The Teacher

James Miller

The teacher woke up one morning and found a dead squirrel stinking up the flowerbed in his front yard. He went back in the garage and found a red snow shovel, left over from his decade in the heartland. Scraped the dry, dusty soil underneath the carcass, lifted it out into a black plastic garbage bag.

Later, he drove to the college and taught a class on cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century. Seventeen students dutifully memorized the words “miasma” and “waterborne.”

That night, his refrigerator stuttered and slurred its words. Can you help me, it said. I can’t work out how to call my children on this phone.