Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Lecture Hall

It's after breakfast. Here I sit, in a comfortable seat, with my jacket pulled tight around me. It's cold. I was a delicious breakfast.

A flash of lighting. The janitor comes in to turn on the lamps.

People stream in, sit down. The rumble of conversation grows louder, rolling over the tables and chairs like a wandering percussion band. Laptops pop open like umbrellas, each student sheltering under its wide screen canopy and huddled in the warmth from its heat ports.

The slides flash. There is a downpour of typing, a rainfall of fingers on keyboards like droplets onto the ground. The slides flash. A storm of frantic hammering and the pursuit to catch the information in cupped hands before it all drains away.

The sound washes over me. It's too comfortable. It was a big breakfast. The professor is a radio, her music becoming ambient background in the cafe I find myself in, eyes slowly drooping, with the patter of raindrops and the atmosphere of almost calm serenity, I realise with a jolt that there's no hot chocolate on my table.

I jerk awake.

Things come back into focus. There's a graphic on the slide now, and the rain has slowed to a drizzle. I can't fall asleep here. I can't. But who needs hot chocolate anyway...

The shower surges again as I drift back into the cafe.

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Maybe I'm the chance of rain,
The Edna Man

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