Stupor

A couple of grunts permeated my unconsciousness; the jarring sound forced itself on the blank plains of my mind. Since the stupor of the class was unbroken, I looked around for the origin of the noise, vaguely interested. Then I felt my friend’s dazed pen in my side, and came back to join to un-dead with a start, to realize that the grunts were, in fact, snores, and I was the culprit, or the victim, whatever you want to call it.

This, then, is the general air in our evening class. Dramatic critics talk about the willing suspension of disbelief. The bunch of unlucky slaves in class every evening suspends not only disbelief, but everything that raises Man from the field of the animal. Sir drones on from the front of the class and the only competing sound is the steady hum of the air conditioner. Indeed, most of the time, the air conditioner makes more sense than Sir. At infrequent intervals he turns to the board to write in a sudden fit of energy, and I am roused enough to make illegible scratches in my notebook, marks that will defy interpretation when the need arises. Then it is back to dreamland, where food is the main motif, with sleep a close second.

The fact is all of us in this scene are CA students coming to class from a long day at work, where we get kicked around at the whim of the entire organisation, since we are at the bottom of the pyramid of importance (I speak for myself, but there is little evidence to the contrary that most of my fellows, if not all, reside with me at the base). And before that most of us have attended a similar session early in the morning, a time which God intended to only be used for sleep. After this delightful day when I arrive at evening class, the most I can do is plop down in a lumpy seat and go to sleep. It is so difficult to take Sir seriously about the various methods in which one can calculate the value of the shares of a company, when he is just a vague blur, signifying a three hour barrier between me and food.

Sometimes the voices in my stomach clamour so vigorously that I am tempted to make a dash for freedom; the seduction of hunger is a powerful thing, when Sir will cunningly say the only words in the English language that could have stayed me, “And now for the last sum”. However that is just deception, for he has seen the rebellion in my eyes; he will then continue for at least three quarters of an hour more. When he runs out of material relevant to the topic at hand, he starts to try to entice us with bits of professional gossip. Some of the more susceptible ones give in and try to hold up their part of the conversation on behalf of the entire class, while the rest of us glower, sleepily rebellious, at both the parties to the conversation. When Sir finally gets the hint, we have been stuck in class for nearer four hours, instead of the promised three.

And my extraordinary will ensures that I get home safe and stay conscious long enough to eat. After that its bed time, in preparation for another day, so strikingly like today, that the boundaries blur in my befuddled