Steve couldn't keep his mind on Mrs. Kotoly. She was talking about the chapter of "Foundation's Edge" that the class was supposed to have read. Steve had read the book several times, and so was abstractly doodling in his notebook, trying not to think about the state of his love life. But the harder he tried not to think about it, the more he thought about it. Such is the way of the world.
He flipped back to the start of his notebook. It always represented a fresh outlook for him, the pages and pages of possibilities. Notes on different things they had discussed in class, asides in the margins asking his neighbors about different things, and one super-sweet drawing of a stick figure watching paint dry - that had been during a discussion about "Things Fall Apart." Although not much of the book had stuck with him, Steve couldn't forget the poem that had inspired the title. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre; the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart; the centre cannot -"
"Steve? Are you with us?"
Steve snapped to attention. The class was focused on him, some with thinly-discuised smiles.
"Sorry."
"Woolgathering a bit?" Mrs. Kotoly was smiling as well.
"Yeah, something like that. I'm back now."
No comments:
Post a Comment