"Sorry I'm late," he says, strutting his way around the table. "I was just over at The Advocate, telling them to tone down their praise of "Incest Dog," my latest work. I mean, I wrote it in less than an hour."

Ned, the section leader, has composed himself at last. "For today, I ran off some copies of Ben's last story. It's quite interesting..."

His voice fades, and the room begins to spin. The previous week, over-whelmed with laziness and desperation, I had turned in a ridiculous war story I'd written in eighth grade. Now it is coming back to haunt me like an illegitimate son.

CHRISTMAS HAS COME early for the piranha, who size up my story like an unwary calf caught midstream, preparing to strip it to the bone. Leading the attack, of course, is the Antichrist. Making horrible little humming and clucking noises, he rips through my story, eyebrows galloping wildly across the unnatural expanse of his forehead. Each mark he makes is a slap in the face, a stain on my honor.

He finishes, twists his accreted features into a look of gentle disdain, and laughs, "Well, I'll be the first to admit it. Bert's story here has a few problems."

At the Antichrist's signal, the other piranha churn the water red, Poodlehead pulling some kind of obscure homoerotic significance from it, Sigmund pointing out a spelling error on the third page, and so on.

Thinking he is delivering the coup de grace, the Evil One pronounces his verdict. "Brent, this needs a hagggahlot of work, and mucho revision. I mean, your imagery is so...so...generic."

"Suck my imagery."

"What?!!!" A chorus of shocked face cries. Ned, the section leader, faints. The Antichrist's eyebrows almost touch his hairline.

"Hmmsugghmyimegrrry," I cough, as if that is what had happened the first time, and everyone is relieved.

You can guess who was absent the next week. I did consider dropping by the next week and rolling a grenade into the room, but I figured the Antichrist would be impervious to such weapons.

IF YOU'VE BEEN paying attention through all of this, you'll see that my point is really self-defeating. The guide was right; sections are rewarding. If you noticed, I didn't kill one single person, which clearly shows that I have learned patience. I have also learned to appreciate the good points of things I had once loathed and despised, like dogfighting.

I have learned to smile knowingly when I have done no reading and am not even sure I am in the right class. And, finally, I have gained great wisdom from my fellow students, a point no better illustrated than in a comment made one day by a classmate known to me as Steamshovel Mouth.

There was some argument about the plot of Love's Labour's Lost, and she suddenly cut the matter to the bone. Raising her hand high and proud, she proclaimed "Shakespeare's no fool."

Thank you for sharing that with us, dear.