Let Me Think: Stories by J. Robert Lennon

Author:J. Robert Lennon [Lennon, J. Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

#facultyretreat

The morning of the faculty retreat. The location has just been revealed to us, via courier. We arrive sweating, aroused.

Professor Smenkins proposes mandatory sunlight-sensitivity training. The grumbling is causing the croissant tray to vibrate.

Professor Chen-Velasquez appears to be levitating the conference table with her mind.

Are Professors Nelson and Underbridge playing footsie? They are sitting fourteen feet apart. And yet it seems to be so.

Professor Gutierrez is delivering his remarks in French and everyone is pretending to understand.

Professor Van der Hoet keeps flickering in and out of view, like a distant rare deer seen through trees.

Games of trust: Completing one another’s grant applications. Blindfolded peer review. Intercommittee hand-holding. Musical chairs.

Professors on sabbatical are represented at the table by service animals. Professor Abata is purring. Professor Kimmel needs to go walkies.

Professor Umber, impassioned, fist pounding the table: “We must give the dean a hotfoot! The dean must receive a hotfoot!!”

We file out into the side garden for a participatory presentation called “Angercise It!”

The Subcategories Committee is bifurcating. More committees, within committees, some staffed by fractions of professors.

Professors Nelson and Underbridge have not moved from their seats but have somehow progressed to kissing. Their mouths move, fishlike, in sync.

Heavy use of “collapse” as a transitive verb. Sporadic nodding/clapping. Conjuring the spirits of dead lecturers. Hiccuping.

A fight has broken out over the department softball team uniforms. Every color combination evokes a different genocide.

Professor Hsu has escaped! We arm the adjuncts with poison darts. “Bring us her head and your contracts will be renewed.”

Our problem is brand recognition. We’ll hire a publicist. Our logo will feature corduroy, mirrors, antidepressants, the email REPLY-ALL button.

An incursion into the chemistry retreat has rewarded us with a terrified associate. We theorize him, hungrily, breathlessly.

We supplement the cross-listing of courses with bi-listing, inter-listing, de-listing, meta-listing, ur-listing, non-listing.

Lunch break. Twin vats of gray-green slurry, one marked NUTRITIVE, the other, NON-NUTRITIVE. Tuxedoed attendants wink.

Professor Vliet adheres to the ceiling. He hisses. Bits of his exo-skeleton flake off, rain down upon the buffet cart.

After lunch, someone mentions the students. A horrified silence descends, then is broken by Professor Li’s mad cackle.

“Troubling,” Professor Evans mutters from behind his mask, dice rattling in his bony hand. “I am troubled. Troubled.”

Professor Baggs proposes burrowing beneath the building to create new office space. The canvas sack of trowels clatters open.

We pause in our discussion of criteria for the major to allow Professors Nelson and Underbridge to climax. Mild applause.

“Onus,” Professor Samson says oilily. “Say it with me. Onus.” We utter the word, an incantation. We are a hive, a swarm.

The faculty retreat is winding down. Professor Os has donned her cowl. Professor Burden’s keys jingle. The room fills with sighs, ghosts.

The faculty retreat is over. We place our agendas into the ceremonial brazier, and as they burn, we forget. Where are we? Who?

Who?

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