The Stranger

 The professor’s voice made me cringe, and hate myself for doing so. But I couldn’t stop. That voice! Its craggy vibrations peeled through my ears, scraping their walls with every word until I felt sick.

 

  Stop, stop, stop talking! All your words mean nothing anyway.

 
His eyelids drooped and his heavy jowls sagged. And his words ran on, and on….and on.

 

  Enough? No. Still more. I sighed and slouched back in my seat. How long would this take. I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I glanced over my shoulder at the clock on the wall. A nameless young man two rows back raised his eyebrow at me and looked over at the clock himself. He turned back to me and echoed my sigh, shrugging. I was surprised to see a grownup act like that. Normally their true feelings hid in a forest of politeness.

I dared to smile back at the man, and then grudgingly faced the front again. I passed the time with imaginings about him, for I’d never seen the young man before, and strangers were rare in Waynesboro.

  Maybe he was an international spy. Or an angel.

 

I spun tale after tail in my mind as the professor droned on. At last the meeting ended, and my mother nudged me to my feet. I cast a glance back again, but the stranger was gone.