She was foreign; sweating and mumbling to herself. He had a white beard and a fatherly attitude to him. Joe Kolsky sat behind me. I was late. The room was hot and yellow. I passed along a stack of papers and introduced myself.

I was a senior. I was a history major. My name is Patrick and I like books. I said hi. She sat next to me, talking to herself and to me. Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald was the name of the course I signed up for.

The gray book has black writing and the names of all the courses offered to undergraduates. It has courses from every college. I never took a class at Scripps.

I went to two. She was there, sweating and talking. She wasn’t always there. Sophomore year I went to "Revolution: Cuba and Nicaragua."

This nice girl sat next to me breathing. She was in my group and she knew my name. We were deciding when we should meet. We were not making eye contact. We were going to discuss the readings. The teacher sweated into the silent room. I looked at the girl. Her hair was blonde and she wore a monochromatic sweater.

We read the sample reading and talked. The teacher was difficult to understand. She spoke very softly. She spoke slowly. I could smell her.

She said there would be a midterm, a final, and a 20 page paper. I told the nice girl next to me I would not be in attendance at the meeting. The girl who sweats and moans was not there yet.

She looked at me like a friend. We sat next to each other in the hot classroom. It was on the second floor. I came in late.

I was in the wrong room. It was a senior seminar. It was at Scripps. I was the only boy and my name was not on the enrollment sheet. I left and went upstairs.

The room was full with girls and boys. At the front a man stood. He addressed us as a body.

He talked about books. I did not know the book. I knew it was hot. The room was stifling. Fifty desks, crowded together like fat men. We were close to each other. I could hear her breathing.

She inhaled in gasps and released in spits. Always she muttered. She told me about her insides and the tingling sensation in her leg when she sat too long. She told me about her uncle, and she told me about her dog. She told me how the teacher was stupid and how she was smart.

She raised her arms over her head, flapping. The cloud rose above the classroom. I wanted to leave. Right now. This girl talks. Kick her out. Open a window. It was too hot in the classroom.

I never stood a chance. She was a creature of the heat and she was obsessed with her temperature. Stop talking to me. After two hours I left. Kolsky left too. The mouth-talk-annoy left three.

I spit at her and ran away.

His head was on the table. It was cool in the classroom. The teacher stood at the front of the class. The teacher held a ruler and talked of pages.

Words were flowing out and in, I took them down on the paper. I don’t like Ayn Rand anymore. I never took a class at Harvey Mudd. I think the boy with his head down went to my high school. I was the same now because of him. I raised my hand and left.