Two Paragraphs

So, what do you all think of these paragraphs? I wrote them a while ago as the start of a story that I intended to be a reworking of the Faust legend in the context of college. I re-discovered them this afternoon and thought that you all might enjoy them.

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Unfortunately for Josiah, the hands of the clock remained stubbornly still. This particular course—Freshman Writing Seminar 101—was one of his least favorites so far, and he had desperately hoped that time would accommodatingly accelerate. Only five minutes? It felt more like an hour.

Professor Herthrab droned on. “Now, a subject always—and this rule has no exceptions—a subject is always followed by a verb.” The professor’s voice grated against Josiah’s ear like a saw cutting through Styrofoam. Josiah had been a competent writer in high school; now, listening to the professor dole out grammatical minutiae in painfully obvious increments, he began to wonder why the Inquisition had not realized more quickly the power of grammatical water boarding. He was not alone: his classmates slumped behind their desks, their faces as expressive as Neanderthal undertakers. Josiah began to wonder how he would survive the rest of the semester.