Fits

FITS
for Jan

ON THE FIRST DAY of the new semester after returning from his one-year vow of silence, Professor Zzyzx walked into the classroom and stood at the front of the room, facing the students. Things seemed strange. For one thing, he wasn’t used to talking. For another, he liked not being used to talking. But there it was: his year was up. Time to get back to work. And so he cleared his throat and began. The words--his words--came out: strange and hollow, like an internal echo. He introduced himself, spoke a few more sentences to see how they sounded to his ear, and then he began handing out the course outline.
Even before he had started to read through the syllabus, a woman on his right, second row from the window, had begun coughing. Loudly. Professor Zzyzx looked at her with sympathy. Throughout his life he himself had coughed in a similar manner on those occasions when he had swallowed the wrong way--when saliva had gone down his windpipe instead of down his throat--and he knew the feeling: the choking feeling, the gagging feeling, that awful feeling of: Will this ever end? Inwardly, he wished her well.
But she kept on coughing.
She had been coughing when he’d first walked into the classroom; she was coughing when he introduced himself; she coughed while he handed out the syllabus. And now she was still coughing as he read through the outline and commented on certain important points he wished to emphasize. Her presence had become an annoyance. A disruption. Occasionally she would gain a moment of control, and there’d be a pause between her fits. Professor Zzyzx thought that perhaps she had worked through her problem: had cleared her throat satisfactorily. But after a pause of twenty or thirty seconds, she’d start in again.
A few students seemed to squirm in their seats; some leaned forward at their desks to try to catch the professor’s words. Others just read on, on their own. Once, Professor Zzyzx caught the young woman’s eye, trying to indicate to her with a look that perhaps she might want to excuse herself, run down to the ladies’ room or even just down the hallway to the drinking fountain. But she looked away quickly. Her next series of coughs nearly shook the windows from their casings.
By the end of the first page, it had become clear to him that this woman was not going to leave; she was going to remain in the classroom for the entire hour. And she did. At which point she stood up, grabbed her books, and walked toward the door, her neck and shoulders jerking forward with each fit.
The next class period, the woman was still coughing, though, to be fair, with not nearly the same volume and intensity as before. What was more disruptive, however, was that a young man in the back corner had begun sneezing. Four, five, six sneezes in a row would issue forth from the young man’s nostrils. Then it’d be quiet--save for the half dozen "Bless you’s" from nearby students. (And, of course, the woman’s relentless coughing.) But then, within a minute, he’d start in again. And again. And again. Professor Zzyzx looked about the room, but the students only looked back at him for guidance and assurance. For leadership. Instruction. Some looked at him in alarm. And the sneezing continued--as did the coughing--for the entire hour.
The third day of class, walking across campus, Professor Zzyzx thought about this new class of his, this new semester he was facing, his previous year of silence. This current one of noise. What would today bring? Surely, those first two days were an aberration, a coincidence. Clearly, these outbursts could not continue. Certainly, . . . .
He entered the building, walked down the hallway, opened the door, and stepped inside the classroom. The young woman in the second row from the window was still coughing; the young man at the back of the room was still sneezing. But then Professor Zzyzx noticed a woman in the seat directly in front of where he stood. She was caught up in fit of hiccups that simply would not stop. Every few seconds her shoulders convulsed in a sudden upward movement that shook her entire body. She must have been trying with a great deal of effort to control herself, but for the most part she was unsuccessful.
The result: Another 50-minute class period with a diversity of students in trauma.
Fortunately, it was Friday, and Professor Zzyzx left the classroom and the campus with the hope that the weekend might restore some degree of order and peace to his life.
That evening, he and Xeno stayed home while he read to her. In the morning, he went out alone into the city and to the art museum. In the evening they went to the symphony together.
Sunday, they talked. They held hands, and they made love twice. They ate lunch once and supper once, and then they discussed the neo-academic sub-text of post-Anything. Later, they made love a third time.
Monday, when Professor Zzyzx walked into the classroom, there was already a commotion. A young man in the center—back row was bleeding severely. The lower part of his face was covered in blood, as was his shirt-tail, which he’d pulled up out of his trousers, and was holding pressed against his nose in an attempt to stop any more of his life from spilling out of his body and onto the desk and the floor. The professor rushed to his side, but the student waved him off, insisting that he was fine, that this type of thing happened all the time–-he could handle it--and to not let his own private, personal matters disturb the rest of the class. He insisted on that: he did not want to disrupt the class. And so, after a moment’s hesitation, Professor Zzyzx took his place at the front of the classroom, watched from afar, and listened to the coughing, the sneezing, and the hiccupping. And now to the bleeding.
Wednesday came, and the student in the center-back seat was still losing a lot of blood. He’d been able to control some of it: had a couple of towels wrapped around his neck and another covering the lower portion of his face. But even with this effort Zzyzx knew there was still a problem: things were not getting better. Further, the other three students were still making their own racket: the coughing, the sneezing, the hiccups. Zzyzx had his hands full. Then, not ten minutes into the class period, a young woman whose beauty and manner he had noticed the very first day of class threw up. Zzyzx heard the splash, saw the mess on the floor, and then watched stunned as the student immediately began to clean up after herself. It seemed that she’d come to class prepared: with her own set of towels. Down on her hands and knees, she mopped up, wiping about the desk legs, the floor, and even the shoes and the feet of the students in the seats around her own who’d been splashed about the legs and cuffs. All the while she gagged and retched. Bits of corn and broccoli coated her long, silken, flaxen hair. The class watched admiringly.
Come Friday, a student he’d never seen before stood in the hallway, outside the classroom, waiting by the door. It was the last day to add, and the young man in sport coat and necktie held out his add card, along with an anxious smile. Zzyzx signed the card--with a smile of his own--but then he noticed something else: slight popping sounds spread out from the student’s mouth, accompanied by quick jerks of hand, or elbow, or shoulder blade. Zzyzx had heard of Tourette’s Syndrom, but he’d never before seen it up close, in person: the sudden, quick movements of body; the equally sudden protrusions of speech: the wide range of expression. The shocking profanity. Zzyzx opened the classroom door, allowing the student to enter first, and then watched as he took a seat at the back against the wall where his gestures--though probably not his vocal outbursts--might cause less of a disturbance.
The next few weeks moved along smoothly. Each class period brought with it a new addition--a new perspective--to the class’s communal personality. One day, for example, a student started--and then could not stop--spitting. Another day another student--an older man–-began snoring, all the while remaining wide awake, even as he made articulate, insightful comments in class. Still another day, a group of four students, almost as if on cue, simultaneously burst into tears, the full range of crying: weeping, wailing, moaning, even the gnashing of teeth, so to speak.
And then there was the student who fainted. The sudden thud of her head hitting the desk top startled the entire class, especially those nearby, who then helped bring her back to consciousness. Five minutes later, however, she fainted again. And five minutes later, again. She continued fainting every five minutes for the remainder of the hour. For the remainder of the semester.
And the coughing continued, as did the sneezing and the hiccuping and the bleeding. And the burping and the spitting and the vomiting and the dry heaves and the tears. The profanity. A number of students had found comfort in laughter, but all--save one--gave it up as inadequate, as not their genuine self. As perhaps, even, a lie.
The Tourette’s Syndrom gentleman smiled from the back of the room and flailed about. He seemed happy and content, in a world of his own.
And in this manner, the semester progressed.
* * * * * * *
When Zzyzx returned to school after his year of silence, Xeno, his wife of two-and-half decades, decided to take her own one-month vow of blindness. She’d designed a special little patch that covered her eyes discreetly. When she went outside, as was part of her routine each day, she wore dark glasses and carried a cane. If people she knew saw her on the street and asked her about her condition, she would almost always parry the question with a comment of her own: some little generic thing about the weather: "Good morning!" An obligatory greeting on the condition of one’s temporal spirits: "How are you?" Or sometimes just a statement of sideways fact: "We know why the caged bird sings; we know that the river must flow. Not everything is a nightmare."
At month’s end, she removed the patches from her eyes and decided on her next project: to go for an entire month deaf. Though appreciating and supporting her husband’s one-year rejection of speech, she preferred a different kind of silence: others’. And so, for a month, she kept her ears sealed with a special kind of plug that she had also designed on her own. She wished to keep out the sounds of the world. She talked to others, to be sure, but she felt no desire to listen to what those others had to say. She noted, too, that after awhile she became unable to hear even what she herself was saying. This pleased her. For she found that it enhanced her memory of true things. She also felt a greater connection to her own internal body: her heart, her lungs, her pituitary gland. Her love for Zzyzx, she discovered, was deepening--as well as lengthening.
The next month Xeno put the eye-patches back on, at the same time that she decided to leave the earplugs in place. Her original plan had called for a denial of one sense each month, but now she realized that that was no longer necessary.
* * * * * * *
Zzyzx was disappointed with the results of the mid-term exams. He’d been expecting much better from his students, especially considering the innovative ways in which many of them had been performing in class. He tried reminding himself that test scores do not always accurately measure a student’s skills in a subject. Or their aptitude and comprehension. Let alone their passion. Still, exams probably do reveal something.
The semester moved along. By the twelfth week, most of the students had found a voice, a means of expression. But not all. Back during the first half of the semester, almost every day something new would be added to the classroom. Some new surprise. Some new sound. Sometimes just a smell or a motion. A movement. Something. Yet a few in the class--even at this late date in the semester--were still struggling to find their voice, their place. Their identity.
One woman, Jim Jones, had been non-descript most of the term: no eccentricities at all. To be sure, she came to class every day and was always punctual--never late. Furthermore, nearly every day she would make some comment in class--an observation, a question--some futile attempt to leave her mark, to make an impression. But her comments were soft and ordinary, neither insightful nor stupid. They were just there, as if waiting--or hoping--that one day, somehow, something might jell, something might spark. Something might do something. Her classmates noted her efforts and came to tolerate her existence, just as she had come to tolerate theirs.
Then, two weeks before the end of the semester, she stopped speaking altogether. She continued to come to class, was as punctual as ever, but she never again raised her hand. She never again spoke. In fact, she never again even moved. To be sure, she’d walk into the classroom and take her seat. But then, once settled in, she’d remain motionless for the entire 50-minute class period, eyes fixed straight ahead, hands folded in front of herself on the desk, her lips parted just enough to reveal the bottom tips of her two front teeth.
One day, walking about the classroom while the students were refusing to take a quiz he had prepared for them, Zzxyz noticed that Jim did not even seem to be breathing: nothing went into her body; nothing went out of it. Only at the end of the hour did she come back to life. She’d begin to rustle, moving her shoulders first, then stretching her spinal cord, blinking twice, before slowly turning her head to one side. She inhaled deeply; she exhaled completely. Almost like she was coming out of a trance, she then rose from her seat and departed in silence.
And then one morning, just two days before finals, Zzyzx came to class to find a student--the last student to find expression--writhing on the floor in an epileptic seizure. Zzyzx rushed to the man’s side, quickly took out the wooden spoon he’d been carrying in his left breast pocket for just such an occasion, and slipped it skillfully inside the student’s mouth, holding down the tongue. The other students watched for a moment in silence, and then broke into cheer, some for the student’s survival, some for Zzyzx’s heroic action. It was hard to tell who was for which.
The last day of class the students turned in their research papers. Overall, they were unremarkable. Certainly, some revealed a degree of intelligence and even discipline; but others lacked originality and care altogether. (Zzyzx wondered how some of these students had even gotten into college in the first place.) Most, however, fell somewhere within that forgettable middle. The final exams, too, demonstrated a similar, sad pattern. So that, by semester’s end, after calculating grades, Professor Zzyzx found that he had the usual mix of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s, and E’s, all neatly mapped out in the conventional bell curve.