Professor Allottedness and I sure had some battles over the story I'd written, on the spot, earlier in the writing class. Yes, she was impressed that I did it in one sitting, but she was rather annoyed by the mode of writing it contained. I was in the front of the class when I asked her with polite irritation to elaborate.
"The God of your story - ," she said, "is as paranoid as all the characters in your story. Your God," she continued, "is just another petty phobic without a sense of direction, ever on the lookout for a usurper to cling to." Growing agitated, she moved forward, "I think you are one of those people that hear voices because you print the sheet music for it every day."
"So what if it is so? So what if I am as you say?" I defended myself against the whole room and nothing would stop me. I didn't know if it was vertigo or anger that made the world blur and spin as I spoke.
"Professor," I continued, "I felt the weight of your criticisms as I wrote it, and that made me stressed and made me say all those things. The net result is a stressed text about stressed people and God help me if stress and claustrophobia is not the impression it produces."
"Alex," she said, looking at me, giving the signal for my execution to someone behind the back of the class, "I know why you write all the time. You know what they'll do if you stop." She looked to the aliens that I couldn't see, in between us. Then she looked at the class, and whispered a word. Looking in front of and behind me and in every direction, her rapid head motions made me feel my center of gravity shift quickly and I probably looked uneasy. "You are just a catcher for the other forces. But don't worry," she said, "Such a catcher am I, as well. You might even learn to see them"
After a few minutes I steadied myself, and she did as well, but now both of our eyes were moving from side to side like REM. We were inhabiting a simultaneous dream - a dream deferred until just now. Our bodies were steady at the front of the room because if we moved we knew we would feel an electric psychosomatic shock, and our eyes were unsettled for the exact opposite reason. I look at it like this: If you catch an image for long enough, as the Buddhists say, that image will start on fire, and the fire will spread and return to you as hot as ever. I don't know if I'm a Buddhist but I have that same fear.
We were young then, she 25 and I 22. I don't know if she was ever really a professor but she had the same authority of one in her own realm of being, and when the terrible earthquakes started I knew that we had always been living in the real world and that before we'd just been jittery with respect to a static universe that didn't really exist. A few years after the earthquakes I found her at another university away from the fault lines and I showed her some stories I'd written. I tried to write down everything that happened there and I probably missed some things but I wasn't taking notes all the time and I don't expect it to be quite right. I apologize in advance for the inaccuracy and thank you for my patience, Please don't separate the hemispheres of my brain or absolve my eventual killers or anything otherwise drastic - drastic action is not yet called for.
We were in the new room with all new faces but our eyes moved around as quickly as before and the alarm bells that we always heard were especially loud and yelling, she rose for a moment above the volumes.
"They were all part of it, Alex."
"The class?"
"And the others in the room. We never should have end our allegiance there; it was a strategic nightmare. Imagine what we could have prevented. The earthquakes, the typhoons, the invasions, the decay, the cognitive governments of unlimited power."
"But all that's over now, and we need to --"
"That time we spent apart was just a frail illusion, Alex, a psychological vestige of the horrible things we saw. We are still in the room. You can never leave it no matter how far you think you are from it."
"And you thought my story was bad, Professor. What you said was my whole point. God is a paranoid schizophrenic in a paranoid schizophrenic -."
"Alex, your story was dreadful, for plenty of reasons, but that's ancient history now. We need to act now. That's all over now. You were knocked out for all of 10 days, Alex. 10 days has felt like as many years to you, and you can only experience those 10 days through the images they implanted in you, and you will never be able to sort through it all. You don't know it but if you torture one of these bats you can't see in the room, you will produce a wine finer than any on Earth. You prefer the red bats, I prefer the white bats. You can't see the bats but you can drink of them all the same."
"But if I was knocked out, how could I experience anything? Is this a deliberate psychological gambit on the part of the other beings, a repression of memory on my part, or was I just unconscious?"
"If I told you the answer you wouldn't even be able to comprehend."
All the whirling stopped and there was Sarah looking for once with a calmness, not submitting or furtive, but simply allowing the world to happen. I finally noticed her black flowing hair. I know she looked good but that's the only thing that had ever mattered about her appearance and it was finally melting into her personality.
"Sarah. How long was I daydreaming."
And I knew I was back in the classroom.
"10 minutes. Now, as I was saying, Alex, Tolstoy, your hero, kept his insights to the images and logic, Alex. He knew that language needed to be invisible. If he wanted a microcosm, he would write both levels and lay it bare for the readers. He would write both about the Napoleonic wars and the death of simplicity. We would give us both the naivete of 19th-century Russian patriotism and Pyotr Rostov. And he would stop there, for metaphors can only go so far. If we have to question whether or not you really meant 'intangible' or 'invisible' on page 50,..."
"Let the satellites that watch over us shoot me down if that wasn't completely accurate, Professor."
"Such a kidder you are. I am as well, Alex, and so I have an appreciation for your wit."
"The God of your story - ," she said, "is as paranoid as all the characters in your story. Your God," she continued, "is just another petty phobic without a sense of direction, ever on the lookout for a usurper to cling to." Growing agitated, she moved forward, "I think you are one of those people that hear voices because you print the sheet music for it every day."
"So what if it is so? So what if I am as you say?" I defended myself against the whole room and nothing would stop me. I didn't know if it was vertigo or anger that made the world blur and spin as I spoke.
"Professor," I continued, "I felt the weight of your criticisms as I wrote it, and that made me stressed and made me say all those things. The net result is a stressed text about stressed people and God help me if stress and claustrophobia is not the impression it produces."
"Alex," she said, looking at me, giving the signal for my execution to someone behind the back of the class, "I know why you write all the time. You know what they'll do if you stop." She looked to the aliens that I couldn't see, in between us. Then she looked at the class, and whispered a word. Looking in front of and behind me and in every direction, her rapid head motions made me feel my center of gravity shift quickly and I probably looked uneasy. "You are just a catcher for the other forces. But don't worry," she said, "Such a catcher am I, as well. You might even learn to see them"
After a few minutes I steadied myself, and she did as well, but now both of our eyes were moving from side to side like REM. We were inhabiting a simultaneous dream - a dream deferred until just now. Our bodies were steady at the front of the room because if we moved we knew we would feel an electric psychosomatic shock, and our eyes were unsettled for the exact opposite reason. I look at it like this: If you catch an image for long enough, as the Buddhists say, that image will start on fire, and the fire will spread and return to you as hot as ever. I don't know if I'm a Buddhist but I have that same fear.
We were young then, she 25 and I 22. I don't know if she was ever really a professor but she had the same authority of one in her own realm of being, and when the terrible earthquakes started I knew that we had always been living in the real world and that before we'd just been jittery with respect to a static universe that didn't really exist. A few years after the earthquakes I found her at another university away from the fault lines and I showed her some stories I'd written. I tried to write down everything that happened there and I probably missed some things but I wasn't taking notes all the time and I don't expect it to be quite right. I apologize in advance for the inaccuracy and thank you for my patience, Please don't separate the hemispheres of my brain or absolve my eventual killers or anything otherwise drastic - drastic action is not yet called for.
We were in the new room with all new faces but our eyes moved around as quickly as before and the alarm bells that we always heard were especially loud and yelling, she rose for a moment above the volumes.
"They were all part of it, Alex."
"The class?"
"And the others in the room. We never should have end our allegiance there; it was a strategic nightmare. Imagine what we could have prevented. The earthquakes, the typhoons, the invasions, the decay, the cognitive governments of unlimited power."
"But all that's over now, and we need to --"
"That time we spent apart was just a frail illusion, Alex, a psychological vestige of the horrible things we saw. We are still in the room. You can never leave it no matter how far you think you are from it."
"And you thought my story was bad, Professor. What you said was my whole point. God is a paranoid schizophrenic in a paranoid schizophrenic -."
"Alex, your story was dreadful, for plenty of reasons, but that's ancient history now. We need to act now. That's all over now. You were knocked out for all of 10 days, Alex. 10 days has felt like as many years to you, and you can only experience those 10 days through the images they implanted in you, and you will never be able to sort through it all. You don't know it but if you torture one of these bats you can't see in the room, you will produce a wine finer than any on Earth. You prefer the red bats, I prefer the white bats. You can't see the bats but you can drink of them all the same."
"But if I was knocked out, how could I experience anything? Is this a deliberate psychological gambit on the part of the other beings, a repression of memory on my part, or was I just unconscious?"
"If I told you the answer you wouldn't even be able to comprehend."
All the whirling stopped and there was Sarah looking for once with a calmness, not submitting or furtive, but simply allowing the world to happen. I finally noticed her black flowing hair. I know she looked good but that's the only thing that had ever mattered about her appearance and it was finally melting into her personality.
"Sarah. How long was I daydreaming."
And I knew I was back in the classroom.
"10 minutes. Now, as I was saying, Alex, Tolstoy, your hero, kept his insights to the images and logic, Alex. He knew that language needed to be invisible. If he wanted a microcosm, he would write both levels and lay it bare for the readers. He would write both about the Napoleonic wars and the death of simplicity. We would give us both the naivete of 19th-century Russian patriotism and Pyotr Rostov. And he would stop there, for metaphors can only go so far. If we have to question whether or not you really meant 'intangible' or 'invisible' on page 50,..."
"Let the satellites that watch over us shoot me down if that wasn't completely accurate, Professor."
"Such a kidder you are. I am as well, Alex, and so I have an appreciation for your wit."
Phillip K. Dick homage, with some nods to Tolstoy. Not fantastic, but kind of interesting as an exploratory, insane piece.
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