On a Wednesday evening at his dining room table in a rented house in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Michael took his Palm and portable keyboard out of his black school bag.
Something was wrong with the keyboard because no matter what he tried, including replacing the batteries, he couldn't get it to work.
He was feeling old and tired from too long summer hours in classes; parts of his body were aching and the keyboard problem just added to his frustration, which had arisen from his not having completed, nor yet started, his students' third partial reports.
He decided to go online with his laptop and see if he could find a solution on the Palm site.
As he started to go upstairs to get his laptop, he discovered there was water all over the living room floor, water that had run down the stairs due to flooding on the upper floor.
He mopped up most of the water, but by the time he was finished he felt as if it had seeped into his bones, and rather than retrieve the laptop from the upstairs closet, he tried once again to get the keyboard and Palm to work.
He smelled the dankness in the air and it made him think a miasma had settled on his house causing everything to react erratically including his usually reliable little keyboard.
Lighting a cigarette added to the stale barroom ambiance, but in that moment it was all he could think of doing-to smoke and reflect on life's vicissitudes.
He could replace the keyboard if it truly wouldn't come back to action, if he responded to the General Director's request for particular English lessons, which would mean extra money.
Yes, that was how he would resolve his problem by taking on more work, which would leave him too tired to enjoy the use of his electronic toy, but also keep him out of the house for a greater part of his days.
He lit another cigarette, gulped some Light Coke directly from the two-liter bottle, noted it was half-past midnight and there were still the reports to write up and he pretended the wetness didn't bother him.
