Primordial: An Abstraction

11

I arrive at my first class fifteen minutes late.

Things happen fast.

The professor tries to cane me and I punch him and snatch his bamboo stick and beat him like a jungle monkey I’m trying to domesticate and all of the students whoop and cheer and they really love it.

After awhile I get kind of embarrassed for the professor and give him back the stick. I apologize for being tardy. “I was never tardy to classes I taught,” I assure him, uncertain if this is true. “Well. Better to be absent than tardy, I always say. Nobody likes disruptions.”

I sit next to an attractive young lady. She gives me a look and I give her a look and my endorphins retreat backstage and there is a hollow, abstemious sensation.

The ceiling panels fizz with electricity.

The professor gets up and tries to dust off his clothes and arrange himself into some semblance of presentablility.

He’s a mess.

His shirt is untucked and his spectacles are flattened and broken and his belt isn’t working and his hair and beard have converged into a feral, rumpled mass.

Clutching his waistband so his pants don’t fall down, the professor gets in front of the class. He tries to introduce himself, then breaks down and cries.

He gives up. “It doesn’t matter who I am or what I’ve done,” he admits.

He hands out the syllabus.

As he reads through it, he breaks down and cries again.

And again.

And again and again. Nine times, by my count. I ask the young lady next to me if this is accurate and she says she counted eight breakdowns.

The ceiling panels sound like they might explode.

I smile with one half of my face, invoking the attractive dimple. “What class is this?”

But somebody has told her about the other dimple, which is more like a scar than an insignia of promise and futurity. Otherwise she would have fallen under my power.

It is likely that everybody at the University knows about the other dimple now. I resolve never to smile again.

At some point the professor tells us we can go.

We go.

Nothing happens to the ceiling panels.