden chair, his back bent awkwardly, almost in half.  One hand shielded his face from the glaring fluorescent lights.   The other, in his lap, formed a tight fist.  

Gingerly, I reached across and touched him on the shoulder. 

“You okay?”  I asked. 

It was an idiotic question, but David looked relieved. 

“Yeah, I’m just  --  I,” he rubbed his eyes.  “Well, no, not really.”   

When the women came, he said, it never mattered what time it was.  There were always ten of them at least, shouting, shrieking, running -- so fast they almost flew.  They had old sad eyes and gaunt, bony faces, pigmented only in gray scale, like black and white TV.   

They poured out of his locker and whispered in his ears.  They rapped on his third story window at 3 a.m., shouting, pleading.  They told him that the sky was on fire. 

The sky was on fire.                                         

In another era, David might have been a prophet. 

Clustered around a stack of mediocre adolescent poems, the lit mag staff had abandoned its afternoon critiques in favor of vigorous debate about the pros and cons of a pessimistic outlook on life.  David sat quietly for a few minutes, off to one side, gathering thoughts.  Then, abruptly, he interrupted us. 

“The glass isn’t half empty or half full,” he declared.  “It’s just too big.  What all of you really need is a smaller fucking glass.” 

Startled, everyone turned to look at him.  We looked at him and then we laughed.  But while we laughed, I thought about it.   Maybe he was right.

“I just want to be alone, I -- get everybody out of here.”  David hadn’t raised his voice, but his expression made clear it was an order. 

He was already there when I opened the door, seated with his back to me at the tiny table, fidgeting with the straw in a single serving carton of milk.  

The social worker looked unsteady, overwhelmed.  “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just leave,” he told her.  “I need everyone to leave.” 

But hearing me turn to go, he twisted around to look. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean Johanna.  Johanna isn’t ‘everyone.’ ”  David gestured toward the other side of the table, the empty chair across from him.  His tone softened suddenly. 

His gaze was sharp, hyper-focused.   His eyes, I noticed for the first time, were an uncommonly pale shade of green.   I sat.

The social worker shot a quick glance at me, wordlessly wondering whether I’d be comfortable remaining there without her.  I gave a single, fluid nod, and she was gone. 

For a minute or two, I said nothing.  David sipped his milk.   The rock fountain trickled.  Overhead, the lights buzzed.

“How long has it been this time?”   I asked, just to break our silence.  

“I don’t even know,” he said.  “Days, probably."