Psychosis...

The last class of the day enters the final few minutes of its duration. It has been a hot and sultry afternoon… and dark storm clouds are beginning to appear over the distant horizon. A wet torrential evening seems to be in order.

The lecturer drones on in his sleep inducing monotone… no more interested in imparting education than his students are in receiving it. He is only kept awake by the ample display of bosom by the drowsy girl in the first row. He feels a moment’s shame fearing the discovery of his gaze’s direction. But the view… is worth the risk.

The class continues.

At the back of the class all pretense at paying attention has long since evaporated. Some students are busy texting their extensive list of friends while others doze fitfully… their heads buried in their arms. One of them has his laptop open beneath his desk… and glances up occasionally at his classmate three rows ahead. In his mind, he has already replaced the girl on his screen with the one in front of him.

At either corner of the lethargic class, there sits a couple. Each lost in their own pink clouds of vapid bliss. One pair chats away to glory with no care for the class still in progress around them… eyes shining at the thrill of new found love. The other is also likewise engrossed in a more physical manifestation of romance. Hands busy, beneath the desk and out of the view of curious eyes… they keep a wary eye out for fear of being apprehended in their sinful delight.

A pretty girl watches the suppressed tremors running through the absorbed couple with something approaching disappointment. She assigns several adjectives to the shuddering girl in her head, for being with the only guy in class who she liked. She studiously ignores the turned heads all around her… of ardent admirers who she has long branded desperate. Every boy who has wanted her has been beneath her level… she broods. She deserves someone of a better grade… like the one she can’t have.

Up ahead the texting frenzy is seen again… a frantic lover trying to salvage a relationship on the verge of a breakup. His girlfriend belongs to another college and is beginning to succumb to the attentions of her classmates. There is not much he can do to save the situation from so far away. Even now as he tries to hold her to him with the words on his screen… she sits next to what is surely her next boyfriend.

A few benches to the right a girl sits alone and lost in thought… her mind further away from the lecture than even that of the hormone driven duo near the back. She carries a secret she cannot reveal… and a baby that she didn’t want. A night of unprotected fun, celebrating the new job of her boyfriend has landed her in a position she cannot face. Her calls are no longer being answered by her lover after she shared the news. She wonders who will accompany her to the abortion clinic.

A pale faced and pimpled youth sits silent in the second row of the class… occasionally glancing back at the pretty girl whose attentions are clearly elsewhere. His expression of tragic loss and heroic self-sacrifice says all there is to be told of his great and suppressed love. He has decided to be the bigger man and let her be free… to wait until she realizes her own mind. A result of far too many sappy love stories… it would be cynical and kind to tell him how long a wait it’s likely to be.

In the first row of the class a couple of girls sit staring blankly at the board each worried about two very different things. One wonders how to break it to her conservative parents that she likes a guy outside of her community… reveal that they are ready to brave the dangers of a hostile world with the flame of their affections for each other. Only her friend knows of her desperate plight and understands her pain. She clearly shares her trepidation… hence the profound silence has replaced the usual chatter.

Her friend though has bigger things to worry about… though she tops the class each term… she does not know what it is that she wants from life. A career, or a home… she deems herself inadequately prepared for either. She hates the lovesick fool that sits beside her and expects her to share a comic book story of failed puppy love. She can’t tell reveal her indifference only because it would make her look bad. She wonders how an idiot like her has a boyfriend… and she does not.

Welcome! Welcome to the world of insanity. Here everything you see has veils of secrecy, hiding and distorting the true nature of things. Penetrate the layers of deceit and pretense… be privy to the real and disturbing workings of the human mind… and submit yourself to the dance of filth that threatens to overrun the world.

The bell of the lecture’s end welcomes you to madness.

The reign of psychosis has begun.