Symphony of the Idle

Brad Isidoré waited. Frequently, he felt like all he did was wait. This crisp Friday morning he’d waited for the bus to arrive; it had been nearly fifteen minutes late. On the bus, he waited to get off and, once off, he stood for fifteen minutes until his transfer arrived. More waiting.

         It hadn’t stopped there either. He’d lingered in line for coffee at Tully’s, for his five minute break at work, for lunch, for the clock to strike five. Then the bus adventure, all over again. Only this time it was raining, which only made the endeavor worse.

         On Fridays Brad took a night class. The subject was history, his least favorite, but he was trying to get his general education requirements and it just happened to be next on the list. The course was called U.S. History 101; a subject Brad felt like he’d covered a dozen times over from kindergarten to high school. Apparently it just couldn’t be taught enough.

         So now Brad waited for class to be over. The class took place in a large, seminar style lecture hall, set up similarly to a stage performance. Rows of chairs in gentle curves focused towards the stage where the teacher stood. The room seated a good three-hundred people, the class contained two-fifty, but Brad felt pretty sure that, at most, only one-hundred students sat in the lecture hall today. He envied those absent and, by the looks of things, so did his peers.

         Aside from Brad’s dislike of the subject matter, things were further worsened by his teacher, Mr. Johnson. The man was neither mean nor demanding, but he was the type of teacher who was fascinated by the sound of his own voice yet apparently very unaware of the size of the room. Unabatedly, he’d read from his notes without sparing a glance for the room at large. A revolution, albeit a quiet one, could break out beneath his nose and Mr. Johnson would resolutely keep reading his notes. However, even the smallest of noises drew his aggravated attention. A cough would elicit a glare and quiet laughter a reprimand. Talking was completely out of the question.

Typically, Brad slid into class a few minutes late because, with so much waiting in his daily life, he couldn’t help but be late. Thus, Brad entered from the back door and settled near the top of the lecture hall. From such a distance, Mr. Johnson’s continuous flow of words, spoken in a monotonous, rising and falling pitch, came across as though he was speaking through a telephone that had a bad connection,

         “In…61…war…south. The…known as…states…” Amazing how he could make the civil war sound about as exciting as carpet cleaning. No, scratch that, carpet cleaning would be far more interesting than this uninterrupted flow of words. After awhile, the words all seemed to run together into a steady hum of fractured speech despite the pauses:

         “During…Lincoln…proclamation…slaves…made…1862.”

         Brad only came to class so that he didn’t miss the pop quizzes; he was pretty sure that was the only reason anyone else came either. Invariable, many classes passed when Brad endured Mr. Johnson in vain but today proved fruitful; a pop quiz was given. Now Brad sat glued to his seat out of dedication towards attendance and, besides, his bus didn’t come until five minutes after class ended. Brad planned on waiting either way, so better inside a classroom than out in the rain.

         Rather than listen, Brad let his eyes wander to his fellow peers who were, to be frank, far more inventive in their attempts at speeding up the passage of time than Brad was.

         A few rows down, one girl with black hair had fallen asleep leaning back in her chair. Her mouth hung agape, a bead of drool poised on her lip. A cup of coffee balanced precariously on her knee. Apparently, the highly caffeinated beverage proved ineffective against the droning, half-audible voice of Mr. Johnson. To her left, a few chairs over, a male student in a red shirt had also fallen asleep leaning against his hand, elbow propped up on the small table, which served as a desk, attached to his chair. His friends around him snickered slightly but a loud shush from Mr. Johnson quieted them.

         A few chairs to his right, Brad saw a blonde-haired girl searching through her bag. She looked frazzled, her eyes wide and her lip rolled under her front teeth where she was biting it. Then, with a relieved smile, the blonde pulled forth a hefty textbook. Glancing towards him she mouthed the words, ‘How long?’

         From the rear of the class, reading the clock was impossible, but Brad always wore a watch, the better to time out how much of his life spent in waiting. He checked it now.

         6:50.

         There was still ten minutes left.

         Brad held up ten fingers and mouthed the word ‘minutes’. She seemed to understand that his answer was in countdown form and she clearly didn’t like the logistics. With a heavy sigh she opened her book. Now that it had moved from her lap, Brad could see the title: Accounting, How To.

How dull, Brad wondered, did a class have to be when reading an accounting book was a more stimulating use of time?

         With a quiet crinkle, the blonde turned the page.

         Brad looked down at his notebook opened on his desk. He’d written only the date and the title of the class. Underneath it the word ‘the’ had morphed into an elaborate design. The holes of the paper had been transformed into an eye, a flower, and a sun respectively. Perpendicular to the blue lines, he’d drawn straight lines in pencil, about forty across the entire page. Then he’d filled in every other box. His paper was a giant checkerboard; he turned the page and began again.

         “War…with…Atlanta…like…book…Wind.” Mr. Johnson chuckled at his allusion to what, Brad pieced together, was probably the book, Gone With the Wind. Though, for all he really knew, Mr. Johnson could have been talking about the weather.

         Brad felt a tap on his shoulder and he turned around. A young bearded man, who sat in the chair behind him, leaned towards Brad.

         “What’s an eight letter word for the Greek God of Dreams?” he whispered.

         Brad raised an eyebrow but then noticed the black and white boxes characterizing a crossword on the man’s desk. Half of it had already been completed.

         “No idea,” Brad said.

         The man leaned back, a furrowed look on his face.

         Psst!

         Brad turned towards the girl again, the accounting book nestled in her lap.

         ‘Time?’ she mouthed.

         Brad checked and, with a groan of his own, held up nine fingers. The sleeping boy in the red shirt let out a snore which set his friends snickering again. Mr. Johnson hushed them, hardly skipping a beat, his sentence punctuated with a shh!

         Small noises began to sound like canons to Brad. The swish as Mr. Johnson switched note cards as they rubbed against each other reminded him of ocean waves. Someone settling in their chair created a squeak that sounded like the squeal of a witch. A pencil exploded to the ground. It clattered angrily as its owner grated their nails against the concrete in order to find it. Well, Brad couldn’t hear the nails, but he imagined he could.

Even louder than all of those surrounding noises, was the slight click of his watch as it marked off the seconds with a beat,

         Tick...





         Tick…

         Was his watch even working?

         More noises, a symphony of the idle. The lightning crack of pen on paper from the bearded man behind him as he filled in the boxes, the explosive rustle of paper as the blonde near him turned the page, the flurried whispers of a gaggle of girls farther down to his right, and the shushing of Mr. Johnson coupled with the hum of his voice. The sleeping boy snored again but this time his friends didn’t snicker. They’d relapsed into stupefied stares, eyes glazed over. In fact, this posture of nearly statuesque indifference dominated the room. Almost everyone looked as though they stared through Mr. Johnson, past the wall, to something else that was, presumably, more exciting than their current setting. One boy in a green hat kept dropping his head against his chest before waking back up and trying again to listen. Each time he awoke a look of surprise crossed his features, then his eyes scanned the room and he’d realize again where he sat. Each time he looked increasingly unhappier at the discovery.

         Brad leaned his forehead against his desk, staring at his half-checkered page up close.          

         Nothing, there’s nothing to do; nothing but waiting and breathing. Well, maybe not the latter. Brad inhaled deeply and began timing how long he could hold his breath merely for something to do. After a few attempts at breaking a minute, someone tapped on his back.

          “Hey!” It was the bearded man. “Are you okay?”

         “Just out of my mind is all,” Brad responded.

         “Want a crossword?”

         “No, thanks.”

         “Quiet back there!” Brad turned to the front. Mr. Johnson was staring angrily back at them, incensed that his speech had been interrupted. He fell back into his hum, and Brad saw a few of the students noticeably slouch further down in their chairs. One of the sleeping boy’s friends was building a card house from note cards on his desk, but seemed to be losing heart since his friends kept knocking it down.

         That’s how Brad felt, like that card house. Each moment he found something in which to distract his mind, it would a moment later crumble back down into the pits of inactivity. He couldn’t even think about things to think about.

         How much longer? he wondered, and checked his watch.

         6:54.

         His watch had to be broken.

         A renewed laughing rippled through the group of boys. Brad’s eyes, though he hardly cared at this point, located their new source of humor. Taped to their sleeping friend’s forehead was a piece of notebook paper where the words, “Let sit for thirty minutes, then rotate,” were written in an untidy scrawl.

         Exhausted. Brad felt exhausted. The tedious, energy-draining atmosphere of this room took what little vigor Brad had left and stolen it from him. He leaned back. His head lay against the top of his seat so that he could see the ceiling and the top of the bearded man’s head. The man glanced up at him from his crossword and gave him an understanding and sympathetic sort of nod, then pointed towards the blonde girl.

         “I think she’s trying to ask you something,” he whispered.

         “The time,” Brad groaned but didn’t move to tell her. Instead, the crossword advocate checked his cell phone and held up five fingers. Audibly, this time, both Brad and the blonde groaned loudly.

         “SHHH!” Mr. Johnson seethed very loudly. In fact, it was much louder than he usually talked. Brad’s head jerked up in surprise but he wasn’t the only one who had been caught off guard. The sleeping boy in the red shirt’s head shifted at the sound and the minute adjustment sent his chin sailing from the cradle of his palm and smack into his desk with a thud that echoed throughout the hall. He woke up, confused and grappling at the paper taped to his head. But he wasn’t the only one who’d awoken.

         The thud of his head must have shocked the sleeping girl into alertness for she suddenly jumped from her seat, her coffee spilling everywhere and eliciting squeals from her friends. Unprompted, she began talking,

         “Some of the Greek Gods were Athena the Goddess of Wisdom, Aries the God of War, Hades the God of the Underworld, Morpheus the God of Dreams –“

         “That’s what it is!” the bearded man yelled from behind Brad, then in a whisper, “M-O-R…-U-S. Perfect fit.” His interruption stopped the girl who looked around, befuddled. Angrily, wiping coffee from her backpack, one of her friends hissed,

         “You’re not in Greek Mythology! This is U.S. History!”

         With an embarrassed flush, the black-haired girl sat back down.

         All eyes rounded on Mr. Johnson. Clearly, the distraction had completely thrown him off-kilter. He riffled through his notes, trying to find where he’d stopped. For a moment, he paused, looking at the class directly for one of the first times this quarter. His brow furrowed. A ripple of expressions, starting at the front of the class and moving back, mirrored each other in form: surprise…and hope. Maybe, just maybe, he’d let them go those few minutes early because he’d lost his place. Or even make a comment, remark about what just happened. Loosen up for a moment from the stringent pattern of his classes or deviate for just an instant to recognize this unusual happenstance.

         As one, the class seemed to freeze, the glazed looks vanished, their attention collectively focused for the first time all period. Please…please.

         Then, unexpected to all, Mr. Johnson started laughing. This wasn’t a polite little chuckle either but full-out, eye-watering, stomach work-out laughter. Like some strange disease it spread throughout the room until everyone laughed at both Mr. Johnson and the event preceding his ludicrous guffaws. Slowly, like an ebbing ocean, the laughter faded from the hall and eyes returned to Mr. Johnson, his face shinning red and his eyes crinkled in merriment.

         “You’re dismissed,” he managed at last. “And no, you won’t need to know any Greek Gods for next week’s test.”

         Brad didn’t wait to be told twice, but immediately grabbed his things and tore from the room. Tomorrow, perhaps, he’d endure some further delays, but tonight he was free at last! And a full two minutes early.