Page 16 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“I didn’t telephone you for a lecture,” said Reg.“I’ve had one of those already, and that’s more than enough for one day.”
Reg hung up.Martin didn’t usually get under his skin like that, unless something else was under his skin already.
He thought about Joel all the way home, and after he got home, still ruminating, he found one of his notebooks, and for the first time in months, he wrote a proper poem, one about a soldier marching resolutely towards oblivion.Too young to burn.He finished the first draft in twenty minutes.It wasn’tsomething, but it was “something,” which was what the chair had ordered, and it was the first tangible thing he’d managed to produce in the entire semester.Over the next hour, he revised it, titled it “Paper Soldier,” hunt-and-pecked it into his laptop, and emailed it to the chair.
That should get the irascible little monkey off his back, at least for the next ten days.
Chapter 4: The Smell of Burning
The departmental chairwas impressed with “Paper Soldier.”She was supremely unimpressed that in the nine days since Reg had sent it to her, he had not produced anything else.
“You’ve got two pages of material here,” said the chair.“You know the minimum requirements for your thesis.When I arranged this meeting ten days ago, I should not have had to stipulate that I expected you to produce more than yourself and a couple of pages.You need to write, at minimum, twenty-eight more pages to complete this thesis.Twenty-eight pages of your best work.”
“I’ve still got four months,” said Reg.
“You have so far demonstrated that in the span of four months, you are capable of writing two pages.”
“You can’t command genius,” said Reg.
“Bullshit,” said the chair.“What I foresee is you retreating into your own head and not making an appearance again until you’re dragged out kicking and screaming and submitting twenty-six pages on the deadline day.And if those twenty-six pages are substandard—and they will be if you rush them—your thesis will be rejected.”
“Look here,” said Reg.“You’re giving me a ticking-off for something I haven’t done.”
“Prove to me that you won’t,” said the chair.“Send me something new in two days.Good morning.”
It wasn’t a good morning.With the rain slamming down, there was no chance of enjoying a cigarette.Reg had an umbrella, but, as he had no idea where it was, he hauled his suit jacket over his head and sprinted towards the car park, passing through the courtyard with the fountain along the way.The fountain’s basin, filled with pelting rain, bubbled like a cauldron, and a statue sat on one of the benches.Reg stopped and looked back.
It wasn’t a statue.Sitting disturbingly still on the bench, without an umbrella and wearing only black scrubs, was Joel, head bowed as the rain hammered down.He looked so much more wrung out than he had the last time Reg had seen him, like an old, abandoned toy.
“Joel?”
Joel neither moved nor spoke.
By now, Reg’s jacket was soaked through, so he let go of it, and it slapped against his back.He gave Joel’s shoulder an experimental push.Touching him was like touching a sack full of cold, wet sand.
Joel raised his head, but his eyes were blank.
