Calculus Class and my Near Death Experience

I was at school one day when I saw someone walk through the halls with a Hitler moustache. I gave him a wide berth and kept on walking to class. Now, it's not every day that you see people wearing Hitler moustaches around, so I decided to text my friend about it.

Me: I think I just saw a guy with a Hitler moustache at school....

He could've just been trying to pull off a Chaplin

She didn't respond right away so I went to class. The class was a Calculus 2 class; one of the best classes I've ever taken. The teacher was an elderly Russian man, who, through many anecdotes, had managed to relay his life story to us. He was a Jewish boy growing up in the Soviet Union. His father had been taken by the KGB for mentioning Democracy in a local pub and was sent to a gulag. Our teacher, let's call him Dr. X, had grown up with a deeply ingrained sense of hatred towards communism and the injustices it had dealt to his family. He received his education, then left for Israel, one of the only places accepting Jewish immigrants at that time. He eventually ended up in the US and taught at the school I go to. He was an extremely amiable and funny man, but behind every joyful Russian anecdote he would tell us, there would be a deeper, anti-communist meaning.

Unrelated picture of Kim Jung-il

So I walked into class that day, and everything started out well. We had to solve a problem on second order differential equations and he gave us a few minutes to do that. I solved it pretty quickly and checked my phone. One new text! My friend, who we'll call C (I don't want any lawsuits), had responded. This is (basically) what was said.

C: Yay! Hitler's my hero!!
Me: Me too! I feel like we would've been best friends if I had lived back then.
C: Yeah! We would've been a tremendous trio!
Me: We would've been tighter than the three musketeers!!
C: Oh, and it was a good thing he killed all the Jews.
(cue record scratch)
C: But everyone knows COMMUNISM is the real way to go!!
(cue another record scratch)

Now obviously, my friend was joking, but given the place I was in and my teacher's past experiences (of which my friend had no knowledge of), I felt like I was in a pretty precarious situation. I quickly flipped shut my phone and looked up. Big mistake.

As I looked up, my eyes met Dr. X's, and they locked for a brief moment. Quickly, I snapped them away. Too late. I felt him begin his approach to my desk. I knew I was in trouble. He didn't care if we texted, but I knew his anti-Semitism/pro-Communism alarm had gone off. Each step he took towards my small desk reverberated through the floor and into my already trembling heart. He would take my phone, then proceed to murder me on the spot. I knew it.

He walked up right next to my desk and looked at me for a second. I kept my eyes locked on the work in front of me. The phone began to vibrate in my pants. I felt like I was locked in a 21st century remake of "The Tell-Tale Heart". My moment of doom had arrived.

He began to speak, but I smiled blankly ahead, revisiting the happiest moments of my life. I had already resigned myself to my fate, but I refused to die with the images of an angry Russian burned into my retinas. I was brought out of my reverie by the word "integral". Integral? That didn't sound like something someone would say before feasting on the innards of their victim.

"Vat is ze integral you found?' repeated Dr. X. I looked at him. Never before had I realized how kind and how understanding his gaze was. Oh, how amazing it was to be spared by this great man! What had I done to deserve forgiveness? I would get the integral wrong and he would openly mock me in front of the classroom, but I was alive! I was alive!

It's a beautiful world we live in.