The morning sun blasted through Oswald’s window like a
Martian heat ray. His eyes squinted tightly as he struggled to pull himself out
of bed for English class. Valerie Sand was a cute teacher and Nikita Johnson
was sweet to a fault, but neither of them were worth washing the smell of
marijuana out of his hair and beard. Oswald was the most invisible person in
that room most of the time, so he supposed it didn’t matter anyways. No shower,
no dental hygiene, just a child’s trench coat and “Volcanic” by Death Angel to
sooth his tired mind.
During the slow and bone-creaking trek to class, all Oswald
could think about was Antero Magnus’s perverse words from the night before.
According to the dwarf, the only thing he and Antero had in common was that
they were both unloved by the world at large due to their physical appearances
and social awkwardness. What was Oswald supposed to do, walk around on stilts?
How about Dutch cloggers? How about platform disco shoes? Oswald thought about
this so much that he almost smacked his head against the glass door leading
into his English lecture for the day. Though exhausted and smelly he was, he
made it to class on time as he normally did. At least he did something right.
Oswald took his seat in the back of the classroom like he
always did and got a bird’s eye view of the other occupants, namely Valerie the
teacher and Nikita the student. He loved how Nikita’s long blond hair flowed so
freely across her shoulders. He loved Valerie’s striking blue eyes underneath
her thick-rimmed glasses (much prettier than Antero’s cyan eyes by a country
mile). And because this was spring quarter and the sun was constantly out,
there was always Oswald’s favorite outfit combination on any woman: shorts and
sandals. The best part about this? Exposing legs and feet wasn’t considered
legally indecent. It was like free porn to him.
Though it was hard to take in his two favorite girls’ beauty
when anxiety was the dominant emotion. If only Oswald could smoke a ready roll
right here and then. Why did class have to be so long and drawn out? Why
couldn’t Valerie Sand give back their short stories now? Did she delight in
watching stomachs turn into heavy knots? Did she enjoy the collective feeling
of throats drying up? Oswald needed to know his grade now, damn it! The lecture
was just extracurricular BS since he never spoke up during conversations
anyways (too shy and too introverted). He kept glancing at the digital clock
and the numbers kept laughing in his face as they moved slowly.
An hour later and all was right with the world again. The
lackluster lecture was over and Valerie began passing back assignments with red
ink adorning the pages. Some pages had more of it than others and Oswald hoped
and prayed his wasn’t drooling with it like a bloody wound. As students (Nikita
included) received their papers back, they exited the classroom with a little
more pep in their step. And wouldn’t you know it, Oswald received his last.
Scrambling through the pages to see what his grade was, his world went blacker than
Antero’s Matrix pills.
There it was in cherry red ink staring him in the face like
a pair of angry eyes: a C- for his shy guy romance story. Oswald didn’t even
bother reading the critiques. All he saw was the third letter of the alphabet
glaring at him, mocking him, laughing at him, daring him to crack under
pressure and cry like a bitch. That wasn’t a minus sign next to the C; that was
a middle finger. Or a gun barrel, which would have looked completely natural in
the dwarf’s slack-jawed mouth.
“Mr. Crow?” said Valerie. No response. “Mr. Crow?” she said
again. “Oswald!” That last spark finally jolted the dwarf awake from his living
educational nightmare. Adjusting her glasses, the teacher kindly said, “Class
is over. You’re free to go.”
Not knowing what the hell to say, Oswald hopped out of his
seat and trudged towards the glass door, tossing his paper in the garbage on
the way there.
“What are you doing?!” asked Valerie before fishing the
paper out of the receptacle. Dusting the corn chip dust off of it, she said,
“No, no, no, no, no! You’re not throwing this away. You’ve got notes here that
you need to read. That’s how you improve in my class: by accepting criticism
gracefully.” No response from Oswald, just a painful glare. “Look, I know
you’re frustrated and all, but if you want to put an end to the frustration,
you have to improve your writing. This C- isn’t going to go away just because
you’re not happy about it. I’d be upset too, but throwing away your homework
isn’t the answer.”
She attempted to hand the paper back to Oswald, but the
dwarf shook his head and tried to leave once again, only to have a hand on his
shoulder stop him from doing so. “Oswald, please just take the paper.”
After a while of hesitation, the dwarf snatched the paper
and skimmed over the critiques. He could have sworn he edited the hell out of
this story before handing it in. But the one comment staring him dead in the
eye tensed his muscles: the implication that he didn’t have enough experience
in the subject of romance to write a story about it. “Thanks for reminding me,
Valerie. I wasn’t sure I would have remembered that otherwise.”
“Hey! Look at me!” retorted Valerie. “That’s basic
storytelling, Mr. Crow: if you’re going to write about something, you have to
know what you’re talking about. If you don’t have firsthand experience with the
subject, you should at least research it. A simple trip to Google would have
raised this grade to your liking.”
“I don’t drink, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spot a drunk
when I see one.”
“Oh please, I’ve heard that excuse time and time again, Mr.
Crow. Even the best authors have to do research every now and then. And just so
there’s no confusion, when you’re writing sex scenes, Porn Hub doesn’t count as
research.”
Oswald tossed his paper to the ground like the proverbial
gauntlet and said, “Oh, so you’re a comedian now? You think my loneliness is
fucking hilarious? You want to talk about having experience, that’s it, man.
They don’t get more experienced than me when it comes to being fucked off.”
Valerie knelt down and cupped her student’s upper arms in
her hands. “Listen to me…I don’t like the way you’re talking to me right now.
You made a few mistakes in this paper and you have to pay for them. I’m not
going to give you straight A’s just because you can’t take a little criticism. The
purpose of college isn’t to feed your ego. It’s to help you grow into a better
person. You have the syllabus from this class handy somewhere, I’m sure. I
grade my students based not on their overall ability, but on their willingness
to improve. Right now, you think you’re the hottest thing since Stephen King.
You need to bring it down a notch.”
No response from Oswald, just his chin tucked to his chest.
Valerie said, “You can be angry all you want and part of me doesn’t blame you
for it. But the way you’re talking to me right now? You’re giving me the
impression that you’re owed something in life. You think you’re owed A+’s. You
think you’re owed compliments. I bet you even think you’re owed romance.”
That last comment caused Oswald to shrug his shoulders out
of Valerie’s grasp. “You know what? Give me the paper. Give me the goddamn
paper. If I stuff it in my backpack, will that make you happy?”
Handing it back, the teacher said, “That depends. Are you
going to actually read the comments and take them to heart or are you just
going to take it to the incinerator and turn all of your hard work to ashes?
Yeah, I said it: you worked hard on that paper; nobody’s doubting that. I’m not
saying you’re lazy. I’m saying your hard work is misguided. You need to listen
to me. You need to listen to your fellow students. The knock on your romantic
skills isn’t that you have scraggly hair or are three feet tall. It’s that you
push everybody away. That’s the vibe I got from your main character. Please,
Oswald…listen to reason.”
Oswald reluctantly stuffed the essay in his backpack and
tried once again to head out the door. “Just one more thing,” Valerie called
out to him. “It would help your future grades handsomely if you spoke up in
class discussions rather than stare at my legs and feet.”
The dwarf’s face glowed bright red as he slowly closed the
glass door behind him. He frantically checked down at his crotch to see if he
had an involuntary boner. Though he didn’t, he pulled his trench coat over his
body anyways and speed walked as far away from the classroom as he could. Speed
walking turned into jogging. Jogging turned into running. He needed a safe
space from this never-ending embarrassment, which should have been a no-brainer
considering colleges these days were full of them.
The gym! That was it! He could just throw a few punches at
the sand bag for an hour or so. Heh, sand bag. Valerie’s last name was Sand.
How poetically appropriate. At least Oswald’s boxing punches couldn’t be marked
with a C-. For a little guy, he sure had dynamite in his fists. He had to,
especially if his old high school bully Wacey Judge was anywhere nearby.
