I am redoing this whole blog thing. I am going to go out on a risk, and you are welcome to be a criticizing witness. What I am going to do is post what I have written for my short story, unedited (I will go back later and edit, but this is raw material folks!), unplanned, totally out of my brain. I have a general idea of my characters and events, but really when I am writing I am just…flowing, going in directions I never thought of, making up people and names and rooms and weather I surprise and entertain myself. So please, keep in mind that this is the first long account of writing I have done in this sort of format, creaitve and original.
Welcome to my brain.
The Typewriter
By E. Crane
Man, alone in a room with scratched wooden floors. He is tall and lanky, his brown hair and clothes distressed. Hard bread crusts rest on a plate, on a rough wooden table with sturdy legs. A cup of dull coffee creates a ring next to a black type writer, flat with shiny silver keys. The room is only lighted by a window. An iron framed bed is in the corner, an old quilt is lays over the mattress, the monotone patches offer the only source of color in the room. The walls are plain, paneled with knotted wood, the knots make shadows like eyes. The man is pacing, slightly, looking out the window at the grey sky. It seems to be late in the day when the man’s voice fills the room,
“What shall I write on you, typewriter?” The man sits down in the wooden chair in front of the typewriter. He picks up a piece of paper.
“And what shall be inked into you, Mr. Paper? Mr. Paper so blank and white, crisp and unused. I so wish you were used, maybe then you would hold a story in you.” Silence. The man puts the paper into the typewriter.
“What could I possibly write, who would want to read it, anyway.” He is typing, what he writes, but speaks as if he is annotating, or speaking to himself out loud in a train of thought.
“Shall I write about my upbringing, let myself deeper into the misfortunes of having a mother as mine, alone in this room to unravel my own despair?” He is still typing fast, the letters being inked onto the page.
“Shall I write my coming of age story, as every boy had one, shall I write about a funny uncle, or regretful father, or deceased siblings? Will that bestow guilt in me?” He gets up from the chair, his back to the typewriter.
“No, that will only further not my own pain, but the pains of others when they read a painful story. I have already stowed those memories away, so long ago, so as I would not have to think about them anymore. They affected me, but now they are repressed.” The typewriter is still typing, he is seemingly unaware of this fact.
“Oh, shall I write about the gloomy, grey weather that sheds its moist cloud breath into my room? Shall I write about solitude, in a bare room?” He is getting angrier now.
“Yes, typewriter, what shall I write about?” He turns abruptly to face the typewriter, rushing towards it with great gust, his hands placed aggressively on either side, as if he were holding the face of an abused woman who he had just hit.
“Shall I write about the ravings of the mad? Would that be satisfactory?” He drops the typewriter back onto the table with a dulled clang. It is unharmed.
“Maybe I will write about someone just like me. Who is everything I never was, but always desired to be. Maybe I will write about everything I had wished, in my lifetime, came naturally to me, when only characteristics that came natural to me were seemingly unnecessary ones. This person shall live the life of the educated, as I did, the privileged, and he will be happy and successful, as I once was maybe. Except he was brought into this life expected to succeed and be happy, as I was not. As I was all self taught. And I will write his story, but then, surprisingly, in the end he will find he is me. And he has been all his life, the signs were there, hidden, and this cruel awakening will cause him to go mad, that he is not his charmed self but the self of a desolate, lonely, regretful middle aged man, alone in a room with a typewriter.”
A pipe appeared in the air in front of him, as if the molecules had magically aligned to create a random object, which coincidentally the man habitually needed for this type of thinking. His eyes glazed over, focused on the far wall, seeing nothing but memory strips reeled across the back of his skull. Slowly, he reached his hand outward towards the pipe, as if it had always been there; waiting, expecting his hand at that moment to reach for the piece of wood and bone, charred and scratch from many evenings of thought. The smoothly worn surface, carved hollow, with the ivory colored mouthpiece was warm to the hand, the fingers formed around it in a familiar way, hugging its warmth. A match appeared perpendicular to the floor above the pipe, the sound of it striking a rough object filled the room, then the crackle of fire, it dipped the flame into the tobacco. Smoking, it disappeared again. The man took one puff, then two, inhaling the sickly sweet flavor as smoke danced to the ceiling. He liked seeing the smoke swirl into the air, filling the nothing with elegant shapes that were constantly changing. But this time he did not notice the pirouetting shapes for a great disturbance had rested in his mind.
He had thought many times of his own mortality, and did not feel the pain that comes with seeing his own youth perish while others strive as other men did, for he understood that things lived and died. What really upset him was he had not made his mark on a continental scale. Over the years he had said, I have time, I still have resources, but I am still too young to properly utilize these yet.
“Typewriter, you are the only witness to my end, my fate, you without eyes or ears or heart will be the record to my faulty livings. No other soul would care, unless by happy chance a young man may enter this room after I’ve gone, find these letters perhaps, and find them touching. Tears stroll down his cheeks, but he does not know why…as the last words of a hopeless man may inhibit feelings deep within him he has no words to describe. Forever shall my words be burned into his conscience- but, even in this outcome my fame is only lived in one, for if he should tell any close friend about this they would not find the words so touching. They were not the ones to enter and find them, not living that experience of discovery. If perhaps a well oiled man in a suit would find these writings, and make them to be genius, he would publish hundreds of copies, and many would cry at the end when my final death has arrived, but even then, the profit would go to my big, fat, wet mouthed relatives, and with my despair armchairs and fancy wigs would sprout. No, this would not do either, my ghost would be helpless and enraged.”
A painting slowly materialized on the smooth wall, in an oval wood frame, a simple crossed design carved around the face of a graced woman. She was of middle age, but her good skin and bright eyes made her seem much younger. Her fair hair was long and wavy, naturally thick, held up above each ear by antique pearl barrettes. Over her sloping shoulders she wore a thick dark red dress, the neckline leaned down to reveal strong collarbones. Hugging her neck was a golden locket. A thin hand was holding this locket between her forefinger and thumb, fingering it as if in thought. A knowing smile stretched her lips, creating friendly laugh lines around the corners of her mouth and eyes, light, framed with a thick brow, these eyes emitted peace unto the one who gazed upon them. They were to say, there are troubles in the world, I will not lie, but for the better surround yourself with good friends and kindly nature, and your peace will come.
“Oh, Mother!” The man wailed, with quick steps knelt beneath the painting.
“Mother! Mother! It is so good to see your face again, it has been so long since I have remembered you as such. Happy…before father died. Now I only remember you in your coffin, cold and made up in lace, so unnatural. And your terrible husband, had all these foul roses covering everything, even though I told him you liked lilies best. Oh, Mother, I am sorry, I know you would look unkindly at me for speaking ill of him.” Turning his face upward from his bowed position, the man saw how perfectly flat the stretched canvas was, the paint hardly made its mark in texture at all.
“Mother, you are only but an image, colors set in such a way that my mind makes it into something I want to see. I do want to see you, but I have many illusions in my life, sometimes it seems as if nothing is real…even my warm breath in the cold air floats away into a dream. Dark shapes and figures walking in the rain, their faces hunched into their shoulders, are they people or shadows, are memories reality or ghosts?” He looks at the ground and breathes deeply out, a sigh. When he lifts his head again, stares at the painting as it slowly dematerializes as it had come.
“Is this reality too, only here to torment me? Will things appear as I wish them and not as they are, for this will surely be the undoing of my sanity. I only ask to know the absolute truth, to see things as they are.” In the place of the painting, a standard sized mirror appeared. Quickly, it rushed at him as if it had been speeding for a great distance to get to him. A large crack ran through from the bottom corner to the top of the unframed glass, a deep ravine of unfortunate accident. A word, or name, was crudely carved on the back of the piece of mirror, the letters fragmented to hold no meaning besides their existence. His face showed itself dark and shadowed behind this hidden message.
“This face, my own face, my own reflection, cannot be wholly true, I know it. Even the only thing I should recognize the most can be twisted in all sorts of ways. I am lied to in my mind and outside of it, for I spend much time looking at more faces than my own. I cannot remember the last time I memorized the lines, curves of my brow and cheekbones. And yet I can recall with accurate detail the expressions of a lover, but do not know what expression I gave while lying on the pillow, facing sustained youth and good spirit in two eyes and a mouth. Or even, what she perceived my face to be. I look into this cursed mirror and see my own haunted expression, I see dark stubble infecting the skin of my cheeks, wirey eyebrows with splayed hairs of a goat hovering over my eyes. My eyes! They are headless fauns, glazed with mucus, unseeing and discolored. I fear looking into them, I shall shrink and be caged by the dark holes in a skull, to be encased in all lost thoughts.” Slowly, holding his own gaze, stiff hands slowly rose up to his face, fingertips lightly grazing the rough skin. Then he grabs at his skin, stretching it down and out.
“A monster, I am, distorted and full of lies.” He lets his hands and shoulders droop, his face expressionless once again. Except now the intensity in his eyes is gone, he does not see his reflection, he sees nothing.
“I see nothing.” This last sentence made concrete by the typewriter rang especially loud in his ears, the clicking of the keys still seemed to fill the room, as if there were nowhere else for the sound to go. The man rushes over to the window in frantic movements, thrusting the heavy wooden framed glass. Breathing heavily, he looks into grey clouds, one tightly connected to another, one huge mass.
“Is the world not real out there, either? Can I not go outside to touch it? Feel people’s warmth, their life, see their teeth and their lips move, feel a hand tightening onto mine, nice to meet you they would say, I would have connected with a stranger. Are not simple reactions like that real?” Turning away from the window, the man holds his head in his hands, fingers twisted around his dark, greasy locks in knots. A breeze from the window ruffles the bottom of his jacket. Letting his hands fall limply towards the ground, he leans his head back, “I feel a breeze. Cool, comforting on my hot skin, seeping into and through all of my clothing, fibers. I feel air, I can breath.” He walks over to the bed, with meaningful movements lays down on his back, arms folded across his chest, feet shoulder width apart. His breathing slows, he is asleep. The sky darkens, the light in the room fades.
While he sleeps, the typewriter quietly types, keys moving in almost a whisper, a long letter- from a friend? It begins,
M-
I saw you the other day. You were walking down the street, in front of your apartment. You had been out for a long while, although you returned with nothing. It was gray, it was lightly raining, you had your brown overcoat on but no umbrella. I’ve never even seen you carry an umbrella. It wasn’t as if I had been watching you over a long time, but just once I saw you at a bar nearby, curiously I followed you home, I think about you all the time. I watched you stand in front of your window, smoking a pipe, like you always did in your office. I wonder if you are writing anything new, something original, since you aren’t at the University anymore.
Professor McCadden is my advisor now, I miss the smell of your whiskey and cologne, sitting among all those leather bound books by Hume, Sartre, and Gogol I felt like Homer, traveling, with you. I suppose you knew Professor McCadden, he teaches Grammar and Russian Lit, he can be awfully dull at times. Remember when we used to sit and talk for hours, you by the window and me in that red armchair with the bronze buttons, you would give me secret assignments to read philosophers that weren’t approved by the headmaster. I would stay in the library until very late, or read them under my covers with a flashlight like a child! They always retained a bit of your scent, smokey, like being buried deep in a pile of hay during harvest season, natural, dried and dead.
I know what you must be thinking, that I must be keeping busy with my studies, and not at bars divulging in fantasies, but my mind wanders, I will be more disciplined in the future though.
Best regards,
T. K.
The man is awake, reading this letter in a chair by the window. Red, with bronze buttons. The typewriter is empty of paper, a pile of used paper is sitting neatly next to it. He lowers the paper into his lap, his head resting on a stiff elbow, for a moment he is living in a memory.
“Timothy,” he quietly says, “my best student. So bright, young, eager to learn. It was like he feasted on ideas.” He lets go of the paper, it stays in midair for a few seconds, then disappears.
“Timothy, I almost forgot about you, with those grey blue eyes, penetrating any facade. So clean…like a glass of milk, so easily spoiled, if abandoned. You must be the one who haunts my dreams, and walks through my nightmares, like Virgil; I could have been saved by you,” collapsing deeper into the chair, eyes closed tight, “if I let it.” The typewriter has started typing again, “Your slender frame, with slender waves of hair, smooth, melting into the smooth skin of your face. The way you seemed to float, even though your shoes were practical and heavy, you just floated down, into this very armchair. Like you had just appeared, and happened to belong. And you didn’t belong, not anywhere besides my office maybe. Your notes on plato and aristotle astounded me, but of course I gave you criticism, as to not make you a large ego. An ego would poison you, your willingness to please made you successful, and liked. It must have been something to do by being raised by your mother…a hard home life it must have been. But you didn’t show it, you still showed up everyday demanding more literature, dressed in slacks and a fitting sweater, not new, but not yet old…” He trailed off, his hands acting as if the fingers could feel a sweater rubbing between them, soft with wool wire hairs.
“So…comforting.” He shook his head, as if shaking off a bad dream.
“This is silly, complete silliness, I shall think no more of him.” Getting up from the armchair, he picked up the pile of papers next to the typewriter, looked at them briefly and set them down again. He stood in front of the typewriter for a few moments, in thought, lips pursed, hand on his chin, the scratchy stubble irritating his soft hands. He sat down at the table, abruptly, purposefully. He stretched his fingers above the keys, hovering, like a pianist about to start a big piece. He started to write.
When he had finished, he leaned back into his chair and folded his hands in his lap. He took a moment to breathe, staring at the last words on the page. He had no desire to reread his work, to change any of it. He had typed methodically, at a steady balanced pace, almost as if the typewriter were writing itself. He stood up, scooted his chair back, and stepped away from the table. Leaving the last page in the typewriter, and the rest he had typed neatly in a pile on the table, he slowly moved towards the bed. His footsteps seemed softened, the room was silent. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Shoulders taunt, head looking down at his feet, he slid onto his back, arms folded across his chest. There he lay.
A knock at the door disrupted the eternal silence. It happened again. The handle turned, the door slowly creaked open. Seconds turned into eternity, as a thin, pale hand slowly appeared around the edge of the door. A head of smooth, brown curls then emerged, round grey eyes, a long straight nose, and thin pink lips peered into the room. The thin face blending into a slender neck with thin, frail shoulders holding up what seemed to be the world made the room bleak and uninhabited. Timothy’s squinting eyes took in the room, the light from the window had almost ceased to enter at all, clogged with dust and grime the window let little enter. Timothy saw the table, with the typewriter and the chair angled away from it. He entered the room, his loose brown slacks filling the silence with soft rustling of warm cloth. The door had almost swung shut when Timothy reached the far side of the table and began to inspect the typewriter. It was very old, the keys sticky, the painted letters almost worn off. He slid the piece of paper out of the typewriter and began to read. After a few moments his kind features were distorted into a terrible face, wrenched into anguish, Timothy’s eyes focus on the sight before him, a heavy wind blows the door shut, slam and a scream. Timothy runs over to the bed and kneels before the scene of warranted death, the paper is crumpled in his hot fists as sobs take place of all words.
CHAPTER TWO
Timothy rubbed his eyes underneath his wire framed glasses, they stung. The words on the page below him were all starting to blend together, fuzzy grey paper replaced aged narrative. The small light on the table was as bright as a miniature planet, glaring into the corner of his eyes. His shoulders leaned heavily over the open book in front of him, his head was weaving back and forth, the muscles in his neck unable to support it. After a few moments of a wandering conscious he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. His head leaned back slightly, he felt the pull on his stressed muscles. Besides the impeding headache onto his thoughts, his stomach felt raw and likely to revolt. He tried to concentrate on the last thing he ate, it must have been the tea and dry toast he had yesterday. Contrary to most, Timothy enjoyed simple meals and tea at any time of the day. Although he had no cream or sugar to stir in, and it was often weak for he brewed the same tea leaves multiple times , it never ceased to offer the smallest form of comfort and prestige. In Ireland his comrades were more concerned with dark barley brews, to the point where they spilled out onto the wet streets singing it to the world. Sometimes he would watch them from his third story window, their joyful words muffled by the glass clouded with grime. Timothy did not have much concern for his living situation, either. While he watched his fellow classmates enjoying themselves below his window, his face held no expression. His thoughts did not judge nor offer explanations, he merely observed them as if their behavior were something to be cataloged. A few moments and they had continued on, stumbling in the direction of the girl’s dorms.
Timothy turned his gaze from the street outside back to his open book. He still could not read any more words on the page, even though he was in the middle of a sentence. The sentence would have to wait to be finished and then thoroughly analyzed. Sighing, he pushed himself away from the table, the chair made a rough scraping sound on the unfinished wood floor. He picked up his greyed porcelain cup and peered at the tea leaves inside. They were like black chips of varnish, picked and picked imperfectly absentmindedly. He stared at his tea leaves a moment longer, he never saw anything in them. He knew some people saw their future, in a simple cup of tea, lovers or good fortune. He just looked in his cup and wondered, with no certainty about Mr. Manders, his Theology professor. He carried his cup to the cracked porcelain sink in the corner, his apartment was so small his bathroom sink doubled as the kitchen sink. His toilet sat precariously next to it, unblocked as if perched to run. His cup clinked as he set it down, the only sound he had heard for hours besides his own breathing. It never seemed quiet in his small room, his own thoughts were louder than any orchestra. After rinsing out his cup with lightly rust colored water, Timothy returned to his desk, closed his book, capped his ink bottle and neatly set his nibs in their case. He pushed his chair in, and lingered for a moment, reflecting on the neatly placed items on his desk. A history book titled The Life and Times of the Irish from 1801 to 1848, his blue notebook filled with notes, facts and dates and times, his two fountain pens that were a gift from his mother, carefully placed next to their stained nibs in the leather case. His ink well, his creased handkerchief with the fragile red embroidery, T.A.S.T. Lay crumpled next to his iron framed reading glasses, the bronze metal shone with the orange light from the street lamps outside. Slowly, his eyes searched over his objects, as if looking for something. His gaze left the table, scanning along the grains on the floor until it rested on his black bag under his coat, hanging on a large nail in the wall. He licked his lips, as if in anticipation, eyes glazed over as thoughts raced in his mind, “Should I…?” He spoke out loud in a whisper, quietly, “It is here, in my apartment. I have carried it around under wraps all day. Do I dare? I am alone, I am expecting no visitors.” He pushed in his desk chair and mechanically walked over to his bag. He picked it up, opened the top and pulled out an old red book, the corners were frayed, there was faint gold lettering on the spine. He set his bag back down with a soft thump, and turned the book over in his hands. The edges of the pages were uneven and brown, a red ribbon attached to the spine held the place of a past reader, buried heavily between the pages. He opened up to the reserved page and read a sentence, “Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.” He closed the book again, it making the sound of a muffled cough. He walked to the other side of the room and slid the book under his pillow. He was silent as he undressed, brushed his teeth, looking at himself in his spotty mirror over the sink, over and over again he stroked, stroke stroke brush brush over his teeth and gums, pink, raw flesh. He pulled a small piece of floss, rubbed it between tight spaces, tightly, watching blood drip from his top teeth into the crevices of his molars below. So red against the yellowish color his teeth, embodied in the orange tinged light from his window. At school his teeth looked transparent and blue. Here, as he swallowed his pink spit they never looked clean. He pulled his shirt over his head, averting his own gaze. To look into his own eyes meant looking at the blue circles rimmed with dark, his black pupils enlarged by the dim light. His eyes often took on grey in the cloudy afternoons, but at night they were alive with something else entirely. The orange glow gave them the menacing light of life, they peered at themselves with bright blue, rimmed with dark navy in his own face, unrecognizable. They were never so bright at school, but as he stood shirtless in the mirror, his light pinkish skin seemed to move across his chest and arms and shoulders, his eyes flickered blue and black and white. A car drove by, the dull hum of its engine lost as the bright yellow light rushing into the windows. It passed over Timothy’s body with great splashes of yellow, zig zagged up to his face. He turned his squinting eyes down to the ground, away from the window and the bright light. When he turned his head back he was looking at himself in darkness again. His skin grey and taught over his small shoulders, his biceps were small and his forearms smooth. His chest had no hair, his nipples small and spaced far apart. On his stomach rested a giant patch of dark, curly hair leading into his shorts. He reached his hands up to his head and ruffled his brown hair, they were big, noticably big, too big for his body. But they were strong and handsome, well defined knuckles, long and slender fingers. He often held them a bit curled, they looked relaxed and flexed, and when he pointed his primary finger as in a direction it was slightly bent, like his words were more important than the gesture. He stepped away from the mirror, his small frame blending in with the musky darkness of the room, he climbed into bed under his old patchwork quilt. Orange light from the window filtered over his covers, creating alien shapes. Slowly, he reached his hand underneath the pillow and felt the book. It was still there, warm underneath his head. He folded his arms across his chest, and stared at the ceiling.
Timothy awoke with the sun, the warm light rested upon his eyes, his first sight whiteness, then the rough cracks of his ceiling. He moaned lightly, stretched his arms, and curiously felt around his pillow at a hard object. He pulled out the red book, peered at it through half open eyes and set it down next to him on the bed. It took him a moment to remember what importance the book held because he had fallen asleep, late, thinking about someone else. He sat up, swing his legs over the edge, the cold floor stung his feet. He shuffled over to his nail and found his thin robe hanging underneath his wool jacket, and swung it around his back, his thin arms hung small in the large sleeves. He began to heat up water in his kettle for tea, and took out a piece of crusty brown bread for breakfast. He ate in silence, tasting the grain and hard work kneaded into his bread. His tea was weak but offered much needed warmth. After he ate, he slipped into brown corduroys and a brown sweater, he carefully placed The Life and Time of Irish History from 1801 to 1848 into his bag along with his notebook, pen case and ink bottle. He placed his glasses on his nose, hooking them around his ears, and stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket. He buttoned up his long grey coat, wrapped a wool scarf around his neck and slipped quietly out the door. At the bottom of two flights of creaky crackling stairs he opened a big, heavy oak door, just enough to slip outside without a sound. His first breath as he looked down the path he would follow to class filled his lungs with chilled early morning air, his lips felt dry. He did not wet them, instead he buried his nose in his scarf and stepped onto the cobblestones. His worn boots made soft steps that echoed between the tall houses and left marks in the thin layer of snow. All the way on his twenty minuet walk to school he just tried to breath. He breathed in the cold air, again and again and his lungs hurt, his nose hurt, his teeth hurt, his toes burned. His cheeks stung, the wind was constant and blew in off the hills. He did not see anyone on his walk, the back of a man in a hat down one of the side roads, just a shape. When he arrived at the brick building his history class was located in, he stopped for a moment and paused. His nose and cheeks and forehead were a vibrant pink, his shoulders shivered slightly. He peered into a window at the top corner of the building next to the one in front of him. It was like all the other buildings, dark inside with the shades drawn. He stood for a moment, shivering, staring at the window. Nothing moved. He hurried inside, going through the big black doors unseen.
He arrived in his classroom before anyone else, his movements echoing around the empty desks and chairs. He sat off to the side, got out his book and started to read. “…The Irish Parliament still had its dead fingers in the politics of Ireland after it was abolished, people were still persecuted–”
“Ahem.” A loud, gruff cough rang through one of Timothy’s ears and out the other. It lingered in the air, lingering propriety and caliber. Timothy closed his book with slow, deliberate movements, shifting his head slightly to peer out of his peripheral vision at the man standing behind him. He looked back down on his book, the cover a scenic image of Ireland’s elegant green hillsides, a wavy dirt road led a traveling herdsman and a few sheep toward their destination.
“I have to yet read…the book.” Timothy spoke quietly with a clear voice.
“That is fine. Come by my office this afternoon, if you would.” Timothy nodded his head, and the great presence of the man left the room whence it had came. Moments later the roomed filled with chatting students, noses still bright from the cold, lips still read. As the sound of rustling coats and books being taken out of bags, pens ready and full of ink died down, the professor entered the room. He walked in carrying a few heavy looking books, went straight to his desk at the front of the class, and without looking at his warming students began writing on the dark, smooth chalkboard behind him.
“Good morning class.” He said loudly, back to the class, hiding his writing from their curious eyes.
“Good morning Mr. McCullough.”The class chanted in unison. Except Timothy, he just waiting in silence for the view of the board to become clear. Professor McCullough turned to face the class, and rested the top of his medium frame on his knuckles which were pressed against the top of the table. Not a particularly friendly stance, Timothy thought, but gave the professor a relaxed air. Timothy did not move, waiting for the professor to speak.
“History. A dying art, a dying language, like Latin, except, unlike Latin, history cannot live.” He paused as he straightened himself.
“What I mean is, you can teach Latin, and students will remember it. But you cannot teach history, for no one remembers it. It is dead. The events have been skewed, the historians deceased and their views and ideas with them. What you read, when you read facts, when you just read facts, that is history’s death. Real history, living, breathing history is in the analysis.” He slouched a little, sighed, and looked through his thin glasses at the students of his class.
“Do you understand what I am saying?” For a moment, no one stirred.
“I think I do, sir.” Timothy spoke with confidence, it resounded around the painfully silent room.
“You mean, in my understanding, that one cannot merely read history as facts, for with each historical note, one viewpoint from an observer or historian can skew the hard facts, but we as the reader would never know, if we took everything for granted that is. So we must be critical and analytical of history.”
“Yes, thank you. That was a very clear explanation” the professor spoke , not looking at Timothy but off to the side, at nothing.
“Your name?” He spoke after a pause, looking at Timothy directly in the eyes. Shocking, really, the intensity and quickness the shabby looking professor threw his look.
“Timothy, sir, Timothy Taylor.”
“Very well, Timothy. Everyone open their books to page 12.” The professor pulled out his worn text along with a few papers he shuffled and looked through. Timothy’s look lingered on the professor, their first encounter being an unusual one for Timothy. He did not usually speak in front of strangers with such confidence, but this day which began ordinarily was showing signs of the unusual. As the professor’s voiced was drowned out by Timothy’s pressing thoughts, Timothy had a good amount of time to observe his lips moving, the skin shaped a little loosley around his skull. His lips and eyes and hair still held good color, but had the dull, moist look natives get, like the reflection of the grey sky held fast in their face. His face was rough, stubble that had not been cleared properly with a sharp razor, long sideburns that framed his soft cheekbones with coarse, dark hair. He had a top of brown, straight, flat hair. Thin strands occasionally flipped themselves over his brow and gave him a youthful, speculative look. He was tall, he had broad shoulders, and his green jacket with brown patches at the elbows made him look distinguished. Underneath he had on a dark maroon t-shirt, the collar slightly stretched from used and brown slacks. His shoes were scuffed, soles worn and laces of thick, black rope. He had the look of a professor, with the moderately put together appearance paired with a nice jacket, one could not imagine him anywhere outside of an office, with a desk and bookshelves. He wore no ring on his left hand, but no doubt he could not impress on a date. Timothy tried to imagine him at a pub, sitting in a booth with a young blond. He imagined The professor becoming very disappointed at hearing the blond speak…her words superfluous.
[This is what I have so far. Come back tomorrow for a new post, and hopefully a new 1,000 words.]
