Anthem's Fall

Chapter Forty Four

Ryan rose from his seat. "We should write what you want to read—your own words regurgitated—or you'll fail us. I think I get your message." He picked up his backpack and exited the room, pausing as the office door shut behind him. For a moment he considered turning around and berating Professor Hilton for his unjust grading system. But he quickly thought better of it. Best not to further anger a man who held complete qualitative sway over his entire grade. Instead, Ryan turned down the hall and made his way past the rows of spotless glass displays and out of the building. He walked along the sidewalk toward his dorm, the grassy tree-lined quad on one side, and the busy street on the other. Overhead, the late afternoon was punctuated with broad clouds rimmed with the warm light of sunset. Here and there the high-rises of Midtown peeked between the roofs of nearby buildings.

Ryan kicked through a scattering of leaves as he sent Kristen a text: Meeting with professor went exactly as expected. His thoughts were exhausted and bleak as he swiped his keycard to enter the dorm. Flagging sunlight streamed through the windows of his room as Ryan tossed his belongings onto the floor and switched on his laptop. He allowed his shoulders to sink into his chair, and he glanced around the concrete dorm room he called home. The limited floor space not taken up by the desk and narrow bed was scattered with a hodgepodge of clutter. Ryan slouched over and picked up some library books, stacking them into a pile by his desk. A few were overdue. He gathered all of the dirty clothes and slid open the closet door, dropping them into an already overflowing hamper.

The closet was its own calamity of disorganization. Ryan had only been living here since August, and he wondered how it was possible that so much stuff had already accumulated. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe, scanning the heaps for anything that could be thrown away. Most of the contents were winter clothes that had not yet come into season and pairs of rarely worn shoes. A few clean shirts still hung on hangers. He would hold off on laundry until the weekend.

Ryan turned wearily from the closet and flopped down on his bed, bouncing lightly on the squeaking springs. Professor Hilton had pitched him over the edge of frustration, so for the time being Ryan allowed himself a break from thinking about grades. He strained his arm out to the stack of books on his desk and ran his finger over the spines, pulling out a weathered copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The library cellophane wrapped around its cover was crinkled and worn with age.

Propping pillows behind his head and resting the book against his chest, Ryan slowly surrendered to the narrative as dusk took hold of the world outside his window. He turned page after page, and his mind ambled out of time and place as he engrossed himself in the strange tale. Although Ryan may have been in the warmth of his dorm room, his imagination was in a disconsolate and gloomy nineteenth-century Europe. With each passing page, Ryan's eyelids grew heavier, and he began to doze. With half-opened eyes, Victor Frankenstein's voice echoed in his mind.

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being in the lifeless thing that lay at my feet . . . 

Ryan started, his head nodding briefly. The sleepiness felt euphoric in its serenity, and his eyes grew heavy once again as he continued.

. . . It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs . . .