Flash fiction

The tough teacher, was he?

The tough teacher, was he?

Something crashed at the door. The class fell silent as all of us looked up to see our English teacher entering the class. The fat volume he carried, obviously something to do with poetry, something to torture us for the next fifty-five minutes, slid from his hand crashing to the floor.

“Where were we yesterday?” he enquired, a while later, peering at no one in particular.
“A thing of beauty...” murmured a voice from the first row.
“Oh yes. A thing of beauty...” the voice went up a few decibels and the rest of the line submerged in a fit of coughing.
Someone giggled and someone else coughed too.
The teacher turned livid.
“ You cannot understand,” he affirmed looking fiercely at the students, “ what it is to suffer from asthma.”
There were some sympathetic sounds emanating from some quarters.

Suddenly he stepped down from the podium and started walking the length of the room, our eyes following him.

“You know, Keats suffered too! He had consumption. So painful! Yet he wrote immortal poetry. How do you think he did it?” he raised his eyes questioningly.
“ Passion sir. “ replied the bright boy in the front row.
“ Of what nature may I ask?”
“ Fanny Browne sir!”
The class burst out laughing and giggling.

We were unable to progress more than two more lines of that poem of Keats on that day and on every other day. It was trying for us because we couldn’t get into the spirit of poetry. We were more worried about exams rather than understanding the great poet. Our teacher was too sensitive. Where he was supposed to take a strict stand, he was lenient. As a result we found his classes tough.


Word count: 298

Winner: Daily flash fiction contest.