The Aberration
It was only when he called me over after class that I noticed the aberration. Of course, I tried not to stare and I refrained from enquiring about its cause. In hindsight, I found it unusual that he seemed to angle his face away from me in a way that made his subtle deformity even more noticeable. It would seem his aversion to eye contact won out over any fear of drawing attention to parts of himself.
As I glanced at his ear once, twice, I tried to understand what had gone wrong. From a distance, nothing would look out of place. The external parts of the ear were all present. Close up, though, the auricle could be seen to be deformed, flattened.
The whole ear had been mashed into the side of this student’s head. It was as if his ear had been formed out of putty and then stamped on by an unwieldy boot. And there was no canal. No hole whatsoever. Some more putty had been forced into the central void and it filled the middle of his ear like a rubber plug that had melted in the heat of the sun.
I was looking at a shapeshifter. Clearly, he was still in the process of refining his metamorphic abilities and had not quite mastered the reconstitution of one’s ear. As far as I could remember, his other ear looked fine. I wondered why he had experienced trouble with his left ear and not his right.
Perhaps it was due to a psychological imbalance. I have read a lot about psychological disorders and mental illness. I consider myself a minor expert in the field. Of course, it would be unreasonable for me to refer to myself as a major expert in the field, although my knowledge is far superior to many of those famous experts who flaunt their tenures like childish brutes.
They spout theories like poisoned confetti and give no heed to the consequences.
The student had been talking to me for several minutes now and I realised that I should proffer a response. He had turned to look at me. One side of his face had dropped ever so slightly — either evidence of a stroke or remnants of a traumatic birth.
I jest. He was most definitely a shapeshifter.
I have my own theories as to why nobody else in my field believes in their existence. It goes hand in hand with their own poisonous theories, I suppose. And they call me a heretic! Laughable.
I gave the student an answer which he did not seem to understand. He maintained a quizzical look on his face until I dismissed him with a wave of my hand. My students know not to take this as a sign of disrespect. It is simply the natural order of things.
I hadn’t heard the student’s question, anyway, so it was completely unreasonable for him to expect a sensible response when he was incapable of communicating with me in the first place.
He turned away and left the room. I kept an eye on his abnormality as he walked away from me. It is, of course, my duty to record instances of these shapeshifting aberrations that afflict society today. The room had now emptied and I sat at my desk in front of the large wall-mounted whiteboard.
The glyphs stared at my back like evil little torturers but I was used to this. I had more important things to worry about. The aberration from today’s class had planted itself in my mind and taken root.
As I flipped through an assortment of student assignments and gave them random grades that directly correlated to the fluctuations in my mood, I could not think of anything else but the aberration. It wasn’t long before I had to put down my pen. I gripped the desk in an attempt to steady myself.
My left ear had begun to tingle.
