Silence in the Classroom

I arrive four minutes late to class. The professor pretends not to notice my intrusion into his quiet classroom and continues etching algebra problems on the chalkboard. I clumsily pull out my notebook, pencil, eraser, and calculator. I awkwardly shrug off my sweater and place it under my seat. As I turn to my friend on the right, I notice that the man who sits behind her is not in his usual seat. I glance tentatively around the room, but he is no where to be heard. I grin inwardly, and then outwardly as I begin writing out an algebra problem.

I like how quiet the classroom is without the man who sits behind my friend. The rest of the students only speak if asked a question. I do not hear the incessant mutterings or obnoxious questions that usually mark his prescence. Thirty minutes go by, and I have not been irritated once. Then the door creaks open and in he walks. Everything about him annoys me. His blank expression. His brown, spiky hair. His worry lines that place him at over 30 years old--old enough to know better.

He sits down and starts writing out math problems. Before long I hear him finishing the professor's sentences. This is the man's worst sin of all. If I solve a problem quickly, my good feeling is lost when he works it faster and announces the answer to the classroom. His little comments are quiet and infrequent enough that he goes uncorrected. Today, I say to myself, this has to end. And I promise myself that the next time he opens his big mouth, he's going to get it. When the professor says, "And the answer is 5", I hear the man behind my friend say the answer as well, and congratulate himself aloud. I turn around and unleash my wrath on him.

I shush him.

The man continues to mutter after I have hissed at him, but as I turn around to face the professor again, I cannot hear him anymore. I keep working the problems, and there is silence. An awkward silence, because I have grown so used to his babble, but a silence nonetheless. He does not utter a single word for the duration of the class.