No Statute of Limitations For Spoilers

*Exclaimer: Please don’t read this if you haven’t seen Inception, The Empire Strikes Back, Planet of the Apes, The Wizard of Oz, Saw, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense

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As a probable testament to my poor academic acumen, I cannot, in good memory, recall the particulars of the situation I’m about to describe for you. I don’t remember the course, the tutorial leader, or the topic at hand, but I do remember it was an early morning class on a balmy winters day. In my usual bleary-eyed state of apathy, I resigned myself to a self-assigned seat at the back, content to make up the numbers and to pick up my arbitrarily appointed participation marks.

As the class commenced its usual schedule of speculative faff and conjecture, I commenced my own schedule of affairs: looking at people when they’re not looking back and looking away when they sometimes do. To be sure, dear reader, this practice would seem well odd to you, but keeping my eyes open and pretending to pay attention was tantamount to participation (see previous paragraph). Besides, I’m willing to wager a hefty sum in favour of the idea that other people do it as well, and, in my own impudent kind of way, I had gotten quite good at it.

Scanning the room to find a noteworthy point of interest, to which I mean somebody attractive, I noticed a girl sitting across the room from me. The expression on her face is one I’ll never forget.

As a stark contrast to my own, her disposition could be best described as a perpetual mood of agitation. Sitting bolt upright with fingers digging into her knees, her demeanor suggested one of great offense, and yet, by her expression, her posture also suggested a sense of rigid self-defense.

Mouth slightly ajar and looking around with what can only be compared to as a disconcerting Kubrick stare, I was snapped out of my own nebulous trance by the sheer curiosity of her appearance. Imagine a Buckingham Palace guard, with the face of ‪Edvard Munch’s‬ The Scream, watching a game of tennis and this is what the girl looked like.

In order to satiate my sudden interest in her discomfort, I also looked around the room, looking for the source of her searing glare. After a quick appraisal of the class, I narrowed it down to two people; a young lad, with an ironic moustache and a Toronto Maple Leafs toque, and another young lad, whose face I couldn’t see because he was sitting right in front of me.

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