(Well at long last, here's another one. This was an idea I came up with a while ago and was trying to figure out how to incorporate it into a short story. Comment comment comment!!)
Kyle Cunningham
The Tyrant
Dr. Barnhardt was quite unlike anything any of his students had ever experienced in their respective tenures at the university. It could be said that Dr. Barnhardt was at a disadvantage from the second he stepped into the classroom, indeed, from the second he began his career as a teacher. The first thing one would notice (or rather, not notice) about Dr. Barnhardt was the three long strands of silver-gray hair that grew from the middle of his head. It was all the hair he had left, and he refused to cut the pitiful bunches of strings in the fear that they might never return. Instead, he allowed them to grow to horrendously uncivilized lengths, and attempted to comb the rouge strands in such a way that they covered all of his shiny bald head. Owing to the size of the head, this was a task that proved impossible for those tattered remnants, and one often wondered if even a great forest of silver hair would be able to do the job. The result was a look that was quite unique, if extremely grotesque. Oftentimes one strand at a time would escape from being slicked every which way on the luminous white head and eventually return to its original position; trailing behind like an ancient, tattered, silver banner flapping in the wind.
Dr. Barnhardt’s wardrobe would have done a circus clown proud. Oftentimes, one could see the man wearing stripes, plaid, and polka dots all in one outfit. His favorite suit jacket was a plaid concoction made of greens, blues, yellows, and oranges. Often accompanying the suit jacket in its murderous rampage of fashion sense was a black and purple polka dotted tie. The rumor around the university was that Dr. Barnhardt actually made his own clothes, as no one could believe any self-respecting store would sell that kind of thing.
Dr. Barnhardt wore glasses that seemed to his students to be at least 4 inches thick. Nevertheless, the general consensus was that he was blind as a dead bat, proved further by the fact that he was constantly squinting. Even further proof to his students was evidenced by his grading habits. Dr. Barnhardt prided himself in making his students papers bleed with red ink, whether there was an answer on the paper to castrate or not. It was not uncommon for students to find they had gotten every question correct, only to find they had missed over twenty points on the blank backside of the test. The solid white where neither answer nor question had dwelt would be mortally wounded, dripping red ink and gasping for breath.
“But professor, there wasn’t even a ques-“
` “Grades will NOT be discussed!!” he would squeak, and shamble off.
If there was yet another complaint his students made on a universal basis, it would be that he squeaked. He did not squeak as a mouse does, or squeal like a small child who was just discovered something new, not even squeak like a toy. Instead, the sound made when Dr. Barnhardt opened his mouth to speak (squeak) most closely resembled to his student the grating of an old, rusty, iron gate as it opens. It was not hard to imagine deep down in his throat his metallic vocal cords grating and scraping together in such a high pitched tone that dogs would run for cover, clawing at their ears. His lectures made sense only to his ears. Often he rambled on and on about a subject that could be found mentioned only in one sentence in the textbook, or after hours and hours of extra research. With Dr. Barnhardt, however, anything in his head might show up on the test, whether he had chosen to share it or not.
Dr. Barnhardt taught history, which did very little to improve his standing among students. It was often said that Dr. Barnhardt only kept his position as a professor simply because he was the most knowledgeable expert in his field. He was cynical, dull, mean, boring, angry, abrasive, grumpy, ignorant, racist, threatening, thoughtless, vengeful, venomous, voracious, and vulgar, not to mention he often smelled bad. But the professor knew his history. Dates, times, wars, rumors of wars, assassinations, affairs, revolutions, riots, conflicts, scandals, invasions; they were all his realm, of which he was king, and he guarded his throne with ruthlessness.
Dr. Barnhardt was convinced that no one would ever embrace the scope of knowledge that he had. “Young people these days are too stupid,” he would grate to anyone who would listen, “they care no more for history than I do for Democrats!”
What Dr. Barnhardt was beginning to realize in his old age was that not only did his students despise the subject matter which he taught, but many of his colleagues did as well. He sunk into a deep depression for several weeks after overhearing his department head exclaim, “Well, hello there Abe!” picking up a one dollar bill from the sidewalk.
Thus, Dr. Barnhardt began to feel more and more alone. He became almost like a cornered animal, though no one knew why he was cornered except himself. He was surrounded by blatant ignorance of a subject matter that he was thoroughly knowledgeable of. Dr. Barnhardt was therefore determined to annihilate anyone who attempted to study his subject that was not worthy. He took it upon himself to have the highest failure percentage of any faculty at the university, and he made sure his students knew it. He felt in a way that he was doing the world a service. If the students were to appreciate the subject of history, they would have to work at it as he had, and only a true appreciation would give birth to the immense amount of work it would require to even pass his course. In his mind, he had constructed a gauntlet of dates, times, wars, and famous figures that only the strong could survive. Eventually, he rationalized; he would find someone that would pass through the gauntlet. He dared to hope that maybe even an entire class of students would. In the meantime, he reasoned, the gauntlet must remain steadfast. The papers must continue to bleed, until the chosen few are finally discovered.
And so it went for several semesters. Many times Dr. Barnhardt thought that he had found the light among the darkness around him. A student would begin to do well, start to even pass his class. And then he would discover the cell phone in the jacket pocket, or the notes written on the desk. He read remarkably good papers, only to read them again later in a book or magazine. His students grumbled and cheated, and Dr. Barnhardt struck back. He made tests over readings two months prior without warning, he gave pop quizzes containing fifty questions in the last five minutes of class, he collected homework he had never assigned, claiming that any problem in the book was fair game to collect. He scraped, squeaked, grated, and continued to emasculate papers. Red ink practically dripped from his desk.
And despite his best efforts, the students that did not drop out of his class were dangerously close to passing. Somehow, they had adapted to his tyrannical rule of the classroom. They loathed the material, but they knew enough to keep their heads out of the water, determined to win this battle against the Nazi that ruled with iron pen. But Dr. Barnhardt was determined to break them.
A week before finals, he stood at his podium and began squeaking, “You are all failing, and by failing I mean in the most miserable way. I have never in all my years of teaching been exposed to a more ignorant, degenerate bunch of louses. You are so ignorant of American History that I doubt half of you know who your own grandmother was. As a result, I expect you to also fail the final miserably. It will cover everything we have ever discussed and every word of every sentence of every paragraph of every page in your textbook, whether it was assigned reading or not! There will be two hundred multiple choice questions, all composed by myself tonight! I shall enjoy picking the most obscure bits of information out of the text almost as much as I will enjoy scribing one single lone letter grade on all of your tests, “he grinned manically, “An ‘F’ of course. The test is tomorrow. You are free to go!”
Dr. Barnhardt gathered up his things and shambled off out the door. He had not noticed that Jared Blevins had not moved from his seat. Jared sat in deep thought, his massive frame draped over the chair. He played football, and though his brains were better than his physical prowess on the football field, he still resembled a giant to normal humans. Someone called out to him from across the aisle, “Hey Blevins! You really gonna take this test? I think I’m just gonna quit now while I’m ahead. No reason to even try if Dr. Stalin is going to go all out just to make us fail. The only way any of us would pass anyway is if we somehow got an A on the final. It’s useless.”
Jared mostly ignored his friend, an idea was beginning to form behind the heavy brows, “No, I think there might be a way. Besides,” his grin was almost animal-like, “if there is one thing I have learned from this class, it’s how to memorize.”
Dr. Barnhardt locked himself in his office for most of the evening composing his final. He stopped for neither food nor rest, so passionate was he that no one should pass this test. True to his word, he scoured over every word of every page of his textbook, picking out obscure bits of information and barely mentioned figures. At the end, when his keyboard finally went silent, George Washington himself could not have passed the section on the American Revolution. Dr. Barnhardt was swelled with pride at his thoroughness, the posers he had as students would be utterly destroyed by this work of art that was his test.
In unusually high spirits, he ran thirty copies of the test (thirty students remaining out of his original one hundred was quite impressive, he thought), shoved them into his black briefcase, and walked out the door of his office. He then realized he must have stayed far later than he anticipated, for the stars twinkled above him like little pinpricks in the sky. As he stood there looking up for a brief second, a fist came whistling out of the dark and crashed into his right temple. Dr. Brandt was out cold before he hit the ground, as glasses and briefcase went flying.
He awoke sometime later to find a group of janitors vigorously shaking him. He declined the offer for a ride to the hospital, instead asking for his glasses and briefcase, and if anyone had seen who hit him. No one had seen anyone running from the scene, simply finding him sprawled on the sidewalk. His glasses were found, and returned to him, but the briefcase had disappeared. The janitors speculated that the vagabond that had hit him might have stolen it in hopes of something valuable being within. Dr. Barnhardt scoffed at that suggestion as massaged his luminous head, “The only thing he got, whoever he was, was a bunch of tests! He must be a fool.”
Having a headache, and remembering he had saved a copy of the test on his computer, Dr. Barnhardt left without thanking the janitors. He printed off another thirty copies that night, and went to bed in good spirits. Thoughts of the next day consumed him in such a way that he did not even consider calling the police and reporting the theft.
The next morning, Dr. Barnhardt shambled off to class, tests in tow. He passed them out with veritable glee, imagining in his mind that his students must be dripping with apprehension that their failure was inevitable. Had he not been blind as a dead bat, Dr. Barnhardt would have noticed that not a single one of his students looked nervous. All of them looked fatigued, as if they had stayed up most of the night memorizing facts and figures, but they were all relaxed. The most relaxed one was Jared Blevins, he sat draped over his chair in the back row, right hand wrapped in a bandage. A smirk lined his face.
Everyone finished the test with time to spare. Dr. Barnhardt reasoned that this must be because they had all given up, after all no one could finish a 200 question multiple choice test and still have half the time allotted to them! He scooped up the returned papers with all the ecstasy of a young child at Christmas gathering his loot, and shambled for the door, his long silver banner trailing after him.
Arriving at his office, Dr. Barnhardt gingerly placed the papers on his desk, sitting down and rubbing his hands in anticipation. His red sword was poised over the first test, ready to gut it with all the fury of a Mayan priest offering a human sacrifice. He laughed like a madman as the red sword hovered…
But the paper did not bleed. The first question was impervious to wounds, as was the second, and the third. He turned the page. It too was shielded. The questions were all correct. He flipped the pages frantically, the red sword looked for any opening where it might dart through and inflict a mortal wound. Anywhere that it might carve a red X and inscribe in the paper’s body a magnificent dripping F. But no such holes were found. The tyrant panicked. He attacked every test, the sword flashing and darting, deflected at every turn. Hours went by. The tyrant’s brow dripped with sweat, his hand shook with fatigue…
Four hours later, the attacks ceased. Dr. Barnhardt stood up and walked to his office window. Upon every test on his desk was unsteadily written, ‘A+, 100%’. Outside the birds were singing. The sun seemed to him to be a little bit brighter. As he looked, observing that dear, wonderful world, a single tear dribbled down his cheek. He had found the remnant. Despite his best efforts to destroy them, they had proved themselves worthy.
“They passed through the gauntlet,” he choked(squeaked).
