things had changed at the university

things had changed at the university

fiction
edward w pritchard

Fifty seven year old Bernard Patoophee found him self in a strange position this warm March day at the local business college for there was a 60% chance of rain this Tuesday and on his first day back to business school in forty years cadet Patoophee came to find out things had changed here at the local University.

Cadet Patoophee was having trouble traversing the stairs down to section 4 of business secured debt instruments level 1 in the basement of old bolder hall. Each cadet as he ran down the steep stairs past the struggling Bernard three at a time would turn his head slowly to one side make brief eye contact with Mr. Patoophee and like a piano player in formal boogie woogie concert taking a stage bow with just his head and eyes after playing a difficult section of a jazz piece yell loudly as he smiled Sir before racing through the sealed closed iron door of the glass walled classroom. Through the glass of the classroom Bernard  watched each cadet as he entered the classroom bow to the instructor at the long desk in the front of the room remove his army style waterproof poncho and immediately plug his computer into the yellow console and begin to type frantically. Within a few seconds like the other students the new arrivee would using only his left hand interrupt his typing briefly to don an ultra slim pair of khaki headphones and commence to bob his head gently left to right repeatedly as he worked.

As he finally entered the heavy iron door Cadet Patoophee accepted the formal bow from his new teacher and took a seat next to the pretty blond girl in the rear of the room. A woman training for the military. Things had certainty changed here at the local university since Cadet Bernard Patoophee's day.