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Am staying at my mother's paramour's house, haha. It is very hot in Santa Cruz. Bugger.
More
all_unwritten prompts, yay.
"picture on the fridge":
It was little more than a thick-veined scribble. (Years as a journalist make him think: medium, purple crayon on printer paper. Drawn by Nathaniel Doornish (6), a charmingly sticky child with blond hair. He never did understand why the editors had them put in snippets of description, but then, they were the ones paying him. On second thought, 'charmingly' was probably too bourgeoisie for the magazine he'd once written in. Blast it.) He was pretty sure there was supposed to be a face in the mess, but he was damned if he knew where. There was a line that might have been a suggestion of his own jutting chin, but it seemed that the wiggly end had frustrated Nate to the extent that the kid had simply given up and drawn over it.
JOHANNES is written down the side. Except it's spelled wrong - YOHANES, spell the clumsy letters.
He didn't even know the kid. He doesn't even like the drawing.
But, well, some things simply clear the dust from surfaces better than others. And it did soften the hard lines of his fridge, he thought, as he stuck the magnet in place.
"it came as no surprise to him that he was dead":
"Classically," said the professor, drier than good sherry, "awakening post mortem is a moment of dizziness, disorientation, and wonder; a birth, as it were, which earth-shattering event would wipe away imperfection and convection alike," (he had a fondness for rhyming), "all those messy, human, lively things ground to earth. A blank slate, if you will excuse me the cliche."
In the back of the room, someone snored quietly. He ignored it, or perhaps did not notice. Perhaps he was too old, and tired, and apathetic to any emotion but a faint and black amusement to notice.
"Thus," he went on, "we have the famous ghosts of literature - see page 109 of your textbook -" (rustle, rustle) "- opening their spectral eyes and understanding little, least of all the facts of their demise."
The professor did not believe in ghosts, but that meant nothing.
He died on that podium, as it happened. A fatal hemorrhaging of the brain; a shocking death, unexpected, sudden. It should have been all that and more. It was not.
He stood from where his body was slumped against the tome from which he was pulling his lecture, and looked down at his corpse. He wished, for a moment, that he had bothered to button his collar properly this morning. Ah well. Too late now.
In the back of the room, someone screamed.
He ought to have been amazed, he considered, looking around him at the auditorium suddenly filled with panicked students. But, well, it wasn't all that amazing to the devout student of literature, was it? No. Poetic irony was what it was; as he spoke of the ignorance of death, of course he would fall, and sleep, and wake full to the bursting with knowledge.
A pity, though, he thought before dissipating; he'd liked that theory as well as any before evidence had shot it down.
More
all_unwritten prompts, yay.
"picture on the fridge":
It was little more than a thick-veined scribble. (Years as a journalist make him think: medium, purple crayon on printer paper. Drawn by Nathaniel Doornish (6), a charmingly sticky child with blond hair. He never did understand why the editors had them put in snippets of description, but then, they were the ones paying him. On second thought, 'charmingly' was probably too bourgeoisie for the magazine he'd once written in. Blast it.) He was pretty sure there was supposed to be a face in the mess, but he was damned if he knew where. There was a line that might have been a suggestion of his own jutting chin, but it seemed that the wiggly end had frustrated Nate to the extent that the kid had simply given up and drawn over it.
JOHANNES is written down the side. Except it's spelled wrong - YOHANES, spell the clumsy letters.
He didn't even know the kid. He doesn't even like the drawing.
But, well, some things simply clear the dust from surfaces better than others. And it did soften the hard lines of his fridge, he thought, as he stuck the magnet in place.
"it came as no surprise to him that he was dead":
"Classically," said the professor, drier than good sherry, "awakening post mortem is a moment of dizziness, disorientation, and wonder; a birth, as it were, which earth-shattering event would wipe away imperfection and convection alike," (he had a fondness for rhyming), "all those messy, human, lively things ground to earth. A blank slate, if you will excuse me the cliche."
In the back of the room, someone snored quietly. He ignored it, or perhaps did not notice. Perhaps he was too old, and tired, and apathetic to any emotion but a faint and black amusement to notice.
"Thus," he went on, "we have the famous ghosts of literature - see page 109 of your textbook -" (rustle, rustle) "- opening their spectral eyes and understanding little, least of all the facts of their demise."
The professor did not believe in ghosts, but that meant nothing.
He died on that podium, as it happened. A fatal hemorrhaging of the brain; a shocking death, unexpected, sudden. It should have been all that and more. It was not.
He stood from where his body was slumped against the tome from which he was pulling his lecture, and looked down at his corpse. He wished, for a moment, that he had bothered to button his collar properly this morning. Ah well. Too late now.
In the back of the room, someone screamed.
He ought to have been amazed, he considered, looking around him at the auditorium suddenly filled with panicked students. But, well, it wasn't all that amazing to the devout student of literature, was it? No. Poetic irony was what it was; as he spoke of the ignorance of death, of course he would fall, and sleep, and wake full to the bursting with knowledge.
A pity, though, he thought before dissipating; he'd liked that theory as well as any before evidence had shot it down.