Chapter 8
This is tentatively Chapter 8 of my story. It describes the first half of a dream the main character has. I'm working on the second part, so that should be coming soon as well.
I couldn’t sleep. Every time I fell into a doze, I’d retreat into a recurring dream. Parts of it were pleasant and intriguing, but I also knew how it would end and I feared returning to that particular moment.
I was 19, and I was tough as nails. I also thought that I alone knew what was best for me. I felt trapped: the middle child, sandwiched between a can-do-no-wrong brainiac of an older sister and a flighty, flirty, ever-popular younger sister. I had no tangible identity, but I had every intention of getting one.
Although it was only 4 years ago, the span in maturity I had gone through in that time period made it seem like a decade or two had passed. I was a smart girl. I had seen and coveted the accolades Natalie received for her stellar academics. So, I worked hard and as early as my sophomore year at Kenyon College, a paper I wrote, “Deconstructing the Dickensian Realm,” was accepted at the Modern Language Association winter conference in Chicago. I was extremely excited and immediately made travel plans with my professor, Margaret Browne, so that I could present my paper.
It was the day before the trip when Professor Browne called me as I practiced reading my paper aloud in my dorm room. One of her relatives had fallen critically ill and she had to cancel her plans to attend the conference. I was devastated, but she suggested I go alone and was genuinely surprised when I expressed my doubt that my parents would allow it. “They let you fly from Massachusetts to Ohio every year. Why should this be different?”
To my surprise, my parents had no problem with the situation. I supposed that I had expected resistance because I felt like I was rebelling. They felt like I was simply heading down the righteous path Natalie had lain down before me.
I had always enjoyed travelling alone, but this was thrilling. Something in my mind told me this was my chance to get noticed, to make my own way on an entirely new path. I felt so mature and so much older as I walked through the corridors of the hotel, past meeting rooms where other writers like me were reading from their papers. I knew at once that I was the youngest person there. They were mostly graduate students, along with a large number of professors and a handful of undergrads.
I found the meeting place for my particular discussion group, centered on the broad theme of “Analyzing Meaning in the Victorian Era.” A wave of anxiety came over me as I saw the large number of people who had congregated for this session, but I reminded myself that I was an intelligent woman with important ideas. I stood up straight and glided towards and one of the empty seats that had been arranged in a large circle, feeling many eyes on me. I fixed a confident expression to my face and studiously ignored the growing number of people in the room.
The director of this particular discussion welcomed us and wasted no time to let us begin our readings, gesturing towards the large number of people in this group. I flipped through the program and sighed with relief to see that my paper was third to last. The first reader introduced herself-a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin (Madison), who wore a long brown peasant skirt and a fitted white T. She had many bracelets and bangles and a bandanna that circled held her wild mane of hair, whose clumped kinks gave me the impression that she had been recently de-dreadlocked. If she had been carrying a crystal ball instead of a large shoulder bag that looked to be made of hemp, I might have asked her if she saw a dark mysterious man in my future. She read with an airy, patient voice. As well as I remember her appearance, I couldn’t for the life of me recall what her paper was about.
As I finished scrutinizing her, I took the opportunity to scan the other members of the room. Most were watching the reader and others were looking down at their own papers. They were predominantly women and most had a kind of faded, unremarkable appearance that they tried to combat with a bejeweled butterfly pin on a jacket lapel, or chopsticks that protruded from a sculpted bun in one’s hair. The men were similarly common in appearance, mostly old professors sporting tweed overcoats and worn-out corduroy pants, but they paid more attention to the reader, nodding along with her more astute arguments. I felt like I was driving through a suburban residential neighborhood, glancing indifferently at the bland houses that greeted me on either side. There were no exhibitions of elegant landscaping or evidence of architectural genius among them. Then my gaze halted abruptly as if a stop sign had just emerged from behind low hanging branches, and my eyes fell upon a man whose appearance was anything but bland.
The best word to describe him was sharp. He was sharply dressed and had a shrewd look, punctuated by his pitch-black hair and pointedly angled eyebrows. He wasn’t gorgeous or even what most would call sexy, but he was stunning. He was like a strangely modern dwelling that appeared between the typical Victorians and Capes, starkly different from his neighbors but irreproachable-he was well-manicured, classy, impeccable.
He appeared to be in his early thirties. He played absently with his pen as if he was aching to take notes on what he heard, but found nothing notable enough to write down. At this point, he was no longer paying attention to our presenter, and was instead scanning the others’ faces, as I had been doing. I resisted the instinct to look away as his gaze rounded towards me. His eyes lit up for a moment as they settled on mine, and he lifted his expressive eyebrows in question. I reluctantly took my eyes away from his, not knowing how to answer his suggested query.
Tonight, I was lucky; I was able to extract myself from the dream at this point, before it got really intriguing. After tossing and turning for the next 45 minutes and willing away the unpleasant recollections the dream had unleashed, I was finally able to drop into dreamless sleep.
I couldn’t sleep. Every time I fell into a doze, I’d retreat into a recurring dream. Parts of it were pleasant and intriguing, but I also knew how it would end and I feared returning to that particular moment.
I was 19, and I was tough as nails. I also thought that I alone knew what was best for me. I felt trapped: the middle child, sandwiched between a can-do-no-wrong brainiac of an older sister and a flighty, flirty, ever-popular younger sister. I had no tangible identity, but I had every intention of getting one.
Although it was only 4 years ago, the span in maturity I had gone through in that time period made it seem like a decade or two had passed. I was a smart girl. I had seen and coveted the accolades Natalie received for her stellar academics. So, I worked hard and as early as my sophomore year at Kenyon College, a paper I wrote, “Deconstructing the Dickensian Realm,” was accepted at the Modern Language Association winter conference in Chicago. I was extremely excited and immediately made travel plans with my professor, Margaret Browne, so that I could present my paper.
It was the day before the trip when Professor Browne called me as I practiced reading my paper aloud in my dorm room. One of her relatives had fallen critically ill and she had to cancel her plans to attend the conference. I was devastated, but she suggested I go alone and was genuinely surprised when I expressed my doubt that my parents would allow it. “They let you fly from Massachusetts to Ohio every year. Why should this be different?”
To my surprise, my parents had no problem with the situation. I supposed that I had expected resistance because I felt like I was rebelling. They felt like I was simply heading down the righteous path Natalie had lain down before me.
I had always enjoyed travelling alone, but this was thrilling. Something in my mind told me this was my chance to get noticed, to make my own way on an entirely new path. I felt so mature and so much older as I walked through the corridors of the hotel, past meeting rooms where other writers like me were reading from their papers. I knew at once that I was the youngest person there. They were mostly graduate students, along with a large number of professors and a handful of undergrads.
I found the meeting place for my particular discussion group, centered on the broad theme of “Analyzing Meaning in the Victorian Era.” A wave of anxiety came over me as I saw the large number of people who had congregated for this session, but I reminded myself that I was an intelligent woman with important ideas. I stood up straight and glided towards and one of the empty seats that had been arranged in a large circle, feeling many eyes on me. I fixed a confident expression to my face and studiously ignored the growing number of people in the room.
The director of this particular discussion welcomed us and wasted no time to let us begin our readings, gesturing towards the large number of people in this group. I flipped through the program and sighed with relief to see that my paper was third to last. The first reader introduced herself-a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin (Madison), who wore a long brown peasant skirt and a fitted white T. She had many bracelets and bangles and a bandanna that circled held her wild mane of hair, whose clumped kinks gave me the impression that she had been recently de-dreadlocked. If she had been carrying a crystal ball instead of a large shoulder bag that looked to be made of hemp, I might have asked her if she saw a dark mysterious man in my future. She read with an airy, patient voice. As well as I remember her appearance, I couldn’t for the life of me recall what her paper was about.
As I finished scrutinizing her, I took the opportunity to scan the other members of the room. Most were watching the reader and others were looking down at their own papers. They were predominantly women and most had a kind of faded, unremarkable appearance that they tried to combat with a bejeweled butterfly pin on a jacket lapel, or chopsticks that protruded from a sculpted bun in one’s hair. The men were similarly common in appearance, mostly old professors sporting tweed overcoats and worn-out corduroy pants, but they paid more attention to the reader, nodding along with her more astute arguments. I felt like I was driving through a suburban residential neighborhood, glancing indifferently at the bland houses that greeted me on either side. There were no exhibitions of elegant landscaping or evidence of architectural genius among them. Then my gaze halted abruptly as if a stop sign had just emerged from behind low hanging branches, and my eyes fell upon a man whose appearance was anything but bland.
The best word to describe him was sharp. He was sharply dressed and had a shrewd look, punctuated by his pitch-black hair and pointedly angled eyebrows. He wasn’t gorgeous or even what most would call sexy, but he was stunning. He was like a strangely modern dwelling that appeared between the typical Victorians and Capes, starkly different from his neighbors but irreproachable-he was well-manicured, classy, impeccable.
He appeared to be in his early thirties. He played absently with his pen as if he was aching to take notes on what he heard, but found nothing notable enough to write down. At this point, he was no longer paying attention to our presenter, and was instead scanning the others’ faces, as I had been doing. I resisted the instinct to look away as his gaze rounded towards me. His eyes lit up for a moment as they settled on mine, and he lifted his expressive eyebrows in question. I reluctantly took my eyes away from his, not knowing how to answer his suggested query.
Tonight, I was lucky; I was able to extract myself from the dream at this point, before it got really intriguing. After tossing and turning for the next 45 minutes and willing away the unpleasant recollections the dream had unleashed, I was finally able to drop into dreamless sleep.