Try not to Become Him
2006-8-1
Creative Writing
Image and Moment 1 (Tue, wk2)
A lecturer
He came late to the class. But no one noticed him, who stood in the noisy classroom, until he touched the speaker to generate an unfriendly sound. Moving closer to the speaker, he tried hard to welcome the students who still distanced themselves from the
readiness of being audience. However, part of his fault of a low voice, the opening sentence was drowned in the students’ cheerful chat. Then he frowned slightly, which inevitably caught people’s attention to his shiny, wrinkleless and unusually high forehead compared to his black dress. Eventually he won response by asking a question about time, whose answer was not his interest. Some students gave a positive confirmation to this typical English greeting whilst others gradually realized the lecturer’s intention by turning their eyes on him. The victory calmed him down before he recollected himself and started the lecture. Holding his paper in hand, he read out the scripts in a mechanic sound, which could replace the ticktack of the dead clock on the wall. Unexpectedly, his clear yet boring speech was soon attracted a challenging question. After listening to a further elaboration, he fixed his eyes on the student’s direction and answered him with an examiner’s dignity. Knowing his answer was accepted without rejection, he walked back to the speaker. This time he changed the standing position by titling his left part towards the audience, balanced by his right hand resting in the pocket of his trousers. He did not stop walking between the projector and the speaker until, in the middle of the lecture, he asked students’ opinion if they followed him and if heneeded to slow down his reading speed. One student said yes but this was misunderstood as the answer to his second question. Immediately he said he would slow down, which received an instant disagreement
by the majority. He coldly accepted the suggestion and walked to the projector to show the cited words on the screen, eyes down on the transparency, pretending not to hear students’ mocking laughter over this drama. Before the class finished, a student walked out of the classroom, followed by some others, which flared up a sense of envy into the air. Noises rose at every corner. But the lecturer had more control over the audience after fifty minutes’ teaching. He spoke clearly with instruction to stop further distraction and brought out a lecture summary in a soft tone. Finally he distrustfully thanked the students to indicate a farewell moment. However, no one replied him, for every one already swarmed to the entrance impatiently like a tidal wave which run to the bank at sunset for a night of freedom. (460 words)
