The shaking student

The Professor commenced her new class with an introduction to her subject while her eyes roved over the bright faces that always characterize the freshly arrived students, eager to take on the world, eager to exploit the sudden freedom from the shackles of home. She spotted the trouble makers immediately and filed their faces away for future reference. The eager ones, the brilliant ones, the apathetic ones, all filed away; years of experience meant she was seldom wrong. One boy caught her attention, spasmodically twitching and scrunching his face, mumbling strange words and jerking his limbs, much to the amusement of the boys surrounding him. 

At first she thought it was one of those 'disturbing elements' in class, as they termed them in those days. She went up to him. The students fell silent, pretending to read their notes. Suppressed sniggers gave way to dead silence as she reached the back of the class. To her surprise he continued his grotesque dance, eyes down, abashed. He looked so mortified that she didn’t say anything, knowing there was something wrong with him and anything she said may only shame him.. Later she asked him to stay behind after class to get to root of his peculiar behaviour. She suspected some possible neurological problem and wondered if he was on medication.

And, this is what he told her… In a hostel where he stayed, there was a boy who suffered from Tourette Syndrome. Every day our protagonist imitated him to the delight and revulsion of his friends. Whenever someone wanted a laugh that ended in hysteria, he performed for them until people collapsed in tears. With constant practice he imitated the poor sufferer to perfection and added his own fine touches, shocking contortions of the face, manic jerking of the limbs, grunts and obscenities; it all went down very well. After months of this, he realised that what was an entirely voluntary and controlled act started manifesting itself in his daily life. His friends noticed it first, and thought nothing much of it initially. The more he tried to control it, the more the jerking increased, and then he realized the jerking was no more under his control. His friends in their guilt, avoided him. Alone and desperate, he left for home, consulted doctors and psychiatrists…nothing worked. Nothing. He was completely possessed by the demon he had created, and became what he only attempted to parody. 

The Professor was stunned by this ironic and terrible justice, and unable to offer a single word of comfort or advice. For once she had nothing to say. The grotesque act continued until one day he left the college, never to return. He still may be twitching somewhere. As for the boy whom he imitated, he may be laughing his insides out, amidst his twitches. Or maybe he got cured, having passed on his terrible affliction.