Chapter 1– Silent Hate

       How many needles are in each brachyblast of Pinus nigra? Euh… three I guess… Or two? Many trees have only two. He wouldn’t ask this question if the answer was two. But still... ‘Damn it, I’m screwed,’ I said quietly, however a classmate of mine heard me. ‘You should’ve studied harder,’ was her response to my statement– not a question, it was a clear statement. Nevertheless, she was known for her answering rhetorical questions and asking for information already said. She, somehow, was out of this world. She was warm-hearted or, at least, acting like that but way too superficial and high-and-mighty. Just my opinion. And everybody else’s.

          Back to the Biology test. It might seem like a test from Latin, especially the second part of the sentence but this is just what my studies in a high school were like. After I had finished the test, I and the rest of my class went right to the Mathematics classroom. Walking down the corridors of our school was like playing rugby. Nobody had kept the decree of keeping on the right side. Everybody was bumping each other and didn’t mind it. I did.

The day was like any other work day. I felt like shit and wanted to do nothing. Fortunately, I used to sit in the back of our Maths classroom where the professor appeared merely occasionally. He didn’t realize but he was lucky to have me that far away from him. To me, Maths was a torture. As long as it was arithmetic, I was okay. I could tell you the results off the top of my head. But when the letters had popped up I started to panic. And my relationship with geometry, planimetry and other stuff I was too forgetful to bring the instruments needed for doing it? One word– association. When you construct a square, what can you do with it to make it not to look so boring? It’s a good way to increase your creativity.

This lesson was different. The professor, Mr. Křížek, wasn’t in good spirits. He was cynical and kept telling us to shut up. Truth to be told, the morality in any lesson was horrible but professors just got used to it. They grew up in the same country (only named differently). It was normal here. Some professors wanted Czech schools to be like those in movies, the ones they had dreamt of– crowd of children in uniforms being manipulated and treated like lawless. Mr. Křížek was somehow weird. He was one of the professors I simply hated. Not because he had taught things I never seemed to understand, there was something in his nature that I didn’t like. I felt it every time I saw him. Of course, I was against the behaviour of some children but telling them, excuse me, telling US that we were a herd of inexperienced idiots was a rude overreaction. And I couldn’t stand it. I had sworn being nice to everyone, well it was my New Year’s resolution actually. But he was an exception I had to confront.