Push Thy Glasses.

Mothers wear glasses. They can’t formulate full sentences either. Thus, the mother walks on the school’s playground with steady steps, as if her high heels don’t sink in the sand or anything. She is too impatient and bothered about why she had to go pick up her daughter, who was detained, for reasons that weren’t revealed on the phone.

Mrs. Madelene also wears glasses. She can formulate long full sentences, for she is the English teacher. Her sentences are grammatically correct too. Mrs. Madelene isn’t as fashionable as the lady with the steady steps walking on the playground who is approaching her. Mrs. Madelene usually pushes up her glasses with her middle finger.

The daughter doesn’t wear glasses. She doesn’t formulate sentences at all. She has hair of equal length and no waves. She has straight lips with no curvatures or smiles. She also has blank eyes that blink mechanically. The daughter sits in a room not so far from the playground, and bets Mrs. Madelene is pushing up her glasses using her middle finger.

The English teacher smiles at the mother. The mother returns the smile coldly. Time seems to stroll slower and slower to the mother, as Madelene starts speaking of weird issues that the mother doesn’t seem to comprehend at all. Weird issues include her daughter’s odd behavior, isolation, silence, insecurities, skepticism and a whole lot of other words that only English teachers say and understand.

Daughters don’t speak to mothers, especially fashionable mothers. There is something about a fashionable mother that turns off the tongue of a little girl, as if it’s a locked door that has a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Fashionable mothers pity English teachers with vast sweaters and short manly hair. They constantly steal looks at their watches in presence of them, teachers.

Mrs. Madelene may be an English teacher, but she still is smart. She spots the mother’s boredom and impatience towards their conversation. She may be an English teacher, but she oddly has temper. She scolded the mother in a rough tone about how she should spend more time talking to her daughter versus her hairdresser.

Fashionable mothers are mean and weak. After demeaning Mrs. Madelene and taking her daughter into the car, she thinks about what the teacher told her. It doesn’t make much difference if the mother screwed the teacher over; she still knew she had a point.

“But nobody wants to play with me…” the daughter replied, as she pushed her mother’s glasses up her nose using her middle finger.


Drawing by Bashir M. Wagih