The Ones That Get Caught
by Krista Timeus Cerezo
Exactly thirty seconds before two o’clock, the assistant professor approaches her classroom armed with two heavy textbooks on the anatomy of the human brain and a stack of handwritten notes for her first lecture. Does anyone know the speed of thought? she will ask the class.
During a tour of the campus a few days earlier, her new faculty “mentor” advised her never to be too early for class. They smell weakness, he said, so don’t arrive before them. But obviously, don’t be late either.
Twenty seconds before two o’clock, three [male] students still cluster around the doorway. A blond one is leaning against the wall with his right foot up and his hands in his pockets.
“Can you put your foot down,” she says naturally. The wall is so white.
The student obeys and she scuttles past him through the doorway, her senses failing to note the smirk on his face and the bounce of his head as he wrinkles his nose in assessment. She pulls on the hem of the new, blue dress she bought for today, doubting now whether it is too short.
Four hundred feet per second, on average, her notes say. That means that you can generate a thought and act upon it in less than two hundred and fifty milliseconds.
“Nice ass,” he whispers, and though it’s almost inaudible, instinctively, she stops. Her head turns two degrees to the right, and she lengthens her spine, instantly focused like a doe in the tundra listening for changes in the rustle of the grass. Her whole weight rests on her right foot, the left one ready to lift with its tip barely balanced on the dusty grey carpet. He snickers and his friends mimic the noise.
Listen, the mentor had insisted, you gotta be the alpha male from the get-go, you understand? He pointed a finger at her and she nodded. She understood.
The alpha depends on the speed of thought. They rely on the fastest of signals to race through their body like messengers of war with urgent commands. Smell, run, pounce, now.
Now! You should set the three-inch heel of your boot back down, pivot around to face the student, tell him he doesn’t belong in this classroom right now. Student might give you an icy look, but you’ll make him yield under your steady glare, and in the end, he’ll throw his backpack over his shoulder and step back from the door with a shrug like “whatever”. A storm of whispers will follow you past the five neat rows of seated twenty-year-olds as you walk victoriously to the front, but you will start the lecture right away and force them into focus.
Alpha.
But he could lunge too. He could step out of the vigilant pack and throw up his arms with a protest of “hey Prof, it was just a compliment, no offense, you know,” all the while holding that charming smile, aiming it like a loaded gun. You’ll have to take another step and explain yourself. Explain that it’s inappropriate. Explain why. Your voice might shake and then they’ll say you overcorrected. Can’t even compliment a woman anymore. They’ll say you disrupted the class, call you a hard-ass, a dyke.
An omega bitch.
Thoughts can travel at a speed of four hundred feet per second. But through the five hundred thousand miles of wiring neatly packed into the gray folds of the average brain, some thoughts charge forward faster than others.
Her left toes lose contact with the ground and her weight begins to shift. Infinite things can still happen. Until she sets down her heel and keeps walking to her place, already regretful. How easily a moment slips away.
“Good afternoon,” she says in her most authoritative tone when she has reached the front of the room. She sets her books down on the desk facing the dumbstruck students. “We’ll start this course by reviewing the functions of the frontal cortex.”
While they settle, she locates him. He’s found a spot in the second row and is slouching in the chair, twirling a pencil between his fingers, and looking at her. It takes her three thousand five hundred milliseconds to realize she’s leaning towards him as if tethered by magnetic force.
She straightens her back. The tether snaps.
“Can anyone tell me the speed of thought?”
It’s exactly two o’clock and she knows exactly where she falls between alpha and omega.
Krista Timeus Cerezo is an emerging writer currently based in Barcelona, Spain. Her short fiction often explores the experiences of people trying to find a sense of home in strange, new places. Krista was born and raised in Guatemala and is a graduate of Davidson College, N.C. You can read more of her work at www.kristatimeuscerezo.com or connect on Instagram @kristatimeus.