Late For Class

School's out forever on a numbered day

Late For Class

It was June. If not it was October. It is all the same. They were numbered days. Some even running backwards from right to left. In any event it was time for school. There is a learning facility in Oklahoma called the University Of Y Knott. (UYK for short.) Professor Keen teaches law and suicide courses to a special elite group of promising students from the distant causal lands nowhere near by.

One of the prize students raised and waved a quivering hand with a question in one of the newly formed classes on the curriculum this season. The student extended two fingers; the index and middle finger stretched high in angularity to form a peace sign or V for victory with the intent to either confuse one and all or at least to garner the attention of the professor to pose a question.

He yelled out loud with confidence, “Professor Keen!” “Is it safe to eat poisonous plants.” The teacher responded immediately, “Try it.” “What does not kill you will make you stronger.” Another student jumped in, (without raising his hand because he was one of the rude ones and was probably raised in a barn,) “Hey teach!” “If someone falls off a very high building what happens?” Keen told him to try it and write a brief summary on the way down (as a long report would be unlikely in his foreseeable future.) “Address your report to the coroner with instructions to deliver it to me on Monday as I suspect you will most likely be indisposed.”

There were students who were there for the credits. Others who were simply disinterested and still more who were preoccupied with looking out the window at the beautiful trees, caught up in the hypnotic hold nature had on them as the branches swayed, glutted with orange leaves maneuvered in a gentle breeze. Blue birds darted through the maze. Turtles meandered with what appeared to be smiles on their faces through the short cropped lawn. They had all the education they needed to get by.

Some of the students began to mumble and stir in their seats. The teacher banged on his desk with a wooden pointer stick like a judge gone mad with his jurisprudence on justice. “There will be none of that in my class!” He stammered. “Keep perfectly still until you are called on.”

At that moment an unknown student entered, ten minutes late and out of breath. He spoke very little English and said, “Sorry for being late.” “Am I in the right class?” The teacher said, “This is suicide 101.” The boy explained that this is the right place. He told the class that he had just arrived back from Afghanistan with an active bomb made of explosive C-4 plastique in his back pack ready to go off at any moment. The professor told him to take a seat in the center of the class.

The teacher then went to the blackboard and chalked in, “There will be no midterms this year.” “You are dismissed and all of us will be LATE from the looks of it today, as our new foreign friend reminds us.”