UnHolyPimpHand
Not LitShark
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2010
- Posts
- 539
Another new school year, the same ol’ shit.
The words seemed to laugh back at Professor Kyle McDrowery atop the unblemished composition book, dated 2022. What was there to write about, anymore? Everyone had settled into a constant state of defensiveness—looking after themselves, losing track of everything else. It was like the whole world had been circumcised of conflict, there were no stories left to tell. There were no corners left to cut.
If only the goddamn Bengals had been able to muster up the sack to beat the spread—Kyle had seen himself, on the beach in Costa Rica, sipping rum drinks and smoking a joint. He could surely summon up the muse, with a limitless ocean of Latina pussy to inspire him and the relaxed ideal of Pura Vida echoing through his existence.
This wasn’t that world.
In this world, the Rams had covered and Kyle was in debt beyond his means without a clear escape plan. “Dead Man Walking.” Three more words in the book. He was like a toddler learning the alphabet again. What the fuck was he even writing?
Long gone were the prosperous aughts, the double zero years, when one couldn’t pass the doorstep of a bookshop or drug store without glimpsing the idealized “Romance” covers of his past hits. Love, sex, romance. Real life heat, real friction, transported across time and space to flood settings heretofore unexplored.
But the here and now was 2022, and people barely touched one another if they could avoid it. Where was the conflict in that? Kyle couldn’t say.
He tossed the composition book across the messy space of his office, crowded from corner to corner with unsorted files, tucked into cardboard boxes with labels like “drunken bullshit,” “maybe bullshit?” “real shit,” and “horseshit.” The composition book easily cleared the ocean of shit, to shatter the one piece of adornment that Kyle actually cared about. His “Promising Young Author” award from aught eight. He rushed over to rehang the broken frame.
He was supposed to write the next Great American Novel, now he was going to be a footnote in the school paper: “Untenured Professor Gunned Down Under Mysterious Circumstances.” Some undergrad would probably win something inane for comparing his blood to the ocean.
Everyone always compared pools of blood to the ocean.
Both things we can’t see the other side of.
Kyle retrieved the bottle of Maker’s Mark Bourbon, filling his coffee mug with ¾ liquor. He topped himself off with fresh coffee from the teacher’s lounge before dragging himself to his “Introduction to Creative Writing” class. Where he would endeavor to teach children who knew nothing—that which cannot be taught.
Most were already seated as he wrote his name in tall letters on the dry erase board: K Y L E.
“Hello, good morning, buenos dias. My name is Kyle. You will all call me Kyle and I will call you by your first names. The TA should be handing out your syllabi now.”
Katie… the Teacher’s Assistant. Currently a grad student, working toward her MFA in Literature—dooming her to a life of teaching and other forms of “can’t do.”
Kyle had fucked her as an undergraduate, but he wasn’t proud of it.
He’d underestimated Katie’s determination and overall intelligence. Most lit majors faded off and never reappeared again. Katie had made a name for himself, and now he was a slave to her expectations. A slave of two masters. Job from the bible hadn’t suffered as much as Kyle did, teaching intro to creative writing.
He took a long sip of luke-warm, coffee flavored bourbon.
“So… you’re all here to learn how to write. Bad news, though…” another long sip, “writing is a lot like sex. Everyone thinks they’re the best to ever do it—but most have no clue what the fuck they’re doing.
“If you’re one of those who has no clue what you’re doing, I will tell you so. You will argue, rationalize, bargain, et cetera. But the facts are the facts. If you haven’t got it, I can’t teach it. Everyone can write—but only a select few are writers. Who brought something to read? Let’s see who has the guts?”
Katie began meandering the rows of the arena classroom, looking for volunteers to read some amateur fiction under very real and obvious pressure.
Fuck… Undergrads were looking younger and younger… it made him feel slightly guilty for being attracted to these young women. Sure, they were all over eighteen—but they looked more like kids every year.
Was this what it felt like to grow old?
The words seemed to laugh back at Professor Kyle McDrowery atop the unblemished composition book, dated 2022. What was there to write about, anymore? Everyone had settled into a constant state of defensiveness—looking after themselves, losing track of everything else. It was like the whole world had been circumcised of conflict, there were no stories left to tell. There were no corners left to cut.
If only the goddamn Bengals had been able to muster up the sack to beat the spread—Kyle had seen himself, on the beach in Costa Rica, sipping rum drinks and smoking a joint. He could surely summon up the muse, with a limitless ocean of Latina pussy to inspire him and the relaxed ideal of Pura Vida echoing through his existence.
This wasn’t that world.
In this world, the Rams had covered and Kyle was in debt beyond his means without a clear escape plan. “Dead Man Walking.” Three more words in the book. He was like a toddler learning the alphabet again. What the fuck was he even writing?
Long gone were the prosperous aughts, the double zero years, when one couldn’t pass the doorstep of a bookshop or drug store without glimpsing the idealized “Romance” covers of his past hits. Love, sex, romance. Real life heat, real friction, transported across time and space to flood settings heretofore unexplored.
But the here and now was 2022, and people barely touched one another if they could avoid it. Where was the conflict in that? Kyle couldn’t say.
He tossed the composition book across the messy space of his office, crowded from corner to corner with unsorted files, tucked into cardboard boxes with labels like “drunken bullshit,” “maybe bullshit?” “real shit,” and “horseshit.” The composition book easily cleared the ocean of shit, to shatter the one piece of adornment that Kyle actually cared about. His “Promising Young Author” award from aught eight. He rushed over to rehang the broken frame.
He was supposed to write the next Great American Novel, now he was going to be a footnote in the school paper: “Untenured Professor Gunned Down Under Mysterious Circumstances.” Some undergrad would probably win something inane for comparing his blood to the ocean.
Everyone always compared pools of blood to the ocean.
Both things we can’t see the other side of.
Kyle retrieved the bottle of Maker’s Mark Bourbon, filling his coffee mug with ¾ liquor. He topped himself off with fresh coffee from the teacher’s lounge before dragging himself to his “Introduction to Creative Writing” class. Where he would endeavor to teach children who knew nothing—that which cannot be taught.
Most were already seated as he wrote his name in tall letters on the dry erase board: K Y L E.
“Hello, good morning, buenos dias. My name is Kyle. You will all call me Kyle and I will call you by your first names. The TA should be handing out your syllabi now.”
Katie… the Teacher’s Assistant. Currently a grad student, working toward her MFA in Literature—dooming her to a life of teaching and other forms of “can’t do.”
Kyle had fucked her as an undergraduate, but he wasn’t proud of it.
He’d underestimated Katie’s determination and overall intelligence. Most lit majors faded off and never reappeared again. Katie had made a name for himself, and now he was a slave to her expectations. A slave of two masters. Job from the bible hadn’t suffered as much as Kyle did, teaching intro to creative writing.
He took a long sip of luke-warm, coffee flavored bourbon.
“So… you’re all here to learn how to write. Bad news, though…” another long sip, “writing is a lot like sex. Everyone thinks they’re the best to ever do it—but most have no clue what the fuck they’re doing.
“If you’re one of those who has no clue what you’re doing, I will tell you so. You will argue, rationalize, bargain, et cetera. But the facts are the facts. If you haven’t got it, I can’t teach it. Everyone can write—but only a select few are writers. Who brought something to read? Let’s see who has the guts?”
Katie began meandering the rows of the arena classroom, looking for volunteers to read some amateur fiction under very real and obvious pressure.
Fuck… Undergrads were looking younger and younger… it made him feel slightly guilty for being attracted to these young women. Sure, they were all over eighteen—but they looked more like kids every year.
Was this what it felt like to grow old?
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