There are few students in my class. When one considers what the subject is, this isn’t surprising. I teach myself.
In other words, I impart to my students facts and fancies based on my life and ideas. It’s the least popular class in the university and I doubt it will be funded for another term. But none of that is my fault. I wanted to teach a proper discipline such as ecology, but the authorities wouldn’t let me. They insisted that I teach myself; and as a result, I do so.
The students are given an assignment. They each have to write a short piece about how I spend my free time. But this is information I’ve always kept secret. I can’t imagine how they’re expected to know anything about my private life, certainly not in detail.
Clearly I’m being spied on. Unless it’s guesswork?
I read the essays anxiously.
Yes, only some of them have got it right…
Cover design: Alison Buck
Über den Autor
Rhys Hughes was born in Wales but has lived in many countries in Europe and Africa. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. University life has been good to him and his experiences in no way resemble those of the narrator of Students of Myself. In his spare time he keeps writing. He is nearing the end of a thirty-year project to write exactly one thousand linked short stories. He has also written plays, poems, articles and puzzles for a variety of international publications, and his work has been translated into ten languages.