Before walking into the amphitheatre, my heart always pounds.  I have that feeling of noxious nauseous butterflies crashing into each other in my stomach which feels as though it’s stretched from my ribcage to my pelvis.  My hands nearly tremble, but I keep them hidden in my pockets so no one can see.  It’s only three more minutes until class begins.  I watch from afar as the students file into the amphitheatre.  One after another, after another, after another.  I can hear the gentle roar of their conversations as I wait outside the large wooden doors which enter to the floor.  I feel like a gladiator waiting to kill or be killed within the Coliseum filled with savage Romans.  One last look at my watch.  Class is about to begin in only a few moments.  I swallow nothing down my dry throat, and I ignore the clamminess of my hands on the door handle.  I walk in.

                  My audience watches my every move.  They watch as I almost hesitate to walk to the podium in the center of the theatre.  The lights are dim, except for the ones that are on me.  I gaze around as I fumble though the process of attaching the microphone to my shirt.  I look into the audience, and I see 396 pairs of eyes staring blankly at me.  396 pairs of eyes that appear to be creatures in the dank darkness of a shadow filled jungle path.  396 pairs of eyes focused tentatively on me.  An eerie hush falls over the crowd.  That must mean I’m about to begin.  I reach down, and place my glasses upon my face.  Now, the eyes staring down on me have been clarified, but at least now I have something to hide behind.  I stand stiffly behind the podium.  My hands grip its top.  I look down at my lecture notes, and then back up at the students.  Each of them is waiting, waiting to hear what’s about to come out of my mouth, waiting to hear me speak the truth, waiting for me to share my knowledge, waiting for me to make a mistake. 

                  I lecture everyday.  I see theatres full of students everyday.  Everyday, I make a mistake.  It may be only a minor slip up, maybe my head was working faster than my mouth, or my mind strayed elsewhere momentarily, but at least one mistake embarrassingly slithers out of my mouth in a day.  With that mistake comes hot shame.  Students promptly jut their sleek slender young hands in the air to question me, to prove I’m wrong, to point out my flaws, to disgrace me before all, just so they can live in their brief moment of knowitallism.  Never do they raise their hands to prove that I’m correct.  Never have I been told I was right about something, only subordinately chastised.  They keep me under their tall microscope, and wait for that mistake to come out, as if it’s enlightenment.  They zoom in closer and closer waiting for one slip of the chalk on the blackboard.  They leer at me through their glazed lenses in anticipation to prove me wrong, to reign over me.

                  My mouth is dry.  I mumble a few words into the mic, and start to write equations on the board behind me.  The chalk dries my fingers out to feel like my mouth already does.  To my back, I have 396 pairs of eyes diligently scanning, and copying everything I write.  Every symbol, ever number, every letter I write, copied down into their notebooks.  I feel the heat of their gaze on my back as I mumble what exactly the equation I’m writing out is. 

                  Two blackboards are filled with a jumble of letters, numbers, equal signs, and the faint ghostly remains of chalk erasing.  I look over it briefly before I expose myself to the students again.  With my head down I walk back to the podium; my protection.  I look up to the eyes of the jury, judges, and executioners with a tinge of shame hovering around me.  They are all still busy copying, and absorbing to notice I’ve retreated. 

                  I watch one pen be placed down.  Then another, and another, and another, and another.  It’s a chain reaction.  Soon the students begin to whisper to each other, and point to my new disposable work of art.  They utter, and nod, and utter, and nod.  In fear of error I look back to my display of logic, and start to gawk at it myself.  While doing this, I feel the magnifying glass come out.  Now mind you Reader, they are not examining me in a Sherlock Holmes manner at all.  In fact, they aren’t even going to examine me.  Under their giant looking glass lens, I am an ant.  I look up with pity in my face, but even with the magnifying glass, they can’t tell it; not on the face of an ant.  They begin to focus it near me.  I can see the light shine through the lens and focus into a large spot on the floor near me.  The back of my neck begins to sweat, and drip down my back.  I can even feel my armpits perspire due to the increasing heat.  My mouth remains dry, and I see a hand rise.  I struggle to swallow nothing.  Another hand elevates into the air, and yet another.  I call upon one of the hands.

“Question?” it says.

“No, answer.”

I call on the next hand.

“But, question?”

“Yes, because answer.”

                  I see the number of hands seem to diminish.  All but one slowly lower themselves.  One remains, and I can see in the cafe wannabe genius look in his scrutinizing eyes he’s not going to lower his hand.  I swallow nothing, and call upon him.

“What do you mean by, question?  Should it not be answer?”  he hisses at me.

                  My work begins to unravel on the board.  I work frantically attempting to rearrange it, but in vain.  I feel the heat growing closer.  The judges have focused the magnifying glass more.  They are teasing me now, like children on a sunny summer day.  They bring the glass to focus in one hot flaming burning point of light, and draw it nearer and nearer my small pitiful scurrying ant body.  The nervous perspiration beads on my furrowed brow, and I step back to examine the partial skeleton that was once my beautiful work of logic.  It’s too late.  I’ve been burned black to return to the earth.  The looking glass is put away, and the judges are filing out.  All that’s left is the butchery of an equation that was written by an ant before its execution.