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The first week went surprisingly well. Will did have to start his first class by telling his students that the rumor is false, he is doing online lectures and is not going to be sending every student a printed out power point presentation in the mail each week instead. He checked, and the new guidelines said he had to be somewhat face-to-face for the class.
This online situation was actually great for Will, since he could just talk into a camera and not at anyone’s eyes. He caught on to the new technology quickly, hosting the zoom meetings, screen sharing, he got it all. He was a big fan of the chat feature as no one bothered him while he was talking and it seemed like students would ask more questions with it rather than raising their hands in class.
Will’s students were making their fun of the class, that was for sure. It took a while because who would notice things like this, but his class always seemed to ask more questions when he wore glasses. He wanted to test the theory after he got requests to go to the previous slide twice when the previous slide was just a picture of some teeth. And some of the questions weren’t even relevant to the class. He would shove his glasses up his nose and squint at the computer screen to read them but roll his eyes at them.
“How’s your day, Graham?”
“How are your dogs?”
“What did you have for breakfast?”
But when he didn’t wear his glasses he got only essential questions.
“When is the next paper due?”
“Will you please check your email?”
“Did you say one of the teeth marks showed a loose tooth?”
He didn’t get it until he caught someone in their camera laughing then writing something down. They were muted of course, but the action was still so unusual for the class Will had to comment.
“Miss Ng, what may I ask are you laughing at?”
Miss Ng’s face went red, even the tips of her ears poking out from her black hair. The other students who had their cameras on looked at their screens expectantly.
Finally, Miss Ng unmuted herself and said
“Um. Mr. Graham. It’s just a thing you do that cracks us up.” She muted herself again before Will could question it.
Will adjusted his glasses and squinted at the chat as more messages came up. Even more came flooding in after that, most of them in all caps saying THAT or THAT WAS IT LOL. Will was just confused. Should he ask what it was that cracked them up so much or should he just ignore it?
In the end his curiosity got the best of him so he adjusted his glasses and stared at the computer screen, trying to get any clue of what was going on. He took his glasses off to wipe his hand down his face and the faces of his students drooped.
He put the glasses back on and the students more or less looked content again. That was it, he needed to know what was going on.
“Okay guys what is it? I know it’s something with my glasses,”
He watched as half the class exploded in silent laughter in their little rectangles. Finally a student named Sam unmuted himself.
“They think it’s funny when you do this-” He adjusted his own glasses then squinted into the camera to demonstrate then muted himself again.
This did not clear things up until Will went to adjust his glasses but stopped himself. Okay so maybe he did mess with his glasses a lot, what was so funny about it?
“Okay but why’s it funny?” He squinted at the chat as more replies came in.
U look like an old man
Squinty
You look like youre about to call us whippersnappers and kick us off your lawn
Will wasn’t amused. Okay a little smile might have cracked his lips but he didn’t mean for that to happen.
“Okay okay I’m like an old guy very funny. Let’s just get back to what we were working on,”
He saw a few snickers but continued to the next slide anyway. He tried not to touch his glasses for the rest of class.
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Will was never late for any of his classes. In fact, he would definitely call you out if he had to let you in the zoom class after he’s started lecturing.
So it was very strange when thirteen minutes after 8:30 am his students were still staring at their screens waiting for the meeting to begin. Students checked their watches and reloaded the webpage a couple times, having nothing to do but wait.
Then the dark screen was finally replaced by a shot of the frazzled looking teacher in his glasses with dark circles under his eyes and wearing a wrinkled button-up shirt that seemed to be a few sizes too big for him.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, probably waiting for the onslaught of comments from his students but they’re silent. Nothing in the chat, nobody unmutes to say anything, so Will just shrugs and begins his lesson.
Just because no one says anything does not mean they don’t notice the sudden change of background, either. And the lack of dog noises. They can usually count on a few dog appearances throughout the hour, but they’re missing. Eventually, some brave soul actually puts their question in the chat: Where are you?
Will adjusted his glasses and squinted at the comment. He chuckled and leaned back in his chair before answering.
“I’m at a friend’s house. Yes, We’re following social distancing guidelines,” he added as more people asked questions.
“The dogs are okay, I have someone to take care of them. Shall we get back to body dismemberment?”
The chat slowed as Will got into his teacher mode and talked about how sometimes dismemberment was simply an easier means of transportation.
Then there was a sound the computer didn’t pick up but made Will turn his head.
“Will, how do I unmute myself?” someone off-camera said. It sounded like they were right next to Will, just out of sight. Then Will had a tablet in his hands and he was showing something to the man behind him and handed it back. He looked back at the camera and was about to continue when the man asked him another question.
“No, you can’t leave your name as ‘Ipad’,” he laughed then looked back into the camera, his eyes obviously avoiding the chat.
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“Now, as you probably know, I am brought in to consult on a lot of murder cases, so I’ve seen some messed up things, but I think one of the worst was the guy who grew mushrooms out of living people. I could understand why he did it, how his special fertilizer might have affected the taste of his crop, but it took longer to figure out why he kept them alive for so long. He thought he was transforming them into something better, as we all wish to become sometimes-”
“Hey, what the fuck?” Interupted the class. Everyone looked at Nick’s screen because his outburst has caused him to clasp his hand over his mouth. His face was red as blood.
The whole class was silent until Will decided to speak up. Avoiding eye contact he asked the class, “Does someone have a question? Or need to be muted?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Nick said, still blushing furiously. “I just don’t think your experiences are as universal as you think they are…”
As he tapered off more students unmuted to agree.
“I’ve never wanted to be transformed, to be honest,”
“I have literally never thought about this,”
“I don’t even like mushrooms,”
Will let out a bark like laugh and rolled his eyes.
“I guess I’ll try to make my lectures more relatable then. Should I continue?”
He was met with nods and little ‘yes’s’ from the chat.
Hannibal, who was listening from the other room, thought the whole thing was very funny.