Having no reply John put the belt on the seat next to him then drove on feeling as if some kind of unwanted destiny had been foisted upon him.
I have seen you in a dream, he pecked on the virtual keyboard of his smart phone. This image my father would call a hermeneutic construct... an element of my mind that has become a separate entity. That’s what I would say if a potential employer asked me to explain but really you are Posterity, the goddess who embodies a future that will one day only dimly remember my foggy existence.
John was sitting in the window ledge of the second floor of his apartment, Cottage 16, upper level. Each structure of faculty housing was a four-story faux adobe building encompassing two two-story apartments with one big room per floor. The first level had a stove and refrigerator along the wall. John kept a table and desk on the kitchen level with only a low-riding Japanese platform bed against the north wall of the upper chamber. Through the large window of either room a red rock plateau could be seen in the distance. There was enough room in the recessed window to sit comfortably and write while the desert loomed beyond.
History is the world we live in, he wrote. It’s not a thing of the past, neither, in human terms, is it separate from the person witnessing it. History is not an external object that can be weighed or quantified by any extant measurements. Indeed, the study of history is much like the contradictory study of the human brain: a gooey mass that contains incongruous images which are affected by tides of emotions, instincts, indecipherable reminders and faulty memories, all of these elements being continually changed by time, trauma, interpretation, and, ultimately, by death.
I will always remember, Goddess Posterity, the moment of our meeting but I will most likely forget the day of the week, your face, the guard dog’s warm nose on my fingers. I’ll forget the exact words you spoke, what I replied. If I tell someone else about you they will misremember what I have told them. And when, and if, we ever speak of you at some future date (which will also be forgotten) our conversation will make you over yet again.
So history for human beings, rather than one undeniable unfolding of existence, is instead millions, billions, trillions of warped and faded images that morph into self-contradictions, false promises and unlikely convictions...
John wrote for hours that morning. When the battery icon turned into a red outline he plugged the cell phone charger into a wall socket. The wire being too short to reach the window, he had to sit on the blond bamboo floor with his back against the east wall; there he continued the one-way conversation with his private god.
He was reminded of his long-suffering father sitting in much the same pose in his deathbed. This memory contained the story he would tell Posterity, intended for the history professors’ tribunal to overhear.
The faculty at NUSW, he wrote in a footnote to Posterity, is asking for me to prove myself in concrete terms. This expectation is pandemic in the impossible study of what has gone before. To prove myself is like asking for proof of existence. I think therefore I cannot know. I can discuss with you because I know that you are the embodiment of that which transcends me. This is the only way for me to make certain that I am trying my best to come as close as possible to truth and not making up complex arguments for my faculty-tribesmen to be impressed by.
Just as he had finished this last sentence the doorbell rang.
John bounded down the stairs to his front door. There he stopped and smiled — welcoming the unknown.
“Who’s there?”
6
“It’s Carlinda Elmsford, Professor Woman.”
The door was yellow with a ceramic green knob. John saw the colors quite clearly wondering if would he would have been able to describe them before this moment. His digital thesis, desert accident and dream — all combined with the gangling girl thinker’s voice making his awareness more focused, present.
“Come on up,” he said, pressing the release for the downstairs entrance.
In the outer hall he listened as the double transfer student came up the first flight of stairs, then rounded the corner.
She wore a long blue dress that varied in hues, blending from light to dark. Her straw sandals had been replaced by black fabric dancer’s shoes. Her handsome features were permanent like those of a marble sculpture but her expression was flighty, almost frightened, liable to change at any moment.
“Miss Elmsford,” John said.
“I read the syllabus and course outline on the university website,” she said blinking as if he were a bright light.
“The entire document?”
“Yes.”
“That’s more than half the class will ever do.”
The sophomore tried to smile but only managed a halfhearted frown.
“I wanted to talk to you about it,” she said.
“My office hours are on the top of each section of the outline and syllabus. Tuesdays and Thursdays, four to six.”
He wasn’t sure why he was keeping her at the threshold. Maybe there was something about her and doorways... them and doorways.
“I know,” she said. “I would have waited but I might have to drop the course and the deadline is this Thursday, before the class meets.”
“Why would you have to drop?”
“The personal history assignments.”
“I see,” John said and then paused a moment. “Do you ever stop and wonder about the point in time you’re in right that moment?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
“That whatever I’m doing will go echoing down the ages and maybe make a serial killer or help find a cure for cancer. Whatever I’m doing has to be important otherwise it just wouldn’t be.”
Hearing these words John stepped back, gesturing for her to enter.
She considered a moment then stepped through.
“Let’s sit at the table,” John offered.
Carlinda went to the table, pulled out a chair and sat with much more grace than she had previously exhibited.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Water, please. This is a nice place. Are all the faculty apartments the same?”
“If they have a family with more than four members they get the whole building,” he said. “I think that’s right. It might be three but I’m pretty sure it’s four. My upstairs is one big room but they have prefabricated partitions to subdivide.”
He took a twelve-ounce bottle of Nouvelle spring water from his refrigerator, thought of getting his guest a glass then decided against the nicety.
He sat on the chair that abutted Carlinda’s side of the table. Her crystalline eyes opened wide for a moment, then squinted as she studied him.
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“With the personal history requirement for Decon.” John liked the word the floater had used to describe his course.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s too much... I mean even when I just think about it I get a headache.”
The first assignment in IDHD, Decon, was to take five steps toward creating a preliminary draft of the personal history document. He’d see what assignments arose from the work the students had done at the halfway mark, but the final personal history document (FPHD) would count for at least half of the student’s grade. The FPHD requested that:
... each student create a series of personal histories.