random short stories

Strés

stress

/stres/

verb

past tense: stressed; past participle: stressed

1. Give particular emphasis or importance to (a point, statement, or idea) made in speech or writing.

2. Subject to pressure or tension

"Is anyone here stressed or anxious?" The professor asked, as if anyone in the room would answer truthfully.

If we were truthful, every hand in that room would go up immediately after processing the simple question.

But, alas, we were not fools. No one wanted to get a paper suggesting therapists for their minds. As if they would help. We wouldn't know. We didn't want to know.

"None of you? Not one?" They were disbelieving, yet knowing. Professor was not amused.

Professor understood, then nodded absently and walked in a pointless ellipse for dramatic affect to watch students who all looked like pandas, some leaning more to the raccoon side, the instructor included,

"I, for one, am very stressed."

"Is this a grade? Should I be taking notes?" The hushed whisper was not overlooked by the professor, unfortunately.

They turned immediately "Are you feeling under confident about your grade?"

She jumped in surprise, flushed, and now jittery, spoke "Um.. Uh no, I just don't want to forget anything if we are going to have a test, I, um, I would like to keep up my grades...?"

The professor held a ghost of a smile "So you are worried about your grade, would you say, if your grades dropped, you'd be stressed?"

"U-uh, yeah. Ye-ah I guess so." She cursed herself for the crack in her already wavering voice. But the class seemed too tense to notice, or care.

It was silent, other than the soft footsteps if the professor as they walked to the front of the room, farthest from the semi circle of students.

"What do you think causes stress? Are you feeling stressed now?  You are all awfully quiet." The Professor inquired without turning around. They knew the answer.

Professor hummed. "I wonder, what can stop stress? If your current cause of stress was gone, would you still be stressed? Find something else to worry about? Or would it be calm, with nothing to do? Personally, I think us humans have trouble letting go, and we get so used to stress, we can't allow it to be completely gone."

"Am I failing this class? Can I get this done on time? How can this be fixed? We always seem to stress about seemingly trivial things, that go away easily or can be retried. But then of course, they mean a lot at that moment." The Professor faced the students again, looking as many of them in the eye as he could. "Now I want you to think, is stress a good thing, or bad? "