Story seeds for a university or high school setting.
I’ve never seen Professor Harris run out of chalk during a class. It’s like he’s got a pack that never runs out in his coat. But every time another professor comes to borrow some from him, he makes up some excuse about how he’s running low, that they’ll have to ask someone else. Pretty crazy, right? That’s what I thought until the other day. I wanted to talk to him about that paper I’d written for his 20th Century American History course; I found him just as he was leaving his office with this big, oily looking black leather book in his arms. As soon as he saw me, he started yelling at me to stay away, that I was an “Interloper, sent to destroy me” or something like that. He starts running and I chase after him. He ducks into a men’s room and I follow him in. I check all the stalls, but there’s no sign of him… except for a big chalk rectangle, like a door, drawn on the far wall. I haven’t seen him since then.
You know that weird girl over in Decker Hall, right? The one with all the buttons and patches on her jacket? I’ve never seen her fail a test. But she doesn’t ever study; I asked her roommate, her friends… they’ve never seen her spend more than a few minutes glancing over her textbooks. All they remember is her writing notes or something on her arms or hands with that Sharpie on a chain she keeps around her neck all the time. The creepy thing is, she’s never got anything written on her body the next time they see her.
Those three librarians are starting to freak me out. Ever notice how they’ve got what looks like their own sections of the library? And how they mark the stacks with their own color of sticky notes? I’ve been seeing a lot more of Ms. White’s blue notes than Mrs. Anderson’s greens or that intern Elsa’s oranges lately. In fact, Mrs. Anderson and Elsa both look like they’re in pretty bad shape, almost like they’re getting weaker.
There’s a gap in the library stacks in between 332 and 334, but don’t mention it to the librarians. They’ll get freaked out and ask you some weird questions about this Clergy thing.
Yeah, I know, I coulda walked home from the party, but it was cold…almost snowing…and I didn’t wanna hoof it. So I called the drunk van. I’m waitin’ on the corner, and I see two of the damn things go by without stopping to pick me up. It was about 3:30 in the morning when suddenly this grey van comes screaming up and pulls to a halt in front of me.
I open the door and instead of kids in there, it’s a bunch of old people all dressed in formal lookin’ clothes. The thing is…get this…they got no eyes. Nothin’, I swear! But they were all lookin’ at me. I could feel ’em.
Then the driver turns around, this big burly guy with a black moustache, and with this thick accent he says, “Don’t think so, it’s not your time.” They slam the door shut and he tears ass down the street, disappearing around the corner.
Scary thing is…I’m pretty sure I saw all those people in the back in the obituaries the next day…
Dude, you’ll never believe this — I’m doing the new, wicked hot Philosophy professor! She grabbed me after class and told me she was going to free my mind. I figured she was pulling some Matrix shit, until she grabbed me and started making out with me. I just went with it, I mean wouldn’t you?
She’s got this weird fetish, though. Every time we do it, she has to have these porn videos playing. They’ve all got the same girl in ’em; she watches ’em and then copies the tapes like they’re instruction manuals or something. Weird, but I’m not complaining.
Anyway, only reason I’m telling you this is she wants to get another guy in on this. She says it’s important — she says if we both do her this one particular way, it’ll blow our minds. So, you down?
* * *
I used to like hanging out by that old statue garden by the theater. Used to. Me and the guys went down there last week to have some beers and shoot the shit. Soon as we started opening the bottles, this freakin’ lion statue made of scrap iron turns towards us and says, “This is sacred ground, leave at once!”
We fuckin’ tore ass across campus, but Jesse got left behind. I came back to see if he got away alright, but all I found was his sweatshirt. Inside the lion statue. Torn up like it’d been chewed on by some big animal.
We’re going back next week to dismantle that fucker.
Hey man, got a question. Do you remember the old science instructor? Wild, stringy Einstein hair, dressed in a suit that was out of style when it was new?
I remember him arguing about having to put grades on the network. Stickler for paperwork. Sometimes he’d argue with the head of the science department so loud you could hear it in the cafeteria. Yeah, Mr. Schmittentin. He walked around on a cane and wheezed a lot but you wouldn’t know it when he got angry. He drove this really, really old car. From before the 30s. After a trip to the Wonderful World of Google I found out was called the Stanley Steamer. No, not the cleaning company. They made steam powered cars.
They kicked him off campus for arguing with the Dean about the physics books or something, wasn’t it? He was throwing out lots of German cuss words too. You know, you’d think after five years SOMEBODY would bother to find out what those words meant. It pissed off the Dean royally, that should be good enough. Anyway, I think his son’s gonna try for the job after Mrs. Kimball has her kid. I saw him in the Administration Building when I was there about the financial aid they were holding up. It’s like Schmittentin tripped in the Fountain of Youth or something.
He seems nice enough, but he’s definitely got his dad’s bad habits… like that thing where he wrote on his teeth with his pen, remember? And a new one. I guess when he’s bored he likes to tap his teeth together. He sounds like a damn grandfather clock and makes everybody nervous — I just about told the people to shove the aid up their asses and I’d pay my own way, and that was after just five minutes.
I swear, if I have to take any classes with him, I’m changing my major to Pre-Med or something.
Dude! Long time no see! What? No, man, I transferred. Hah. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, it’s hella jacked. Well, remember Eva? Bright lipstick, specs, thing for that chick that capped Warhol? Yeah, ReichDyke. Well, she was getting seriously pissed about this party we were having one night. See, the frats and sororities at MU had this tradition the night after midterms where we’d have this huge party all over campus and what would happen is the guys would dress up in dresses and binge on wine coolers while the girls would get football jerseys and kegs, and people would get drunk and hook up, like, more than usual. They call it ‘Dite-Night.
So there’s ReichDyke, and a few guys who don’t know her are walking up to her, asking why she’s dressed so girly, asking if they can help her out of her dress, bull like that. So she just yells at them, and I see that she’s passing out pamphlets, and I send Erin over to get one for me so I can see what it says without having to get bitched at by the Dyke. Turns out it’s all abstinence BS, saying sex is the “ultimate submission to un-fem imperialism” or whatever. So I just kind of roll my eyes, and then Erin gives me this grin so we head out to the bushes to consummate the night, you know?
Problem is, Erin’s allergic to some plant behind the bush, so we drive her to the hospital and I’m getting frustrated because we’re probably the only people other than RD who aren’t getting any. This is where it gets weird- see, I head back to my parents for the long weekend and Erin does the same with hers, and when school starts up again, everyone’s still dressing like it’s still ‘Dite-Night, and everyone’s got these weird, heavy-duty piercings and shit- lots of rings, and for whatever reason a lot of chains. I ask around a bit, see if it’s some fad- only people not decked out are me, Erin, and a few of the Physics grads. Namely, everyone who didn’t get laid that night.
Now, that’s not too bad, I’m an open-minded guy. Thing is, RD is fucking gone, but there are some of her pamphlets stuck on a tree by these chains that are just hanging off it, and the chains are red and wet. Erin thought maybe it was some of that tacky lipstick RD wore, I didn’t believe her.
What? No, man, none for months. Straight and narrow for me. Actually, I’d recommend you don’t either- STDs, pregnancy, and… well… Look, you don’t have to listen to me, right? I’ve got these pamphlets you can read all about it. Need to save yourself.
Hey man, remember that day when you and Jay blew off Math, and got into the crawlspace under the school? That was awesome, when you guys crawled under the subfloor of the band room and started to whisper “Help me” while those grade 9’s were in band. Whatever happened to those old newspapers you guys brought out… the ones that all had the same date on them, but every one had a different headline? Damn freaky, if you ask me…. every story about the same guy, but something different in every story. You think someone made those up themselves? Why would a real newspapre have printed like, 20 different headlines for the same day?
And remember that day when we all brought the duct tape to school, then taped all the legs of the chairs in the cafeteria together so it made a maze? That was HILARIOUS…. and then Criag disappearing, claiming the last thing he remembered was trying to get out of the chair maze? What a goof…. did he ever say what happened to him while he was “missing”? Hah… maybe “ALIENS” took him! HAHAHAhahahahah……….
Hmm, according to the Dewey Decimal classification system 333 is the call number for texts regarding Land Economics, right between Financial Economics and Cooperatives. I wonder if this means anything.
Did you hear about the Classics professor, what’s his name, Olivier or something? I took a really interesting class with him, Age of Constantine. Well, he spent half the lectures going on about his trips through the Mediterranean and all the different kinds of wine they produce, a real Sideways type of guy. Anyway, I heard from one of his grad students in Advanced Latin that he gets drunk on archaeological trips, and once even poured wine into an old Roman cup and started ranting in perfect classical Latin for two hours. He also said sending the guy bottles of wine from your European vacation is good way to give yourself a passing grade in his notoriously tough Latin class. I only wish I’d been able to make it to Italy while I was taking that class!