My writing as a dish served to a food critic 

Our eyes darted between each other and Mme. Shayesteh, our infamous French teacher whose always-beaming face and always patronizing words hid her capacity for humiliation. Sat at the front corner of the painted white room, she prodded at my classmates with cruel mocking questions and sighs of maybe real exasperation as she cut apart their paper. It was time for her to call up another victim. The previous one shuffled back to their yellow-legged and waxy-wood-finished desk with pursed lips and a tightly clenched notebook. 

With feigned sweetness and care to her tone, Mme. Shayesteh exclaimed, 

“So, I think we have time for one more person, let me just check the list of people who haven’t gone.”

Furrowed eyebrows and twitching and fidgeting of thee hands and face followed suit.

“[My name]. You come up here.”

I tried to protest that we only had a few minutes left, but my words betrayed me, tripping over themselves and coming out too quietly and quickly for her to understand. Clutching my notebook in my hand, I shuffled down the aisle of desks before sitting down on the plush black wheely chair by her side at her desk — exposed and facing the whole classroom. I was met by a forced smile, her thin ruler-straight lips and lizard-like eyes stretched across her boxy, tensed face.

Upon opening my book, Mme Shayesteh squinted her eyes and let out a cackle. The stabbing notes of her voice, like nails on a chalkboard, tore into my organization and handwriting — comparing it to a scrawling mess of ink and hieroglyphics. Snickers began to rise out from the class, their hands covering their mouths as they tried to hide their laughter. 

Mme. Shayesteh continued. Flippantly throwing her straight, blond hair over her shoulder or sighing and rolling her eyes she continued to critique every aspect of my work with the disgust of a food critic dining at the world’s worst restaurant. She wiped her eyes from laughter, reaching out to the class, asking if any of them were hearing what she was reading. That was only followed with more hoots and hysteric clamor. 

Those mocking eyes scrutinized me, not one pair holding a look of pity or empathy as Mme Shayesteh continued to add fuel to the fire with her own laughter and burning sarcasm. Every problem with my paper she made out to be a spectacle, the spotlight landing on my red-hot, grimacing, moronic face.

As she went on her words melded into the same droning roar in my ears. My clothes pulled and itched on my skin and the loud buzzing and uneven wind of the air conditioner blew straight through my uniform. The gray of the sky outside from the line of windows just under the ceiling and thundering noises of motorcycles and cars racing down the road invaded and muffled my senses. My focus floated from my mind and I was left hiding away from the humiliation in a cloud that my eyes fixated on. She snapped me out of it with a jarring “Hey! Are you listening to me?”. Noticing my sudden jump to attention, Mme Shayesteh sighed, “Oh…you poor boy! Did you not get enough sleep?.”, her words coated with a layer of belittling sting, and her face contorted with raised whisper-thin eyebrows and a cartoonish frown.

For the last few moments of class, I had nothing to say as I stammered and scratched my neck and the behind of my ears with anxiety. My day was saved when the bell rang and we were dismissed. Trudging out of the classroom, I checked my grade to see if I had really deserved to go through all that. I got a B+. Not a perfect grade, but one that still didn’t explain her abuse. I yearned to confront her but bringing any more attention to me would probably make me cry. A burning wave of contempt and frustration swept through my head, and I could feel it searing at my temples as she jovially waved the class goodbye and sent us off with a sickly sweet, “See you tomorrow!” Her square face stretched into a rhombus as she beamed at us and scrunched up her eyes and nose like she was trying to focus all her face on her next target.