“By midnight moon I rose to walk, to ponder, thoughts yet sleeping, spilling in the dark; my wonder left my feet to wander on through memories discarded. Words I conjured for an audience of one demanded, so it seemed, my energies, a journey yet unstarted.”
She paused and looked up for the sparest of moments, and then scanned her paper again, licking her lips as she found where she had left off.
Bryan looked at his own paper, in front of him on the desk, as she continued. It was marked with an A, of course. Technically, he knew it was very good. Every word and phrase weighed for meaning and place. Every mark of punctuation double checked. Every paragraph harmonized to the contours of his message, the flow of ideas and patterns. He always got the A in English class.
But these words of hers hung in the air like warm notes of light. This was something entirely different. Something so far beyond his field of expression that he could only listen in wonder.
“…the worth of one, I see, is small, so many others light the way, and borrowed brilliance deals so dimly in the subtle sight of day. By darkness, maybe lost, my strength to shine is tapped and spent, I falter at the cost of worthlessness, this broken soul of mine.”
Dr. Walsh had returned to her desk, but the professor was smiling, watching her student in front of the class, watching the class to gauge the impact of the student’s paper. The side of her chin rested on the back of her fist, propped by her elbow, and she seemed to nod at the rhythm and shape of the sentences being read.
“..so forth to finish, small and strong, with might unmustered yet, unmastered, yet I’ll raise my song to raise the next a little more. With all the growth I get I’ll give the light that lifted me, and finally be the one who came before.”
She stopped and looked up, tentatively, hiding behind her paper. The room was still.
“Thank you, Leslie.” The professor’s words got her started, and Leslie moved quickly to her desk in the second row.
Leslie. He needed to meet Leslie.
Dr. Walsh pointed out some of the rhythmic, alliterative, and ideological patterns that strengthened Leslie’s piece. It had been a freeform assignment, the first of the term, to introduce ourselves to our Freshman English Professor. Dr. Walsh was clearly taken with the piece. So was Bryan.
It was the top of the hour and class was soon dismissed. Bryan took his time gathering his stuff while trying to listen to the discussion Leslie and the professor were having two desks away.
“I’m sorry to embarrass you that way, calling you up. I hope you didn’t mind too much…”
Brian hoisted his backpack up onto one shoulder and then hovered nearby as their discussion turned from Leslie’s paper to the class syllabus and future assignments.
“All right, well, I’ll see you both next week.” The professor nodded to Bryan–they had spoken at length after the previous class–and turned back to getting her own things together.
They each said, “Bye,” and Leslie started to turn toward the door.
“Could I, uh, could I get a copy of your paper?” Bryan’s face was hot.
“My paper?”
“Yeah. It was…it was really good.”
“Are you sure? I mean it was only a draft, it’s not really…”
“No, it was great. I want to read it again, to understand it better.”
“Well, I guess. Sure.”
“Thanks.” They both went out the door and headed down the short hallway to the outside. “I’m Bryan, by the way.”
