Afflatus
By: RDV
In a voice that was becoming slow and shaky, his teacher, twenty-three, coursed through the hidden words of Wordsworth's pages, parlaying, it seemed, what the poet so perspicaciously tried to hide from the latter generation. Excluding the loll of the solitary air-conditioner of the classroom, the whole place was in distinct quietude, the class in voluntary rapt attention. Her voice was naturally soft as it stretched toward each corner, and her words, becoming plain through repetition, was absorbed with equal willingness.
He, seventeen, stared. Like any other cub led astray, he planned to scam his way through love, through fantasy, through believing in dreams. He wouldn’t find pre-slumber a peaceful lapse, nor the lectures in which he had to sit through day after fearful day. He figured that he was in love, as his concept thereof became other than it was, the very reverse of what his idealistic boyhood had explained so painstakingly before, a long time ago.
Her notes droned on, the lesson continued in its usual vein, as he paid the penalty of disturbance. She discussed the elements of love with such precision that the class couldn’t help partially grinning, partially releasing restricted gasps. He sat discovered by the pithy, witty eyes of the admired one. And the look he returned was confused, agonized, ignorant. Pick any. Once again his mind had flopped back to guilt-tripping, brow-beating its dark half for its careless daydreaming, and its main target of abuse was his sanity. Then he saw her curl her lips in erotic suggestion. He tried to smile back but not finding anything to smile about, just held his gaze down. He supposed that the modest response he just showed would propitiate him in her eyes. A renascent desire came rearing its head up. Whatever present means it could grab onto, it would sure do so, pertinently. And he would be victorious in his assumption. She would come to him.
When the class cleared up, he strode toward her table where she stashed her stuff back to her handbag. He asked her if they could talk. She would’ve indulged him on sure ground. She raked up a smile, dazzling just being there, which he took to mean as a go signal. But before he could feed on his mental entreaty, she shook her head. When before, he would take the gesture to mean a dozen different things, today it simply meant one dark thing.
Without further words, he walked away. It wasn’t the end of the road; worse than that, it was the beacon of continuance, of persisting fantasy, which, relative to his capacity, would torment him through thick and thin. At the end of the day, nothing changed; it began with hope and ended with its blatant opposite.
In a voice that was becoming slow and shaky, his teacher, twenty-three, coursed through the hidden words of Wordsworth's pages, parlaying, it seemed, what the poet so perspicaciously tried to hide from the latter generation. Excluding the loll of the solitary air-conditioner of the classroom, the whole place was in distinct quietude, the class in voluntary rapt attention. Her voice was naturally soft as it stretched toward each corner, and her words, becoming plain through repetition, was absorbed with equal willingness.
He, seventeen, stared. Like any other cub led astray, he planned to scam his way through love, through fantasy, through believing in dreams. He wouldn’t find pre-slumber a peaceful lapse, nor the lectures in which he had to sit through day after fearful day. He figured that he was in love, as his concept thereof became other than it was, the very reverse of what his idealistic boyhood had explained so painstakingly before, a long time ago.
Her notes droned on, the lesson continued in its usual vein, as he paid the penalty of disturbance. She discussed the elements of love with such precision that the class couldn’t help partially grinning, partially releasing restricted gasps. He sat discovered by the pithy, witty eyes of the admired one. And the look he returned was confused, agonized, ignorant. Pick any. Once again his mind had flopped back to guilt-tripping, brow-beating its dark half for its careless daydreaming, and its main target of abuse was his sanity. Then he saw her curl her lips in erotic suggestion. He tried to smile back but not finding anything to smile about, just held his gaze down. He supposed that the modest response he just showed would propitiate him in her eyes. A renascent desire came rearing its head up. Whatever present means it could grab onto, it would sure do so, pertinently. And he would be victorious in his assumption. She would come to him.
When the class cleared up, he strode toward her table where she stashed her stuff back to her handbag. He asked her if they could talk. She would’ve indulged him on sure ground. She raked up a smile, dazzling just being there, which he took to mean as a go signal. But before he could feed on his mental entreaty, she shook her head. When before, he would take the gesture to mean a dozen different things, today it simply meant one dark thing.
Without further words, he walked away. It wasn’t the end of the road; worse than that, it was the beacon of continuance, of persisting fantasy, which, relative to his capacity, would torment him through thick and thin. At the end of the day, nothing changed; it began with hope and ended with its blatant opposite.
posted by Ria D. at
8:54 AM
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