He taught lessons of Mesopotamian ziggurats, s**** whales and the Hollow Earth theory. It didn't remove the gleaming crack house districts or take the urine out of the county pool. He tried only to counter the immeasurable cruelty which lounged so permanently on their devoured lives. In retrospect, he looked ridiculous. He knew that their only escape was to sacrifice the tarnished half of their bodies, like frantic earthworms weighed down by a rusting school bus. They must leave their intolerable half behind, proclaim its death in the wet fertilizer and sprout a renewed half out of their severed outline, one worthy of honor and form. He found grown-men twirling glittering ladybug wands, speaking in fabricated excitement, their condescending efforts swallowed like a cellphone in quicksand. They spoke in the language of wounded lion giggles and horse grins. Their bodies were submerged in grotesque oranges. To him, this was the clear mark of the hideous life, of the domesticated labrador, who sees everything and does nothing. His students, who rivaled Encyclopedia Brown in poindexterian innocence, were covered in poison oak and surrounded his feet like fleshy, neglected lighthouses in a sordid, boatless isle. The inspired eighth readings of "On Beyond Zebra" and the accountants from Cloud Bank who taught them checkbook balancing. All of their teeth became whitened with the vanquishing ray of Gott's light. Their crown shakras, chewed like purple cud into a misshapen wreath, carried by a mall elf, who spent his paycheck on him, himself and the cavernous void. He absorbed life's tasteless nectar through a straw of spider b***s and mounting discontent. He understands that all he really has is a ceramic trinket of a flying bluejay, which will maintain its shape long beyond his death, but it ironically remains, like him: petrified in flight. He knows that the knights of his time have fallen dead asleep in a prairie, intoxicated by cheap gin, with a "Picture it" over their faces, entranced by the cardboard lure of the Congo or any place, other than the true panoramic atrocity. Colleagues smell like opened magic markers and overwhelming soap, read novels about distressed starving sailors, retreat to the pantry and stuff their faces, leaving crumbs for the oarsmen between the unread pages. He lives in the century of filth, in the era of the boisterous head-hunters. After his classes, he found the fern and hedge clippings in his backyard, which formed a strange, organic wigwam. He laid at their base, his jaw immobilized by the tension and backlit by three chemtrails which formed a triangle. He reached upwards and clinked it like a preschooler. When he awoke, he sensed his new, grotesque dimensions and manifested his anger into the Goliath form, to comprehend his shadow self.