Graceful Abaddon

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Semester two, week three in Approaches to English Literature, Leslie entered the lecture room forty minutes late. The amphitheater, full of faces darkened in their levelled seats, all looked at her with startled silence. The lecturer - a middle-aged man, fat and balding with glasses - stopped mid-sentence, turning cool, judgmental eyes towards her. Leslie's breath caught halfway up her throat. She looked at the lecturer's face for a flash of warmth, a hint of humor. There was nothing. Behind him, upraised several meters, shone the presentation screen - a mess of text, big bold letters up the top ...

 Intertextuality - Cross Cultural Perspectives. 

"S-sorry I'm late," Leslie said. Only the words came out barely audible - just a whispery wheeze. "Sorry," she said again. But the lecturer - unlike in high school, she never knew or remembered their names - turned away and recommenced his exposition. 

"Excuse me. Where was I? Yeah, uh, so what similarities and what differences did you already notice between those two excepts we just looked at?"

The words bounced meaninglessly in Leslie's head. They bounced away and into darkness, like coins cast down a concrete stairwell. She kept her eyes averted to the carpet floor, her face flushing despite all effort to relax. She knew the entire room of students - some fifty at least, she thought - were watching her. Studying her every move, every single ripple of expression in her face, the way her arms swung so unnaturally. She gripped her bag closer to herself and hurried up the stairs, slightly disoriented by the tiny panels of light that marked each row of seats. It was like walking back up the aisle in a movie theatre after the film was finished, legs unstable from having sat down so long, and the peeking bars of light playing tricks with your spatial perception.          

"Anyone want to be brave?" the lecturer was saying. "Or do I have to pick on someone?"

Leslie finally got to the very top row, feeling as though she would fall backwards if she turned around and looked to the bottom. On her left was a boy with his computer on his lap - harsh blue light illuminating his moody artisan's face. On her right, some seats down, were a cluster of girls. The closest to her wore torn, revealing denim shorts - her long white legs were glowed pale. Leslie caught the girl's eyes then looked quickly away. She considered sitting down at the edge of the row, then turned around and descended the steps again. Another two rows down, there were two empty seats beside a varicose Asian guy. She slipped into the row and pulled the fold-up seat down.

The lecturer was back on track, expounding on something a student had just volunteered. His words registered no more in Leslie's mind than a boring sermon at her grandparents' church. She held the seat down, placing her heavy laptop bag beside her on the floor - then suddenly the seat shot up, losing her grip. It clanged, sharp and heavy - almost preposterously so - on the seat-back. 

Again, the lecturer fell silent. Eyes, heads, entire bodies twisted round to peer at Leslie. The quiet was deafening, like the final moments before the a firing squad executes its purpose. She felt like she was under a piercing spotlight. Shoulders tightening, she wrenched the seat-back down again and placed her butt down hard upon the chair. For a second, she made the mistake of glimpsing the room below her. All eyes were on her. The lecturer stood still, staring up in her direction. Intertextuality - Cross Cultural Perspectives. Leslie pinched her hands so hard they hurt. Slowly - painfully slow - the students returned their attention to the bottom of the amphitheatre. The lecturer - in a frantic moment of clarity, Leslie remembered his name was Rob - finally shook his head, turned back towards his projecting computer, and muttered, "when you're done up there".

For the rest of the lecture - merely twenty minutes, though it felt like two hours - Leslie took in nothing. She just sat there, sinking deeper and deeper into the chair she wanted to rip out of its holding, slam against the wall then launch frisbee-like over the nameless heads of all the students. She was so anxious for the rest of the lecture - so mortified at the prospect of the lights turning on when the whole thing was finished - that she never even took out her laptop. She may as well have not come at all.