POETRY: ‘3.14’

Contributed by: Johanna Go, accounting major

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He is a numbers man. He believes that everything is accurately calculated. There are 365 days in a year, 366 every four years. It takes 60 seconds under one minute. There are 24 hours a day. He always put 2 spoonful of sugar in his cup of coffee. He leaves his house at exactly 6 in the morning. Currently, there are 18 girls and 19 boys in the class. A ratio of 37:1, students to professor.

Every student who takes his class would hope to receive a grade higher than 2. During his 20 years in the academia, he has failed 105 students. The highest one who got a grade of 3.5 was in 1989. It was also the time of his early teaching profession. He was in his late 20s. That student was also his first love, she’s taking a degree in Applied Physics at that time. In a world population of 75 million back in 1989, there are exactly two souls destined for each other. To two lovers madly in love it feels like it’s the same velocity as the speed of light. The trajectory of an arrow at 2 km/sec hitting the bull’s eye.

But after she graduated, he never saw her again. She cut all her ties with him. Her family moved across the country. They both pursue new endeavors and traverse paths towards their dreams. She became a Physicist. He changed his heart. He became cold-hearted and that is the only thing that has been constant over the years.

He is a numbers man. He believes that everything is accurately calculated, except every heartbeat sometimes beats in different rhythms.

From “In Transient: A Traveler’s Journal”