On the restroom floor
lay a female student’s paper,
marked in red ink
by a female professor,
which leads me to two questions:
1) Why was the professor grading in the bathroom?
2) Why was it in the men’s bathroom?
This is that paper’s story.

On a particle-board desk,
the paper lay, reposing
and basking in the brilliance
with which it had been imbued
by the creator, Andrea.
Exhilarating was the sensation
of being full of perfection,
full of this feeling; suddenly
pain shot through the paper,
pain in the form of red ink,
red ink marking, crossing out,
writing, as Ms. Brophy lived
out her sick power complex.
As soon as it had began, it
was over; the marking had
stopped and Ms. Brophy had left,
having marked only the first page.

Knowing it must protect the rest
of its leaves, the paper quickly
formulated a plan, determining the
ultimate act of defiance, fleeing
to the one place that neither Ms.
Brophy nor Andrea would find it.
With a shaken faith in the creator
that had turned it over to the
demented Ms. Brophy, the paper
slowly made its way to the men’s
restroom, secreting itself on the
floor of one of the stalls, in that
nasty place, behind the commode.
The nasty factor was extreme, but
the paper endured, determined to
not be marked on any more; first
began the germs, gnawing away and
infiltrating the paper’s structure;
next came the fumes of urine, bringing
up dry-heaves from the paper’s non-
existent bowels, and yet the paper
stayed firm. Finally, the paper was
assaulted by the worst, most foul
enemy of all: the smell of poo. The
assault was intense, but the paper
determined never to return to Ms. Brophy,
and on that bathroom floor, the paper died,
breathing in refuse but living free.