and the professor was taking role. She was old and weathered, another refugee of Project MKULTRA; whimsically regurgitating knowledge like a Bluejay fattening its young.
She started taking role. She read off three names, all responses were an exasperated call declaring that they were in fact here.
She hesitated for a few seconds; she stared down the paper in front of thick frames, her bushy graying eyebrow tilted up at an angle, like she was trying to do a difficult math problem in her head.
She called out a name. It caught my attention. I don’t recall what it was, but it sounded very foreign and strange.
”Here.” he called.
She asked if she had pronounced it correctly.
“No.” he declared sternly. ”But its fine, I’m used to it.” He displayed a docile smile out of the corner of his face, forgiving her slight folly.
The professor responded in a quirky way. Rambling excitedly about how nice he was. It was over the top, and everyone including myself began to snicker after the first 90 seconds or so.
As her embarrassing rant started to slow to a stop, he was clearly on edge. His teeth were clenched, his arms were crossed, and he was slumping in his seat.
He was a man not amused.
Then she said something even more peculiar, and the entire atmosphere in the air windowless classroom changed. ”You must have really been raised right. It’s just great, to see a young man raised so well. You should really be thankful to parents for raising you the way that they did.”
He scoffed. Then, with the raw power and intensity in his voice of a lashing from a diamond-tipped-tongue, he said, “Yes. I’ll be sure to thank my television the next time I see it.”
The misjudgment clearly shook the professor. She learned forward onto her podium and stared at the paper in silence for what felt like forever. For a few seconds, I was sure that a tear would cascade down her paper-skin cheek.
I had completely forgotten that she was taking role until she perked her head back up.
“Is Amanda Blank here?”
She was not.