Random Prompts #1 - Foul Latinist
As I wrote in the latest post, I decided to use random prompts every week to write very short stories — as an exercise. For this first one, I had only a couple of days because I wanted to finish it before Sunday… but I did it. The prompt was foul latinist.
He was sitting on an expensive Victorian armchair, in a living room elegantly adorned with analogous furniture. The warm dim light, coming from a couple of abatjours, could make the lounge appear like a tearoom from another century. The huge amount of books, cluttered on every square inch, instead made it look more like an antique bookshop.
Sitting in front of the policeman, on a sofa covered with questionable green cushions, was the householder, Edmund Hawthorne. His sparse, white hair, his checkered light blue shirt matched with the brown waistcoat, and more than all his thick glasses, certainly could make him a more than believable librarian… but his fate, coupled with his passion for History, made him a university professor.
His eyes, two isles in a sea of wrinkles, were unsettled by the man’s words. He put his teacup down on the coffee table, between two piles of books, and cleared his throat: “I understand I might appear to you as an old fool, Mister… McQuay. You are at least fifty years younger than me, and I can totally relate your feelings.” He adjusted his round glasses. “By the way, I insist that you should give credit to this… gramps, how I think your generation would call me.”
Officer McQuay’s temples were pulsating so strong that his vision was almost blurring. He never had much patience, but this man was a real challenge. Now he could fully understand why his damn colleagues insisted why he should respond to the call at the Police Station. It’s a good ol’ professor, he has some ups and downs sometimes. You’ll like him. Yeah, that’s what they said… while laughing. Pricks.
“Ok Professor, let’s make a recap.” He opened the notebook again. “You’ve been harassed several times by an unidentified person—”
“What do you mean unidentified? I’ve been telling you all evening—”
“I mean,” he raised his voice, “that you’ve never seen him or her directly, so there hasn’t been any visual identification. Is this correct?”
The professor grumbled something and moved on the sofa for a few moments, then finally yielded and relaxed his shoulders. He nodded reluctantly, “Correct.”
“Good. You claim that in the past few weeks there had been various incidents. In order… Oh God, where do I start?… Yes, here. On March Four, one of the University janitors called you because at least two hundred iron nails had been spread behind a tire of your car.”
“Yes,” exclaimed the Professor, “that was an obvious act of vandalism. But it was so clunky that Mr. Slade believed that I had dropped a whole box of nails.”
“And… could that be true?” asked the officer with inquiring eyes.
“You tell me why I should bring a whole carton of nails at work!” answered Mr. Hawthorne with even a more questioning look.
“Maybe you forgot,” replied the other, but before the old man could reply, he changed the subject. “You also said that eggs had been thrown agains your car — multiple times.”
“Quite correct. Right here in my driveway, I’ve found my car covered with broken eggs. The detail you missed is that the eggs were rotten. Badly.”
“Are there any witnesses of those happenings? At the University, there’s the janitor, but here…”
“No, alas.” The Professor took a deep breath. “My neighbors did not see a thing. I don’t understand though: usually it is a quite crowded road… It must have been him, as with those kids…”
“Please sir, do not jump to conclusions. As you said, you never saw the guilty. About the episode you mentioned,” he stopped to flip through the pages, “Ah yes. I report the exact words: ‘When returning home, I came across a pack of very impolite teenagers busy to chop my hedge with big cutters. As soon they saw my shocked and upset face, they ran away.’ Is this correct too?”
“It is correct indeed” nodded the Professor. “Luckily, I recognized one of the young rascals because I often met him and his mother at the grocery store, when he was still a child. Mrs. Williams’ been very kind and understanding when I called her. It was then that my suspicions became true!”
“Sir, let’s make a step back. You claim that the lady reported that,” he read twice the name, “Professor Walter Braight had paid her son to commit that act of vandalism.” He took a pause and looked Mr. Hawthorne in the eyes. The old man nodded with a slightly upset look.
The officer continued: “Please note that we didn’t hear Mrs. Williams yet, so everything you told us will be cross-referenced with her answers.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” He nodded again.
“Well, tell me again: why would Professor Braight would be so mischievous towards you? This is a very inadeguate behavior for a– eighty-two years old man.”
Prof. Hawthorne adjusted himself in the sofa, which seemed getting more and more uncomfortable, other than horribly colored. “Walter Braight hasn’t always been like this. I’ve known him for twenty years at least, and he’s always been recognized as a master in his study – Latin language and Roman culture.” The academic took a pause, while the policeman wrote down ‘latin doc’.
“We’ve never been even competitors in any way… until a couple of months ago, when the University named a lecture hall after me. I think he took it personally… a lot. Since we are the two eldest teachers in there, our names were the most likely ones.” He took another pause. “Now, I can’t tell you for certain –at all–, but I’d bet that he really wanted that acknowledgment. I can understand him.”
“Did he ever talk to you after that day?”
Hawthorne laughed, “Ah! He didn’t even look me in the eyes once! As I said, I could relate to that. After many published works, renowned among the scholars all around the globe, I appreciate the gift from the University. God only knows how many sacrifices cost us those studies. Walter has been a teacher for five or four years before my arrival, and probably he expected the honor should have been granted to himself. I think he is just… prideful, that’s all.”
“His reputation would suggest he should be enough grown-up to avoid such distasteful pranks.”
“Certainly. But there is some evidence I –we– can’t ignore. Apart the kind Mrs. Williams, I already told you that I’ve found something else. The inscription on the dog’s bowl is quite indicative — and questionable.”
“Well, anyone could have done it…”
“It was in Latin, for the Lord’s sake! It said ‘Nimis alte surrexisti. Longa erit tua ruina’ It means ‘You have risen too high. Your fall will be long’. Come on, young man, is it this a message anyone could leave?”
“I said you should not jump—” started the officer.
“What I said is clearly something you haven’t been listening to! And does this fact sound so normal to your ears? I used to keep the dog’s bowl in the front porch, a very few meters from where you’re sitting. Is it ordinary to approach so much a private property?”
“As I already told you, unfortunately there are no security cameras pointed at your house…”
“Cameras! Cameras, cameras, cameras! Do we depend on technology so much? Can one use his own brain?” shouted the Professor.
“Sir, I ask you to calm down, you’re not helping.” McQuay stared at him gravely –and mostly pissed–, but waited patiently that the elder man stopped moving on that strange sofa. The headache was still there, embracing him.
“What… I want to point out,” continued the teacher, “is that I started to worry when the threats started to concern Bungle.”
“Who is…?”
“My dog, of course! About a week ago, someone made that awful inscription in the bowl. Then, tonight, someone hidden in the trees behind the house was calling him. They wanted to kidnap the poor beast… or worse!”
“I’ve already checked the woods, and I can assure you that no one was there.”
“Of course! Half an hour must have passed, and that old fellow must have seen you arrive from a mile!”
McQuay closed the notebook and exhaled sharply. “Mister Hawthorne, I totally understand your point of view.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well,” his hand squeezing the notepad, “even if you don’t believe me, I’ll do my duty and I’ll stay around tonight. Every now and then, I’ll pass here and take a look. Don’t worry if you see my flashlight from the windows, ok?”
“All right, officer. I… I thank you for your time, but I ask you one more time to think out of the box.”
The man giggled, but didn’t reply. The headache didn’t need to be fed. He approached the entrance, and finally said, “Professor, you and Bungle can make sweet dreams. I’ll be around, and you can call the 911 if you need — but please, don’t.” He whispered the last part, while touching his hat.
“Good night, agent McQuay.” Mr. Hawthorne closed the door and shook his head. That silly man didn’t take him seriously. He could only hope for the best.
It was almost ten o’clock… he had missed dinner with all that hustle and bustle! He wisely decided to eat just a couple of biscuits with an infusion, then went to the bathroom. When he got out, while changing into a more comfortable pajama, heard a thud. A light noise, very delicate, but unmistakable. He strained his hears, and after a few moments there was another one. It came from the bath window. Someone was throwing cobbles on the glass. He had let the light on, misleading anyone outside to believe he was still in the bathroom.
That had been a long day, and the evening was particularly stressful. He couldn’t handle it anymore. The Professor opened the window and yelled to the darkness, “For God’s sake, Braight, when will you stop?”
After a few moments of silence, something moved among the fallen leaves, and a weird noise slowly started to grow. At first it was a guttural sound, a growl of an animal, but it quickly turned in an almost hysterical laugh. Then an old voice shouted, “Numquam!”. Never. Another screeching laugh, and then a couple of running footsteps in the darkness, towards the woods.
At last, there was a third thud, much farther but also much louder than the others. Then, silence.
After a minute, when the intruder seemed to be gone, a final, feeble, noise sprouted: a whine full of pain.
Hawthorne wanted to smile, but he was too tired. Instead, he reached for the telephone in the living room and pressed tree buttons. After a couple of minutes, he grabbed a flashlight and went out from the kitchen back door. It was a starry night, but there was no moon. No wonder that silly man couldn’t see a thing. He approached the trees and found the Latin professor, unnaturally twisted in the underwood, lying on the underwood. He had a contusion on the forehead, but he seemed fine.
“Stay still, foolish old man. An ambulance is coming. I hope you’ve learned a lesson… despite our age.” He turned around, but after a few steps couldn’t help himself but adding, “Remember: sapientia vincit iram.” Wisdom overcomes wrath.
As I wrote in the latest post, I decided to use random prompts every week to write very short stories — as an exercise. For this first one, I had only a couple of days because I wanted to finish it before Sunday… but I did it. The prompt was foul latinist.
He was sitting on an expensive Victorian armchair, in a living room elegantly adorned with analogous furniture. The warm dim light, coming from a couple of abatjours, could make the lounge appear like a tearoom from another century. The huge amount of books, cluttered on every square inch, instead made it look more like an antique bookshop.