I just have one of those snippets today... I write such stuff all the time... momentary drabbles, I call them
“I don’t think the problem is whether or not Achilles will ever reach the goal before the turtle. We all know that he will. The problem is simply that, if mathematically reasoned you can still prove that he can’t.”
Talk about confusion. I watched the blond hair of my friend Susha shake wildly as she tried to express her views. I’ve known her almost all my life but I would never get used to this. This was Science class after all. I, for one, didn’t care whether Achilles ever outran the turtle or not. I didn’t care whether the universe was endless or not and most of all I didn’t care much about quantum physics. Not that I really understood any of it in the first place. Our teacher, Mr. Mognor, nodded thoughtfully.
“Yes, Susha, I believe you are the only one who actually understood what I was trying to teach.”
Susha grinned. Just at that moment the bell rang and signaled for class to be over. Thank God. I gathered my things quickly and went to remove myself from the classroom before Mr. Mognor remembered my grades.
“Anna?” Oh no. Of course. He didn’t forget.
“Yes, Mr. Mognor?” I turned around and plastered a fake, innocent smile on my face. He motioned for me to join him at his desk. His desk was cluttered as usual and I found comfort in the fact that it took him about 5 minutes to find my file. When he finally pulled it out from under a stack of books - naturally, all controversial scientifically relevant ones – my eyes widened at the red marks all over the paper.
“It seems to me, Anna, that you haven’t been a very attentive student lately.” Even as he accused me, I felt his green eyes smiling upon me. He was always smiling. Sometimes I caught myself checking his eyes after he was particularly angry with someone, only to realize that they still carried the same, admirably kindhearted glint.
“Uhm, does it?” I tried to fake ignorance, yet failed miserably. He held up the chart for me to see: three out of four papers I had failed, the other I passed only due to some pity-points, I supposed. There was no way of explaining those grades away, really.
“It does kind of seem like it.” Note to self: don’t joke about something when you’re inwardly freaking out.
“Anna…” he sighed. “Last year was very different. I remember you being an A student. What happened?” With those eyes and the white beard he looked very much like a grandfather chastising a child for stealing cookies.
“I’m not sure.” I confessed. “This year’s curriculum just isn’t for me, I guess.”
“I’m afraid I will have to fail you if this continues.”
Can someone be surprised by something that obvious? Apparently. If I failed this class my parents would freak, especially my mother who was working on cancer research up north in Washington. She believed with her being a biological genius, I would have to be one, too. So failing Science was not really an option.
“Well, uhm, what do you think I can do about this?” I asked, blinking my eyes frantically. Where did those tears come from?
“I have a special science project which you will have to work on with me. If you do so until the end of the year, I’ll let you pass.”
I could already hear my mother’s voice, distorted a bit, because she wouldn’t be able to fly down just to read her daughter the riot acts and so a phone conversation would have to do. “How could you not pass Science? I have done everything in my power to… blah blah blah… scientific genius… blah blah… read you biology books when you were four… blah blah… when I was your age…” No, not a conversation I wanted to have. Ever. So…
“When can I start?”