Waiting Online
David Galef takes a peek inside the discussion forum for a massive open online course about a certain play by Samuel Beckett.
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anyone out there know whats going on in this Beckett play?
something about death
doesn’t get to the point fast enough…like prof winkler
i literally skipped winkler’s last 3 lectures, but with 1500 students whose gonna know?
You get out of it what you put into it.
that’s what she said!
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER MY QUESTION?
omg relaaaax
does anyone think godot’s ever gonna come?
that’s what she said!! lol
omg stopppp
he hasnt by the end of act 1
bet he doesn’t come at all. boy, will those two bums be disappointed!
*buns
lotta waiting in this sucker.
Know how long I had to wait on line at Best Buy on Black Friday?
look this isn’t the time
Ten hours. Ten fricken hours. But I got the TV!
then you should just watch the movie version
of what?
Waiting for Godot. can’t remember who stars in it, but it’s really slow. nothing ever happens.
???
Because nothing ever does. it’s like real life
Okay, I’m late to this discussion, but what’s the question?
What are those two guys waiting for, and why don’t they ever get moving?
Good question! Think it’ll be on the quiz?
Doesn;t matter. We can always cheat.
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.
Anyway its peer review. I’m grading your quiz.
You mean Winkler doesn’t look at them?
You kidding? He’s a prof at Harvard!
but he’s up there every week, talking to us
That’s just a video. Probably made that months ago.
Maybe he’s dead.
You mean like Godot?
Plot spoiler!
its not about the plot, its like existential.
That’s some help.
It’s based on Freud’s trinitarian ego, id, and superego structure, asshole.
No, it’s all about the Cold War.
It’s Plato’s allegory of the cave.
WTF
I want an answer to my question. I’m going to e-mail Prof. Winkler.
You can’t. It comes back “addressee unknown.”
Really? Thats like so existential.
That’s it. I’m outa here.
They do not move.
Who typed that? Hey! Is that Prof. Winkler? Are you monitoring this? I wanna know, I wanna know! And is this going to be on the quiz?
David Galef directs the creative writing program at Montclair State University. His latest book is the short story collection My Date With Neanderthal Woman (Dzanc Books).
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