Click Click.(Short story)

CLACK CLACK THE CLASS REPEATS what the professor says African Storyteller supposedly a hard class but I'm acing it clickety clickety clackety clackety I never repeat after the professor I have enough problems speaking in my own language he runs around the stage hunched over in his baggy-assed jeans and blue suede running shoes a gray haired scrawny white man who's lived in Africa half his adult life he's a nut which usually I like in people but not him he's a marathon runner who hates all student athletes because we get out of class to travel on the weekends he thinks it's easy for us but he doesn't know how different it is for the women's teams no lobster steak dinners for us! we eat Subway Chinese at best on the road I've eaten Subway sandwiches white bread all the veggies mayo mustard vinegar and oil with a dash of pepper across half the country thanks to University of Wisconsin soccer the sunlight falls into the room through the top windows it's a big classroom holds one fifty in a marble building the oldest on campus the pillars and doorways chiseled Grecian columns and archways I would come to class even if I didn't like learning the stories and culture of southern Africa just to look at the sun glancing off the marble and dashing off the swaying bouncing leaves outside the windows it's hot in here cluck cluck clank clank

Very good class very good the professor says and wrings his hands and walks to the podium in the middle of the stage he flips through some papers Okay he says open your books to the story The Girl Who Dragged Her Entrails Through Life Behind Her On The Ground he looks over the top of his glasses while we open our books I am excited I read this one five times this is a story I understand her father cut her open her stomach with an axe ripped out her entrails and flung them down beside her then he left her to die by the river now why did he do this class he pauses class I keep silent even though I know the answer He believed her to be barren a man from the middle of the room says the sun flashes across the ceiling then goes away I look at the tops of the trees through the windows flailing and bouncing like they have something to say something important! a girl child in her seat in some classroom any classroom anywhere the trees bounce say listen to what she has to say! Yes the professor says what else She disobeyed him when he told her to pick yams someone else says a man in the back I turn in my seat look at him he has a thin beard Yes the professor says starts running around the room again but what is implied in this story in the information the storyteller ...