Sarah Daly |
Against the black
I have more fervour
than you in all the splendour of that place,
against the blackness
and the stark grey
I have more light; –H.D.
She could breathe again.
No more slamming doors, no more stomping feet, no more shouts of recognition by overcaffeinated students. It was after eight, and the humanities building was finally deserted. Her tiny, spartan office, with its walls of exposed cinderblock, had felt claustrophobic all day.
For it was midsummer and unusually hot. The air conditioning was intermittent and unreliable. The students had been lethargic and uninspired, and her colleagues had sniped at each other during their departmental meeting.
However, she knew that she should be thankful to have her own office at all. To have this instructorship, at all.
Still, she yearned to stretch her legs. Despite having a pile of papers to grade, she decided to go for a run. Then, she could come back, eat, and finish. She felt a surge of almost illicit happiness as she quickly changed into her running gear, grabbed her keys, locked the door, and exited the building.
The evening air was cool and cleansing. A soft breeze brushed the back of her neck, drying the perspiration which had gathered.
She started with a slow walk down the winding path from central campus. Built atop a hill, the small liberal arts college had a sparse, utilitarian look to it, unlike the wealthier, more opulent institutions in the area. But she tried not to be jealous, only thankful.
When she reached the road, she crossed and then jogged to the recreational trail. The dirt path was bordered by woods and dropped off rather precipitously into a ravine. Though the trail was slightly muddy, she moved easily under the shaded canopy of leaves, soothed by the solitude. Perhaps she had been over-anxious that day, she reflected. It was the heat, making her irritable; surely she was not becoming over-sensitive, like her burnt-out and bitter colleagues. Surely, she would not become them. She would be the teacher that the students looked up to, admired for her patience and clarity. Yes, she would need to make an effort to check her temper, to think of other people. Perhaps if she volunteered to advise the Students Committee..
Lost in thought, she almost didn’t see the biker racing towards her. She quickly moved to the right edge of the trail, close to the ravine, before he passed her. Wearing dark sunglasses and a helmet, he was intent, focused on his rapid pedaling. She gave a little wave, but he was quickly gone. She moved along, still hugging the right side of the trail as she looked for other bikers (they often traveled in packs in her experience), but the trail was deserted. Well, it was late, she thought, she would only go to the bench and then turn around. She didn’t like the trail after dark, and if she went to the bench, she would get a good two miles in before turning around.
But now, she was sweating. The air felt heavy and oppressive. The euphoria which sometimes descended upon her while running, eluded her, and her steps became slower, clunkier. The biker’s presence had disrupted her sense of peace. It had irritated her, and there was no reason why it should have. She tried to shake it off, but instead, there was a tightening sensation in her chest, and she mentally berated herself for her weakness, her lack of stamina. It wasn’t that warm out, anymore, she thought. She shouldn’t be having this much difficulty…
Suddenly, her foot slipped. The edge of the trail collapsed, and her leg slid downwards. She frantically tried to regain her balance, but, instead, fell sideways and tumbled downwards towards the creek, her shoulder bearing the brunt of the fall.
For a minute, she felt light-headed and disorientated. Her leg was twisted beneath her. A sharp spasm shot through her foot and then dissipated as she lay by the creek bank.
She was all right, she must be, she thought. She took a fall, that was all. She would get up.
Her body felt heavy, wet, and filthy, with mud streaked down her arms and legs. She took a deep breath over and over. “One, two, three, and stand,” her mother’s words echoed in her head. Slowly, she drew herself up. She felt okay. She was. The hill was slippery, but she half crawled, half jumped back onto the trail.
Good. It could have been worse, she thought. She could have lost consciousness, broken her leg, severed an artery…But, she must go back to her office, take care of this before it got worse. She took a step and then two. On the third step, a sharp pain gripped her ankle and then disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Her stomach lurched. “Shit,” she exclaimed. She tested the foot with another step and then another. It seemed to hurt every few steps, the pain flickering and then vanishing. She rolled down her sock, to get a better look. No bruising, no swelling. Tentatively, she flexed and then rotated the foot. Some pain, but it had nearly full range of motion. Not broken, she thought, only sprained.
Shit, though, double shit. She walked everywhere; her feet were her transportation. She would have to pay for taxis, maybe even a trip to the doctor. She felt woozy, wished she had brought some water. Or a phone. But no, there was no one to call anyway. No one to even pick her up. And she didn’t need an ambulance. It was only a quarter, maybe a half mile back to her office. She could get some ice, rest, elevate it. Enough that she could make it to the bus stop, get back to her apartment, where she would be able to rest. She had no classes to teach the next day; she could probably work from home without anybody noticing.
Such a plan gave her a measure of relief. She took a few pain-free steps and then cringed. Mind over matter, she thought. Pain could be overcome in her mind. She visualized a beach, lovely and white. She tried to steady her breathing.
It didn’t help. And her mind only raced from anxiety with each painful step. Bills, doctors, time off, being stranded on this trail….such thoughts whirled in her head.
Though she was going slowly, she glimpsed, far ahead, the entrance of the trail, and the road beyond it. Some relief came to her, but also anger.
If she hadn’t needed to spend so long grading, if she weren’t so overwhelmed by mediocre students, she could have come out earlier when there were people around, people who could have possibly assisted her. If she were able to teach upper-level seminars that only had ten or twelve students, how much easier her life would be! But she was always falling behind in grading and risking poor student evaluations.
And, still, she hadn’t yet finished all of her grading. An endless number of poorly composed papers. The students had had to select one side of a bullshit issue (should the penny be removed from circulation?) and defend their argument. Yes it should, no it shouldn’t, over and over, each essay five pages long with poorly formatted citations, sketchy references, typos, grammatical errors, no topic sentences…it was hell, hell, over and over. But she had to follow the assigned textbook. If only she could design her own class, her own essay topics, she would change so much, have students revise each other’s work, workshop…
But no, she was trapped, and she could write an essay on it. How I Sprained My Ankle, being stupid, running along the edge of the trail, and the trail crumbled and I fell and twisted my ankle like a klutz. “Stop it,” she said aloud to herself. Such pessimism would do no good, not now. She was almost at the road. But she was now dragging her ankle, walking even more slowly.
The light was now fading by the minute. There were fireflies about. She thought of how she had once caught them in the backyard, as a child, and she tried to hang onto the memory. But try as she might, she could not escape the fact that she was a grown adult, alone.
Finally, she reached the road.
And then there was a car speeding towards her, and she was only halfway across. It was accelerating…accelerating…she took a flying leap and threw herself onto the pavement, stumbling and falling and scraping her palms and arms on the rough cement.
The car whooshed by and then silence fell. “Fuck you,” she whispered, groaning. She lay on the side of the road, looking at the path ahead of her. She had never realized that it was so steep and poorly lit. There was only one street light, which cast a dim glow on the cement beneath it. Help, she thought, almost hysterically, that’s what I need.
She crawled on her hands and knees, her palms stinging; there were bits of gravel and dirt in them. The campus infirmary was closed. Besides, it was even farther away than her office.
She slowly stood and began limping along the cement path. It had only been an hour since she had walked down, masterfully, carelessly, reveling in her temporary freedom and here she was alone, injured.
And the shoulder that she had fallen on was now spasming quite painfully, and she couldn’t swing her arm to help compensate for the stiffness of her leg.
Nobody would notice that she was gone. It was a blessing, she argued to herself, she could stay home tomorrow, put her feet up…she laughed bitterly. Since the divorce, she had avoided being home, being alone. She practically camped out in her office, as uncomfortable as it was, because it was better than waiting and wondering.
If she hadn’t divorced him, he would be worried right now, waiting, checking the clock, and then deciding to come out looking for her. He would chide her for not taking her phone, maybe even berate her, but only to cover his relief and anxiety regarding her disappearance…After he would give her ibuprofen and ice and then drive her to the Urgent Care the next day if she were still in pain…
A bell in the distance clanged one…two…three…Terribly it reminded her of how long she had been struggling. It was not at all late, but the air felt chill, almost cold on her skin, though she was sweating profusely. And she had passed no one; it was a Tuesday evening, the library was closed, the students must be in their dorms or downtown, partying, the rest of the faculty gone home. Only she was left, alone, the sole person on this campus.
She liked to be alone, she had shouted to him in an argument once. He had been frustrated by how cold and distant she was, how she had spent long hours on the computer, typing research essays that would never be published or scrolling through dense articles, taking notes for classes she would never be able to teach. Their relationship had deteriorated to the point that she wondered why she had ever married this handsome, improbable man…it had been a type of fever dream, so to speak, an intense infatuation which had resulted in a marriage that devolved into screaming matches and criticism.
And she had gotten this job and had left him, thinking that she could start over, be that student again, who had flown across the country to attend college in a new state and had thrived and done well and had had such a promising future…
But it had not been like that. She was poor and isolated and overworked, yet under-stimulated. She had desperately submitted and submitted and could never get grants or publications or the faculty jobs she had yearned for. She had thought that if she had worked hard enough, lived in poverty long enough, then it would be almost guaranteed; not given for nothing, but for some suitable amount of hard work and determination. But now she is a middle-aged woman, limping along, scraped and bruised in a too-tight neon jogging outfit, crawling at times, when she could not bear the weight on her ankle anymore.
The stars were coming out as she crested the final hill. When she spotted the humanities building, she nearly wept in relief…she struggled on and on and when she reached the door, she collapsed and saw nothing but darkness.