I no speako Spanish

"I go to the bitch" said Manuel. Henry sniggered.

"No. It's I go to the beeeeach.

"I go to the bittch" repeated Manuel

Oh dear he thought to himself on the 7th floor of the 80s office tower. These people had a long way to go before they stopped being entertaining and spoke proper English.

The clock was approaching 11 and he thought he'd let the poor sods go. He'd been enough of a taskmaster with them this morning. They'd suffered enough.

"You have to see Natasha for your stamp... Tu sello." They nodded and he gathered his books, waited a moment and walked down the dreaded office of Natasha full of waiting students. She was shouting. They had gone to the bitch. He laughed a little inside.

He'd like to remember his students names but with such a tight scchedule - it was an endless mix of faces coming through his classroom. They were all Manuel and Maria for all he knew and cared. He went to the staff room and took a Euro out of his pocket for a coffee from the vending machine. Nothing came free here.

The brown discharge splurted out of a tube along with white blobs closely resembling smegma. A usual day. He spoke to Angela who was sitting on the sofa at the end of the room. She was scrolling endlessly through her Facebook feed, looking increasingly annoyed as her friends shared photos of them with their boyfriends.

"You're single, right?" she asked in her wonderfully nasal American drawl.

"I suppose I am" replied Henry.

"There's a pardy tonight and I don't want to go alone." her invitation reeked of desperation but Henry was equally desperate for some company in the evenings that wasn't Netflix. Without even taking a sip of coffee to buy time and hesitate, he said yes.

He instantly regretted it but she said she'd text him the details. How could he get out of this? But there was no time to regret his life choices as the pager on his waistband was buzzing. If the teachers didn't make it to their lessons on time then their pay would be docked 15 minutes. FML. He sighed in agitation and left Angela to scroll through yet another thousand pictures of avocado toast and girls gripping wincing boyfriends.

He was technically in the room as he taught the class. But he wasn't really there. Time passed.

"Is Russell Crowe a crow?"
"Is the queen a drag queen?"

All these crumby questions flew out of his mouth like the training manual had told him. They would reply. He'd correct the mistakes. On and on it went. If the company could replace the teachers with human-looking cyborgs to interrogate these students then they would. In fact he wondered how soon it would be before he'd have another gruelling few months of begging for jobs, spending all day in bed and watching endless old episodes of Made in Chelsea as his savings dwindled away.

The clock struck 5 and like Cinderella who'd discovered it was past her bedtime he dashed down the stairs three at a time to avoid queueing for the lift. He should have taken more care to avoid an accident of flying over the banisters. But in a way if he tumbled it would have put an end to his short and glittering career as a language teacher. Lol.

He stopped off at the bar on the way to the metro. He ordered two tubo beers, gulped them down and grabbed the bowl of bird food that they'd given him as tapas and gulped it down just as fast. The metro was stuffier and more packed than usual but it was time to get home. He barged into the carriage and had to stare at the boobs of a saggy grandma that was right in front of him in the overcrowded train.

When he made it to the other end he got a frozen pizza from the chino and made his way up his apartment's stairs. The pizza was flung across a surface and he opened the oven door. A cockroach climbed out. Urgh. He thought about brushing out the oven to see if there were any more inside, but the light was broken and he decided he'd let them fry. He threw the pizza in. A slice of pepperoni and some cheese fell off the top. He closed the door anyway.

Returning to his bedroom with a can of cerveza extra fuerte, he laid down his weary head. The next thing he knew, someone was shouting and all he could smell and taste was black smoke.

"Focking hell Henry! Wake op! wake op!"

It was his flatmate Chirs, an Irish guy he liked because he was shorter than him.

"Did ya think ya pizza was fecking fireproof? Fecking teflon or something? Or maybe you just wanted to feck the fecking oven over so none of us can cook?"

"Right I'm sorry."

"You'd better be fecking sorry. You could have killed us all and half the block with it."

Henry pulled the sheets over his face.

"Jost kidding with ya boddy. I burnt me rice and your pizza came out fine." He gave a board full of slightly brown pizza. Henry sat up. "I took a piece if you don't mind.

Henry's phone buzzed. It was Angela. She wanted him on the other edge of town in 40 minutes. Fuck. He looked around the dishevelled mess of clothes across his floor. None of these would do. He looked in his drawers only one shirt in there, and it had a stain on the collar from an old nosebleed. Everything else was sweaty and stale. It was all he could do.

He pulled it over himself and sprayed half a can of Axe spray on himself. All the adverts claimed it would attact girls but from experience it just seemed to make them cough. He pulled on his trousers and brushed his teeth, or tried to but realised there was a cockroach on the edge of his brush. He swilled a cupful of mouthwash and gurgled it before unsuccessfully emptying it into the sink. He'd missed and it had gone on the mirror. He grabbed the handtowel and wiped it off.

After putting on his shoes he went down the steps to the Metro and realised he'd left his wallet at home. There was nobody attending this entrance so he climbed over the turnstiles. Angela could get him a drink and give him some change to get home. It was late now, the trains more infrequent. A train pulled away and a sign said it would be another 12 minutes before the next. He kicked himself and sat down on a bench, catching his breath. The passing time was painfully slow and he found himself on the platform by himself.

Google maps sent him the wrong way once he arrive above ground. He pushed the door on the bar where Angela was standing with a gaggle of her Americana friends.

"You're late" she whispered in his ear. Nasally as ever. Then she smiled and dragged him over to her friends. She told him their names but they were as memorable as most of his students. They were fresh off the plane. They said something about this place being better than their dive bars in Georgia but Henry wasn't listening to a word they said. He would have bought them a drink but he had no money. Never mind. He'd order them one anyway.

"Cuatro mojitos porfa" he said to the young olive skinned barman. Angela's friends were impressed someone here could speak espanneryol and started to lean on him. Henry didn't really know much Spanish beyond the list of drinks in the bar but the chicas needn't know that. The girls talked at Henry for a long time about their dramas at home with boyriends who didn't spend all their time with them, or listen to them, and who weren't good enough.

Henry just heard sounds after 5 minutes. Not words. But sounds. It was like a hen coup. The fact he asked an occasional question during the momentary pauses for breath made the girls feel like he was listening. Angela was quietly seething throughout the time and wasn't enjoying herself.

He couldn't decide if he liked these girls or not. Before they said anything they were hot. But the more they said. The more endless drama spouted out of their mouths and the more he wished he'd stayed in the apartment and had died from smoke inhalation with the oven roaches. Even after alcohol, these girls were gross.

He excused himelf to go to the toilet and went around the corner to the exit. A climb over the Metro turnstiles ensured he got home. He kicked off his shoes and laid down on his bed. A spider climbed around its web on the ceiling and ate a few flies who got caught. He heard a motorbike from the road and sound of cockroaches scuttling in the floorboards as he drifted off to sleep again.

In his dream he was on some parquet floor in an expensive apartment. There was a chandelier dangling above him and the coving was covered in fresh paint. There was a stained glass window to his left and a palm tree which was crawling with large catapillars that made his stomach squirm. He looked to his right and a butterfly was flapping its wings on a TV screen. It popped out the TV and came into the room. It landed on his index finger, then over to the catapillar nest on the tree. It then fluttered back to his nose, bending left, then right. It's spots made it looked like a face with eyes looking at him. It then jumped into his mouth where his stomach acids dissolved it.

Then he was in a forest where he was squatting. He turned around and there was a smiling poo emoji staring at him. He woke up scared and confused. The room felt like it was spinning. He took a gulp of water by his bed and came to. It was 4:44AM according to his alarm, he felt warm and strangely refreshed by the dream once his thoughts settled. Then he drifted back to sleep, dreamlessly, enjoying the rest of his slumber.