Road Story

Chapter 3 – El Examen

Terrence took the floor speaking in his halting Spanish. The fans threatened to blow the papers off the desk with every oscillating pass. The professors listened as intently as they could in the heat. She used a hand-held fan, pastel flowers painted on it. He sat slouched in his chair, long legs splayed under the desk. His white hair contrasted against his dark Caribbean skin.

Meanwhile I sat at the corner of the horseshoe shaped desk all us students shared. Obviously my attention wandered, I took in the details around the room and put my pen to paper.

Some one else was talking now. There was more halting Spanish y more bad English accents. What was more of a trial, struggling with my own Spanish or suffering everyone else’s struggle?

The rest of the class passed uneventfully. Each person in the class took a turn to speak, as we were all obliged to, whether we had something analytical, critical, original to contribute or we just said something mundane and unenlightened because we had to. Clearly, this time I belonged to the later group.

Somehow, still we slipped through the cracks of the system. When I went to find my marks, not only did I pass, but my marks were some of the highest that I’d ever had.

What was to account for this? Could it be the novelty of examining students from another country?