Shy girl
Location
Teacher booms out over the classroom: Who knows the answer to this question?
The words fall flat on an empty silence.
53 newton-seconds, I think to myself.
But what if I am wrong?
I dare not to raise my hand above the heads of my uninterested fellow students.
Seconds tick by, and still no answer.
Maybe I should speak up.
Teacher is growing impatient. Why be so demanding, when you will only castigate
an incorrect response?
My fear is irrational;
yet it binds like a gag
and I know that I cannot speak. I will share in the shame of the classroom;
after all, I am the only one who knows.