Chapter 3

Night - 2

The next day, I made it to school on time. Passing the teacher's lounge, I waved at Lilia, who stood prepping for class. Then, I poured myself some tea. She smiled, however, her eyes didn't follow her mouth. She returned to her papers. I put the mug to my lips. Blew steam. And I turned around for the door. At the entrance, however, she cut me off. 

"Onu, the tea is only for teachers," she asserted. 

"It'd be a shame to waste it," I said. 

"Just remember for next time." 

I slugged it, lightly burning my throat. At least I had a warm substance inside. 

Outside the classroom windows, the day was as grim as the last. Streaks of water dragged down the roof, walls, glass. Drafts slipped through the thin windows and doorway. The candles flickered. Today, I sat as a student. From an open seat in the second to last row, I looked out at the rain. 

The class, called "Movements in Literature", was taught by the dashing professor Rowan Olivero. He wore a three-piece blue suit, dark trousers, and had a confident black and grey moustache. He'd assured me that I'd catch their regimen within a week or two. 

At my orientation, he'd introduced himself with the line, "I can't wait to hear some of that Southern guile." I didn't quite understand what he meant by this phrase. Did it imply people from the South were clever, tricky? He said it in a positive way, I debated my qualms. But as an older gentleman, it seemed like he'd known others from my homeland, maybe referring to past exploits, interactions, or potentially, friendships. Still, it confounded me. I found myself studying him more than listening to his lecture. And as the class dragged on, fatigue crept over me. The nightmares had stripped me of a decent sleep cycle, and the feverish state ended only when we began packing our belongings to leave for the day.

After class, he approached my desk and handed me a carmine-colored, leatherbound book. Its musk carried the odor of an untouched chamber. Its pages wore an off-white fade. The edition had to have been centuries old. The tome was entitled, The Outsider.

"We began a few weeks ago, so you'll have to catch up," he told me after class. "The protagonist has an interesting background. You'll like it. He lives away from home, and then something grave happens to him. Many things can be taken from this experience. One, the separation of the self when in a foreign land. Another, the corner of existentialism and the loss of faith."

I thanked him, and glanced at the book, its title, and the author's note, which wrote about a man from a nation that was part of the North, yet lived in a nation that was once part of the South. The author had also lived through duplicity; he was from the North but lived in the South. As I looked from the book, around the classroom, and back down to the first page, I knew that this wasn't a coincidence.

"Do you normally teach this book first?" I asked him, piercing.

"No, I have a rotating list of ideological theories--modern, existentialist, post-modern, metamodern," the professor tugged at his thick mustache as he spoke, but didn't break eye contact. "I'll even go back to the romantics, why not." 

"Yes, but also why? Why teach this kind of literary spectrum?"

"Good question. There's that southern wit. I'd answer by asking you a question: Can you reframe this in the context of a class discussion?"

"In other words, you're asking me to save it because you have things to do."

He burst, two enormous heaves of laughter, pointed his finger at me, and walked away. 

As I exited the grounds, at the front steps, I saw Phoebe. She may or may not have seen me, but she departed the moment I reached the same vicinity.

Dusk fell and a ghastly sky stretched overhead. At the riverside, normally, I crossed to the right bank, avoiding the several waterways that branched into canals and led into the city's depths. The sky tightened to a small slice as I continued my commute. The main waterway bent around a steep, rugged rock structure and between the academy and Charles's apartment, four canals ran perpendicular to the river. On this cliffside, the city had thrust nets over several precarious boulders to provide a semblance of protection from an unfortunate accident. The acme rose out of sight from where I stood. It was hidden from plain view.

Across the water, light spilled from the windows of a bar. It invaded the sad decay of monotony. Curiosity alone pulled me toward the bar. At home, I had nothing to do except read, have supper, and log my notes. Approaching the bar, a sign dangled overhead: The Seafarer. It was carved into the shape of a wooden helm. To my knowledge, there was neither a sea nor seamen in the North. My studies, however, were fraught with the generalized objectivity of books. 

Music and commotion greeted me at the door. Contrabass plunked over yelling and glassware. This was the first music I'd heard since my arrival, and it set the backdrop to two brawling patrons. The crowd paid no attention to the entertainment. One man threw a reckless right hook at the other. He dodged the blow. Then, he lunged at the other man, knocking him off balance. The two of them stumbled backward into another who pushed them upright. Scanning the room, I circumvented the affair to find an unoccupied bar stool. The barman surveyed the scene with contempt.

"Fucking hell. Raoul, sorry to lean on you, but can you get rid of 'em?" he yelled.

A hulking man, one who'd sat at the end of the bar with a drink, turned from his seat. His long stringy hair flowed over his shoulders. Removing a woven band from his arm, he tied his hair into a ponytail. Then, he stood and towered over the two combatants. They froze. In a swift movement, he grabbed both by their collars and dragged them outside. The door clapped behind him. 

"Pretty common occurrence?" I asked the barman.

He didn't respond. Instead, he walked around the bar until he had a full view of the front windows, and then, peered at the space created by the conflict. Finally, he circled behind the bar with a fatigued air, scrunching his face, leaning and resting both hands on a space near the glassware. I decided that either he was distracted by this scene or chose to ignore me– he certainly wasn't going to answer.

"Do you have any dark?" I asked.

"Only light. Only light in the North," he replied.

"I'll have one, then," he said.

He immediately popped open a pear-shaped bottle, poured a drink into a thimble-sized glass. Then, he slammed it in front of me, liquid sloshing over the brim. Expecting some show of remorse, I glanced up at him, but he'd moved away already. Contempt passed my eyes, looking at the ring of liquid around the glass.

He came back and said, "That'll be six."

"I'm staying for a bit."

The establishment was nondescript, balmy, dim. Boisterous clientele clad to each other in heavy conversation. Wood panels covered the ceiling. The floor was concrete, cracked, and chipped. Placed at each corner, nook, and ledge, candles provided light. A raised circular stage held an old man with a contrabass. The rhythm was his own, asynchronous with its surroundings. The seafarer wasn't much, but it was a step. 

I drank the first glass and signaled for another, but as I raised my hand, the acerbic aftertaste overcame me, and a mix between a hiccup and a burp exited. With a second cup, I swung around to watch the contrabass player. I examined his dry, wrinkled, battered hands. A slight euphoria arose from the alcohol, music, and the sight of his thumbs. I slurped the second drink. It descended much easier than the first, and I turned back to the bar.

"How much then?" I said once I got his attention.

"12," he grunted.

"Hey," I said, handing him the money. "Do you know of anything else to do around here?"

His nose wrinkled, and he swiped the coins off the counter without a word. 

I left the bar and stepped into the cold night. As if realms apart, the silence strangled the chatter. Each step became more audible than the last, as life drifted further away.

I crossed over a small, stone-carved bridge that looped over a canal. From the crown, I saw another in the distance. Under lantern light, figures traversed to the other side. In black hooded robes, they moved in silence like blackbirds in the night sky. On closer look, beneath their hoods, masks covered their faces. White with slits for the eyes and nose, each mask differed slightly. This confirmed to me that they were, in fact, human.

This fright sobered me. I ducked from sight until they had crossed the bridge and gone in between buildings. I picked up my pace, brisk air quelling the hot flash until my apartment. I climbed the stairs to the top floor, and shut the door behind me, standing for a moment in relative safety.

In my notebook, I wrote the following notes:

*Charles:

*Phoebe:

*Louise:

_____________________________________________________________________________

*Lilia:

*Vincent:

*Rowan: Plures interrogationes

____________________________________________________________________________

*Bald barman:

*Raoul: