Autophobia |VOLUME 1| [EN]

4

"Alzheimer would have remembered this by now!" The old woman whistles at my ear, who has sacrificed to teach us mathematics on her old knees.

"What parameters characterize the cone?" She glances at me.

I open my mouth but again she interrupts me that I know nothing and how poorly I am preparing for her lessons.

I lower my gaze, but in a few seconds she yells at me again, but without any sign of interest in her, I scribble a math example in my notebook.

She throws her old wrinkled hands in the air and swims to the table stooped.  She sits on a chair that moans under her weight. She shows me to approach the board.

I swallow down a ball full of nerves.

 I touch the board with a marker and write a formula to calculate the volume of a given shape.

"Briskly!" She approaches me. Not only hers but also the other thirty-one pairs of eyes are burning a hole in my back.

"What do you suggest to calculate the height?" Her mocking tone in voice cuts deep into my brain.

"I suggest . . . I would use the tangent function." I scribble the equation, but she stops me again.

"We have to move on, we can't spend an hour on one example."

Breathe.

She's just an old grandma.

"What are you standing here like a puck in front of the gate?" She corrects the big glasses on her nose.

I clench my hands. One more word. . .

"We are solving an example."

Exhale.

"If you keep pushing me around, it would take ages for me to finish it!" I bark, turn my back, and write the answer at lightning speed.

I will not forget to give the old with a smirk when sitting down.