Blasphemy

All of the empty hallways.  Mile after mile of empty hallway.  The boy continues working on his own.  He doesn’t care if I know.  He doesn’t care if anyone knows.  He is a genius. 

We are all quietly sitting in an auditorium.  We are waiting for the presentation—for the balding man to come and turn on the projector and show us transparencies.  He will write on them in marker, circle the important bits, underline words, draw arrows.  We will all sit quietly but make no notes, because notes are not allowed.  We will just hear it again and again until his lecture is all we know.  And it is always the same lecture.  The same lecture, with the same arrows and underlined words.  I have heard it so many times the words mean nothing to me.  They just roll past me like tumbleweed on the road.  I will stare straight ahead and hear nothing as the boy turns written words into straws that represent intersecting hallways, each one leading somewhere I am not allowed to go.