Noah Prince was aware that he looked quite dashing, as befit the first day of the new semester, and of course his students did not fail to notice either.
Pleased, he tuned into their eager minds as he greeted and welcomed them to the program for the first time, marveling as he often did at the subtle differences in their perceptions. Most everybody agreed on the obvious basics about him: His approximate age, his sex, his hair and skin tone, the extravagance of his youthful clothes. But that was about where the similarities ended.
Most people, Noah knew, never got to look outside of their own picture. It was no wonder, really, that almost all of them fell prey to the illusion that reality was truly as they perceived it. They might stir once or twice in their lives, try to wrap their little minds around the idea that their husband, or their four-year-old, or that stranger on the street might see the world very differently than they did. But in the end, the concept eluded them. Only one such as Noah could truly appreciate the diversity of human realities.
And as far as he was aware, there were no others like him.
Thirty faces were turned towards him now, crowded together in the cool entrance hall of the university's own geo-sciences museum. None of them had been there before - most had only moved to the city recently to take up their master's studies here - and they were giving off waves of curiosity.
Overall, Noah was pleased with the first impressions he was making today. First impressions were one of his favorite things, each one a different challenge, and he could tell that he was having quite some success with this group.
Naturally, some students barely took note of him at all. Many years of experience had taught Noah that those were typically the distracted ones in a class, busy checking their phones or going over who said what last night in their mind, but of course there were also the nerds who wouldn't know it if it were Bigfoot standing there talking to them. Their eyes were only for the exhibits, and all they wanted him for was explanations.
For all their academic value, the nerds tended to bore Noah even more than the dreamers, who could at least be amusing at times.
But fortunately, those were not the only students. There were always some who would actually look at him, not just as a professor, but as a man - and often, they would like what they saw. Especially the girls (not too many gay boys in the geo-sciences, sadly) tended to appreciate Noah's relative youth, his shoulder-length rockstar hair, his rugged handsomeness, and his immaculate taste in leather jackets. They would go home later and tell their friends about their "hot" new professor, and at least once a semester he would turn a blind eye when one of them took a picture of him in class to show around.
Those were the students Noah went to class for.
There were several of that kind in the crowd now, and many others who simply found him intriguing. Their eyes were on him, painting his image in a dozen favorable variations inside their eager minds, ready for him to feed their admiration. Noah reveled in their collective attention as he started giving them the tour.
Even without checking, he could tell that he was in top form, all charm and flourish, practically bouncing on his feet: Noah was excited. The museum was his baby, his personal project, and he loved showing it off; but even more, he loved the luxury of those eyes on him, those ears tuned into every word he said.
He had missed this - craved it - over the summer, and being here again felt like finally stretching a muscle that hadn't been put to work in too long a time. Of course, there had been other events to occupy him - research, colloquiums, the odd affair ... but even so, the holidays were always the loneliest time of the year and he was more than happy to return to teaching.
The first exhibit was right behind him in the small lobby, hung on the wall opposite the heavy entrance doors: The very impressive cross section of an enormous sequoia tree. Along a silver timeline across the polished wood, significant events of human history had been matched to the tree's respective rings: The birth of Jesus, the discovery of America, the World Wars ...
It was one of Noah's personal favorites. He had secured it for the university himself, and he delighted in the awed responses of the students. They were clearly getting it: The fascination of embodied history that had drawn him to paleontology all those years ago. And he hadn't even gotten to the really old stuff yet.
Just as the real tour was about to start, however - he had led the group inside the main part of the building and everyone was gathered around the baby mammoth reconstruction - Noah was startled by a quiet voice.
"Oh, fuck me," the voice said.
Noah was so surprised that he stopped speaking mid-sentence, looking around for the person who had spoken, but nobody else seemed at all startled. Clearly, the voice had been only in his mind.
Now, this was not, per se, a novelty to Noah. He had been reading minds for as long as he could remember. Neither did the vulgarity of this particular snippet surprise him - one of his favorite pastimes involved listening in on people's sexual fantasies (particularly in boring meetings). He was quite an expert on the subject, and at this point in his life, no amount of vulgarity could make him so much as bat an eyelash.
What made this incident notable, however, was the exceptional clarity of the thought-voice. It really did sound almost like a real voice.
Most people's minds were cloudy things; reading them required practice and concentration, both of which Noah had in ample stores. Still, incidents when another's thoughts would intrude on him unprovoked were rare enough - and even among those, muffled, distant mumbling was the norm. A voice as loud and distinct as this was one in perhaps a million.
Intrigued, Noah kept his alertness up as he returned to his mammoth-related monologue. Having done this many times before, and knowing each exhibit better than most people knew their family, it didn't take up much of his attention. So, he went through the motions, saying more or less what he always said, cracking more or less the same jokes while he was really trying to find that voice again. He could be more amusing than this, but these kids didn't know that yet, and they wouldn't know the difference.
Still, when the first image hit him, he forgot what he'd been saying.
