Chapter 8

Unlike orientation, I pushed through the door not to arrive in a hallway, but instead arrived in a quaint little classroom. I expected long endless hallways with a thousand doors to choose from, but instead, the school cut right to the chase, perhaps to lower anxiety. The class held fifteen chairs, fourteen of which were already occupied. They were the little plastic chairs with aluminum legs and attached to it was a composite desk top, reminiscent of high school. The professor, probably sixty years in age, sat on his desk top, lotus position. His hair was gray, and side burns carried down to his cheeks. His eyes were closed as if he were meditating. I was surprised to have ended up in a class, but since I was still holding the door, I looked back to see Loxy waving me to go in.

“Mr. Harister,” the professor said. I looked back in, my brain still wanting a hallway here. “If you would please take your seat. You’re late enough as it is.”

I closed the door and took the only seat available, the one in the front row, right dead in front of the professor. He was wearing an earth colored suit, with patches on the arm. When I sat, his eyes opened, revealing gray irises. He examined the class, but his eyes returned to me and held steady. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed with me, or staring through me, so I looked about and took inventory. Everyone had a notebook and pen. I was notebook and pen poor.

“Mr. Harister,” the professor finally said, drawing everyone’s attention back to me. “Could you please explain that you’re like what, 50 years old, and yet you came unprepared to take notes in my class?”

“I,” began, cutting myself off from saying something sarcastic. There was no need to argue, or even correct the professor that I was 48, not 50. The point was, I was not prepared. I chose a very simple response: “Negligence.”

“Honesty and brevity. How refreshing,” the Professor said. “Very well. I am Professor Emerson.” He paused to allow everyone that was capable of doing so to write that down, as if it was the most significant thing they would learn today. And they all did, but me, being pen and paper poor. “Now, tell me why you wrote that down! Is my name somehow special? Are you likely to forget it?”

The kids, and I call them such because clearly they were all barely out of their teens if they were a day, seemed apprehensive. I was rather amused, but kept it to myself.

“For God sakes, close your notebooks and put them away,” Emerson said. He pushed himself off his desk with such force that a couple of the kids revealed their fear by wider eyes. With a slow, sweeping arm motion, suggesting Tai Chi, he sent his desk sliding across the floor without even touching it. The desk parked itself up against the door, blocking the egress. With a beckon motion of his fingers he brought his chair to him and he sat down in front of me. “Please form a circle.”

Everyone got up to push their chairs into a circle formed off the Professor. I was going to put my chair to his right, but he insisted I leave an opening in the circle one chair’s length away from him. I obliged.

“Now, I am going to want you to introduce yourself by the name you wish me to use, and identify the species you identify yourself as,” Emerson said, pointing to the girl on his left.

“Well,” she began, smiling at everyone. “I am Janet Marie Hallcraft…’

“Stop,” Emerson sighed. “You want me to address you as Janet Marie Hallcraft every time I address you?”

“Umm, Janet’s fine,” she said.

“Then just say that!” Emerson said.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“For what?” Emerson asked.

“I…

“Go ahead, say it,” Emerson pressed.

Janet considered her options. “Janet. Human.”

“Thank you, Janet,” Emerson said, and proceeded down the line.

Though they all appeared human to me, apparently there were only ten humans, of which I was one, two Furries, a Dragon, and a planimal. The planimal was dressed in earth colors, and unlike Alish, his skin was brown and appeared more abrasive. His tuft of hair was green, though, as were his fingernails. The Furries were dressed in wooly clothes, and a couple of them had hats with hears, one with mouse ears, but they were clearly props, as opposed to some of the ones I had seen that seemed much more real. The dragon had scales painted on his face. I introduced myself last.

Then the Professor introduced himself. “You may address me as Professor. I am a Lemur. I don’t just identify myself as a Lemur, I am a Lemur. You will find that most students and faculty you encounter will be visible in human form out of a sense of tradition, but occasionally, you will encounter true forms, or variations thereof depending on the degree of sophistication and or insecurity of the person in question. My election to participate in this form does not indicate a preference, nor does it acknowledge a superiority, though you should bear in mind that it would be fairly difficult for an aquatic person, such as a whale or a dolphin or merfolk to join us if we didn’t choose a standard. I say all that because, there seem to be at least one non-Furry in every class that wants to argue that I have a preferential bias and treat humans unfairly. I assure you, my intention will be to treat you equally unfairly and as often as I can, so if you wish to avoid being called out, please refrain from any form of stupidity. Further, I consider non participation a form of stupidity, so if your strategy is to be overlook by virtue of your projected meekness, you can be assured you will be the first called on to prove my point.”

No one had anything to say to this.

“Good, now that the preliminary speech is accomplished, let’s discuss practical magic,” Emerson said.

Monte and Bambi retrieved their notebooks from their desk compartment. Kim was going to, as well, but hesitated when she noticed the Professor grimacing.

“What are you doing?” Emerson asked.

Their mouths made the perfect O. Monte spoke for himself, but expressed it on ‘everyone’s’ behalf, which was rather brave, a quality I admire in young people, even if it gets them squashed. If nothing else, I was going to enjoy the entertainment value of this class. “Um, we’re learning about magic?”

“Which requires that you write it down?” Emerson asked.

“Usually how it works,” Monte said, not as confident as he was a moment ago.

“How what works?” Emerson quizzed.

“Learning. You speak. We write it down. We regurgitate it on a test,” Monte spoke truth. That was likely how he had spent his entire academic life, studying for the test.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t rather think for yourself?” the Professor asked.

“What do you mean?”

The professor dropped his head into his hand. He spoke through his fingers. “You all realize that the nature of magical classes are such that it goes on forever until you pass it, right?”

Based on the head shaking, consensus was: no one knew this tidbit. I certainly hadn’t but I didn’t indicate either way. My first want from my old life emerged: I wanted a cup of coffee.

“There are only two good reasons to write something down,” the Professor said coming out of his hand. “The first reason is, you want to forget something. If you’re intention is to write down the precious jewels I intend to give you, just so can forget them, then there is no reason for me to even continue. I am quite capable of bringing a book to class and reading for the rest of your lives. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my last class how long I ignored them.”

The kids were afraid. I was curious, but I challenged not.

“The second reason we write things down is to pass them on,” Emerson continued after not being challenged. “Do you intend to pass my knowledge on, Monte?”

“Um, no, Sir, I mean, Professor, Sir,” Monte stammered. He was fidgeting as if he might urinate on himself.

“Why the hell not?” Emerson rejoined, apparently angry. “Are you ashamed of my knowledge?”

“Um, no, Sir,” Monte said, his voice going up in pitch.

“Professor!” Emerson corrected.

“No, Professor,” Monte capitulated.

“How do you know?” Emerson asked.

“How do I know to call you Professor?” he asked.

“Are you retarded?” Emerson asked. “How do you know you aren’t ashamed of my knowledge? Do you even know what my knowledge is?”

“I really can’t say, Si.. Professor,” Monte said.

“Then say that!” Emerson said. “Breathe, Monte. I am not going to hit you. Miss Candlestone, well, she might. Miss Shackleford, she definitely will. But if you do well in this class, maybe you can test out of theirs. So, all of you take notes… Mental notes! Don’t commit to an answer if you don’t know. Further, I will not tolerate, ‘I don’t know’ in this class.”

“But if we don’t know and we can’t commit to an answer and you don’t want us to be silent, how are we to respond?” Janet asked.

“Correctly!” Emerson said, as if there was no other way to respond. “Or, simply ask another question. Look, we all have biases, but if you phrase it in the form of a question, we can get your prejudices out in the open where we can deal with them properly. Prejudgment keeps you bound in ignorance, but questions open a path out of witlessness.”

“Are you calling us ignorant?!” Janet asked.

“I’m hopeful that you are,” Emerson said, the kindest voice he had given them so far.

“Really?” Janet asked.

“Oh, Janet, child, it is by far a nobler thing to be ignorant than stupid. An ignorant person can be raised. A stupid person has no hope of improvement,” Emerson said. “The fact that you had an emotional reaction to being called ignorant clearly demonstrates that you have ideas and beliefs contrary to the precise definitions of the language which means that you are at the mercy or poorly crafted magic. I encourage you all to brace yourselves for ridicule, because if you can learn to survive me, you might just find you were never ever even threatened. I invite questions because the question will illuminate your assumptions, which I iterate…”

“Reiterate” Monte corrected.

“The next person to use ‘reiterate’ in my class will hand copy an entire dictionary into their notebook. Iterate means to retell something, so why would I retell what I’m retelling? Anyway, I ITERATE now to drive the point home, your understanding of language is clearly absurd and inappropriate or I wouldn’t be your first Professor…. What was that face, Bambi?”

Bambi was one of the two Furries. Her doe eyes seemed large and sad, but for the briefest of seconds, even I thought I had seen a snarl cross her lips, and her nose flared as if sensing danger. Now, if she were on the prairie, she would have bolted, but here, she may have to fight.

“Nothing, Professor,” Bambi said.

“Oh, Bambi, I want you to reveal the thought that produced such an awful face,” The Professor said. “I assure you, no one but I will ridicule you.”

“Well, Professor, if you must know, I am growing quite tired of all you elitist, bastards, from administrations, faculty, and upper echelon students, disparaging us Freshman. Calling us mundane, worthless, gutter tripe lint from dead socks is harassment and I don’t like it. And I don’t like your use of the word retarded. It’s intellectually delayed.”

“And what do you do when ‘intellectually delayed’ has the same connotation as retarded? Are you going to invent a new, an even softer word to identify someone who has IDD?” Emerson asked.

“We don’t need labels,” Bambi insisted.

“Unless you have challenges and you need to access benefits set aside for people with challenges, which also requires criteria, because certainly you don’t want to treat everyone equally,” Emerson said.

“Yes, we do,” Bambi said.

“Oh,” Emerson said. He dropped into a slower voice, and used exaggerated sign language: “You want me to treat you like you’re slow, deaf, and dumb?” He returned to his normal speech and rhythm. “I do not believe in equality. I do, however, believe in equanimity. Tactfully disparaging you is not to impugn people with very real difficulties, but to remind you that you’re capable of better, and it is you who are actually insulting the other by not rising to your full potential.”

“I feel bad for people being made fun of,” Bambi said.

“No you don’t,” Emerson said. “You feel bad for you, but you’re hiding your feelings by couching it in others.”

“No, I care about others,” Bambi said. “It’s also happens that I don’t like labels because they hurt my feelings, too. It’s called empathy.”

“Ohh, I guess there is only one thing to do about that,” Emerson said, waiting with a spell of magic that baited all the kids into leaning forwards. “Grow the fuck up.” They all leaned back away from the professor, there hair going back as if windblown. “If you really had the ability to share and feel someone else’s emotions, you wouldn’t be putting restrictions on labels. Some people want their crutches.”

Tears started down Bambi’s face.