What Passing Bells - Part 3

But he doesn't.


Something makes him pick up the book a few days later, still damp and sticky, and read the poems again. Most of these he remembers from his childhood, along with the poetry of other authors, but all from the early twentieth century, and all of them English. He remembers his dad poring over them, especially Owens', like a Rabbi with a Torah. Searching for meaning. Reading and rereading late into the night, pounding away on his antique typewriter before handing it off to his mother to type up on a computer. Dad was always searching for meaning, until he wasn't. Until he found it at the end of a gun when Wil was fourteen. Sitting in front of his computer at two in the morning, playing online, far past his bedtime, hearing the shot ring out and the hard thump of his father falling to the floor. He still can't get the sound of that gunshot out of his mind and can't stand to be around guns. Can't forget the sound of his mother screaming or the sight of the clean up.


He also hasn't been able to read any poetry since, much less Wilfred Owens'.


So what possessed me to take this damn class? He thinks as he sets the collected works down, its pages torn and frayed but still readable, a lingering smell of mildew surrounding it. They're not even that great. And I haven't thought about this in years.

But he does read them, and they mean far less than he thought they would. So much less that he can't imagine what his father saw in them, can't see how they drew him towards a teaching career and towards a specialty in them. What led him to stay up late at night and clang away on that old typewriter, writing papers on poems that no one ever reads anymore. The poetry of programming is so much more meaningful, and so much more useful. Far more than the ramblings of a twenty-something from a hundred years ago. Wil knows that the work he does will truly affect the world and not just end up in a book that no one buys unless they're forced.

But he does read through them once and they pass through his memory like sand through a sieve, but somehow he manages to pass the exam and then the class is on to another writer. Another one that's not so familiar.

***

“Yukio Mishima.”

“Yu-what?”

“I know right? I've never heard of him either. I don't know how to spell it though. . .”

“What's the class and the professor's name?”

She's wearing tweed again, but he's pretty sure it's a different outfit. Maybe that's a fashion statement now? Not that he'd know, sitting in front of a computer all day. Suddenly he's very self-conscious about his ratty jeans and Mass Effect t-shirt.

“Um. . . 20^th Century Lit. with Daltry?”

“Holy crap, I'm not even going to try and pronounce this one, but we have it in stock. Are You gonna ask to borrow it again?”

“Ha, no. Sorry I was having kind of a shitty day the other day, I didn't mean to be rude.”

“Yeah right, that was nothing. You should see some of the jerks we get in here. The Asians are the worst. The don't wannna pay for anything.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How about you, Wil, is $15.78 gonna be to much for ya today?”

“Hey, you remembered my name too!”

“Yeah, the weird poet name. Hard to forget.” She smiles at him and it looks a little odd with her small mouth and big eyes, but it's endearing. Suddenly he's paying much more attention to what's going on. “I know you'll say you remember mine too, but I've got a name tag, so that's cheating.”

“No, I do though! Auggy, right?”

“Ha, yeah, a likely guess.”

And he smiles at her and it's kind of goofy with his big grin in a face full of freckles and unkempt hair falling over his forehead and his eyebrows. But she likes it.

“Hey, actually, I just remembered I have that last book with me too. Can I trade it in for credit?”

“Sure, as long as it's in OK shape. It's not water damaged, is it?”

“Um. . . maybe.” He pulls it from his satchel and several pages fall out as he lays it on the counter, the binding finally haven given up the ghost and let loose. “Yeah. . .”

“I told you to buy an umbrella! Here.” She pulls an umbrella from the little bin they keep by the register for impulse buys when it rains. “It's only ten bucks and it'll mean you get some credit for all your future books. Besides, it's gonna rain again today.”

“And how do you--”

“Hey! Remember last time? Now pay up.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“And wait til you see the blue flashing lights.”

“I know, I know. Hey, are you doing any--”

“Don't slide yet! The arrows aren't flashing, are they?”

“No.”

“Oh, and I like that Thai place on Liberty. They're open late tonight. Eight o'clock okay?”

“Wait--”

She smiles. “You can slide your card now.”

And he smiles too.