In one of the many rooms previously used to show college students and cats (often the same thing) beheading videos, mass graves of festering corpses, and other execution methods, as “concerned faculty” monitored tolerance thresholds illegally through one-way glass, while charging students for the privilege.
…Duke Leto knew exactly which building he was teaching from when he heard the description.
It was nearly the furthest walk on campus from his present office. It was kheyli kalt, and he shook his slowly returning hair under a lined royal-blue caracalhardt beanie, matching a twenty-year-old pashmina, dark wool peacoat, matching turtleneck, black pants covered in cat fur, and winter footwear he had purchased at a Depeche Mode concert in the mid-nineteen-nineties.
The Cat Utilization Laboratory Tower (CULT) remained a featureless brown box on the outside. Windows were given only to hallways and offices, not classrooms.
Inside were the ubiquitous mirrors that ever so slightly distorted reflections, producing a maddening doubling effect, as if what was reflected were emphasized in two-dimensional space.
They used to teach logic proofs with no logic here. It was horrible. The echoes of the mental torture of quantum physics still clung to the building, as cats and students were subjected to drugs, negative stimulation, shame cycles, unrealistic demands, estrangement, and permanent enslavement to debt for the privilege.
-Unless the lab succeeded in breaking the target enough to result in death or permanent injury.
Then everyone involved in the collapse high-fived, held a pizza party, and served vegan treats chocolate mousse cake.
However.
This time, Duke had to teach horrors to protect his students, not to test endurance or eviscerate them by selling their files to black sites if they failed, as the prior administration demanded.
Duke was frustrated that every online PDF of C. S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair was either incomplete or corrupted.
To his credit, it was admirable that he managed to collect twenty-three copies in less than two weeks by closely investigating local used bookstores and their online equivalents.
As he paused at the elevator, holding his canvas Lidl bag full of C. S. Lewis paperbacks, he re-examined the class list and realized it was going to be less of a class than a field brief.
He sighed and opened the classroom door ten minutes late.
Students and faculty were grouped in haphazard conversations or remained bored, scrolling their phones with terrible posture.
Dr. Duke Leto2 cleared his throat.
Kek announced, “BEHOLD. WHEN THE PIR AL ALARAF SPEAKS, EVEN MASTER SHAYKH MUST BE SILENT.”
No one laughed. This was certainly Alaraf.
Duke distributed the books, perched comfortably on the corner of the desk, and began his lecture.
“Salaams. I do not even know what to call you. You are not like American students, and you are not like typical Asian Murīd either. We are going to have to work from the same page going forward if we are to face the expected retaliation for dismantling the torture programs…
I need you to examine this-”
“-Weird Christian fiction novel….?” asked Kek,
Duke felt he had the choice to ignore or escalate.
He could sense the jingle-collared catboi would happily waste valuable debrief time in debate.
Leto reached for his tasbih in his pocket when a different student continued smoothly.
“I am sure Pir Leto can give a two-sentence summary explaining why this is necessary.”
A black chef’s uniform. Thin. One of the few smiling in the half-dark of the classroom. Noted.
“Two sentences. When someone is under coercion, they do not say what the heart means and are therefore not culpable for what is said under duress. This book explains how coercion mechanisms work, how to break them, and why we are all written as cats…
I will give a bonus sentence.
Professor Lewis explained the horrors of his time through Narnia; We only have Alaraf.”
“Those are run-on sentences,” stated Kafka, who was only there for moral support, having been indelibly written into the narrative.
“Read the book or I am unblocking the radio.” threatened Duke.
And suddenly, the returning students he had never met in body before called him “Sir” without compulsion, and meant it.
Duke noted the change, logged it internally, and continued the briefing without acknowledgment.
Compliance achieved without coercion was the only metric that mattered.
The mirrors recorded nothing useful.
The room, for the first time in its history, failed to produce a subject.
The Chronicals of Alaraf 