Once She Spoke

FFM, 2024 Flash Fiction Month, Day 9, CHALLENGE - word count 514

Many lifetimes ago, one semester in college, actually the year before last, she spoke.

The whole class sat frozen in place then. Even students who'd been in motion - fidgeting or whispering, uselessly turning pages - stopped, as if her words were a blast of ice.

She stood there, apparently answering a question the other students didn't hear.

"It's from a word on the page you wrote," she said to the professor, "about the herds of Przewalski's horses."

Not many classmates knew what she was talking about, but her voice had never been heard by them before. Now it felt as though they'd be hanging on her words 'til the lights went out.

Her voice was somehow both quiet and yet also like a large bell ringing in a distant tower. 

At least one student, hearing it, became determined that he would get her to sing in his band, even though he had no idea what her name was.

"You seem to imply the horses are only successfully re-introduced to wilderness if they're carefully monitored," the girl said. "What about the herd in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone? And you say their breeding depends on mares having more colts to father more herds. What about the horse called Kurt, now in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the one cloned from what they call their Frozen Zoo?"

The professor, a portly and usually cheerful man, looked stunned. His mouth hung open, and the marker he often tossed from hand to hand was clutched tightly in mid-air, as if he was afraid it would fly away.

"Hrmph," he said, clearing his throat. "What did you say, Miss ...uh...? Miss?"

Like everyone else in the room, the professor seemed not to have heard her words, because her voice drowned out what she said.

"About the horses," she said. "Przewalski's horses, the ones you wrote about here." 

She held up the paper the professor had assigned for homework. 

"I think you missed a couple of things, that's all."

The girl sat down, lost at her desk once more.

Suddenly, few students recalled her looks or even her extraordinary voice. Small sounds were heard in the classroom again. Students coughed, books slammed closed, a few thin notes of music rose from someone's forgotten headset.

The professor blinked and looked at his own paper.

"Class!" he almost shouted. "One more thing before you go! Somewhere in between this... where you see the last paragraph, the one titled ...uh... Dream? Please be aware that ...um... there are words left dangling...uh...."

His voice fell away. His students laughed like they'd just heard the funniest thing ever said and headed for the exits, sounding like a herd of horses rather than a dozen young people.

The professor was left alone, studying his paper on both sides, seeing nothing untoward.

He looked sharply at the students' desks. He even counted them. He was sure he knew his twelve students pretty well. So who was that thirteenth kid? That girl? And what did she say? Something about a horse? In a math class?

He shook his head and loaded his briefcase, ready to go home.

Author's Note

For FFM, 2024, Day 9, CHALLENGE done - word count 514
Element one = wrote "challenge me"
Element two = suggested several songs to others
Element three = used "Shiny Is The View" by Cosmo Sheldrake, suggested by wizardandgalaxy
Several lyrics are quoted