The ceiling fan that counts my faults

Dear Delyara, I am a schoolteacher, and the air in this small tenement room is thick enough to choke a bird. My daughter’s university tuition invoice is sitting under the paperweight, and the figures do not match the balance in my bank booklet. Not even close. The rhythmic thwack-thwack of the old ceiling fan overhead sounds like a judge’s gavel counting down the days until we are found out. If I cannot secure the loan from my brother-in-law, her seat at the medical college will be given to someone else. The sheer terror of looking into her bright, trusting face tomorrow morning and telling her that her father failed her—it is a physical blade twisting under my ribs right now.