The Lecturer’s Silence

I stand at the podium, hands trembling just slightly.

The lecture hall is larger than I remember. It’s been renovated — the peeling paint and cracked wooden chairs have been replaced with sleek seating, soft overhead lights, a clean white projector screen behind me. But the air feels the same: faintly metallic, faintly damp, the smell of floor polish mingling with the soft, sour tang of winter coats and wet scarves.

There are more people than I expected.

Students fill the front rows — fresh faces, wide eyes, restless fingers flicking at phones until they catch themselves. Behind them, faculty members cluster, murmuring, crossing and uncrossing their arms. Near the back, the old guard: retired professors I’d once considered mentors or rivals, men and women with white hair and slow, deliberate movements.

And then there’s the dean.

He sits front and center, wearing a careful, polished smile. His arms are folded across his chest; the toe of one shoe taps faintly, unconsciously. He’s already thinking about his next meeting. His eyes flicker toward the clock above my head.

Five minutes late. I should have started by now.

I glance down at my notes — neat, printed pages, carefully prepared: John Donne and the Metaphysical Conceit: The Devotional Body.

It’s a good lecture. Solid, respectable. It won’t surprise anyone, but it won’t embarrass anyone either.

I clear my throat.