Deadline

“Author and Army veteran Jack Marsailles’ gripping Gulf War tale deliberately places objects and devices in places where one would not normally expect to find such things in his Middle Eastern setting to intentionally blur the lines between reality and fiction. This serves to make the reader question whether or not the events of the book are autobiographical or purely fiction invented by the soldier as a result of his traumatic experiences.”

May 8, five o’clock. That is when this damn thing is due. I have been putting off this paper for Vayan’s class all week. I now have exactly 32 hours to complete it.

Blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Discuss a work in which the author deliberately crosses the reality line to achieve an overall point, effect, or idea. The paper must be eight to ten pages, typed, double spaced. I have no idea about any of this crap because I personally think this Modern Literature class is stupid. I only took it because Rebecca asked me to take it with her.

Shit, it’s Becca’s birthday and I haven’t gotten her anything. She’s going to have my head on a platter if I don’t get her something “thoughtful and heartfelt.” I am a boyfriend, woman, not a psychic. Why can’t girls just write out a list of things they want and hand it to their boyfriends? Do they expect us to know? I suppose she wants me to read her MySpace or something and figure out “the perfect gift.” I really do not have time for this shit.

I have been typing words that mean damn near nothing for hours and I can’t find the right way to express what I’m trying to say, or, rather, I can’t find enough words to fluff this paper up and kiss Vayan’s ass at the same time. I can’t stand this man, he is so conceited and holier than thou. Becca seems to think he’s some kind of literary genius, though. She raves and raves about his class while I try to not let anyone see me play World of Warcraft on my laptop while he’s talking.

Right, Becca. I better find her a gift before our birthday dinner tonight. I should have done this days ago, but it wasn’t like the mall was going anywhere.

“You look beautiful,” I say to Becca as I open the passenger’s side door for her to get in. She’s looking pretty hot, but I’m really worried about this paper. Maybe I can get her to offer me some advice on what kind of smoke I should blow up Vayan’s ass at dinner. She seems to know his style really well.

“Thank you, love,” she says to me as she gets in. I lean in to kiss her and head around to the driver’s side.

“How has your birthday been so far?” I ask her as we drive to the restaurant. She giggles a little and rests her hand on my thigh. I always hate it when she does this because it gets in the way of my shifting.

“Wonderful! My parent’s sent me a gold bracelet in the mail. I probably won’t get it for a few days because the mailroom is always so slow, though. But it doesn’t matter because I have you to share my day with!” she says excitedly. I smile and look at her quickly. I suppose I can be a gentleman for a few hours.

As expected, my lovely girlfriend orders the most expensive thing she can think of and as we are waiting for the food to arrive, I decide it’s high time to giver her the present I snagged for her earlier. I pull it out from my pocket and hand her the small box. She takes it excitedly and opens it. I managed to hit up the mall and find these unique looking seashell earrings. I found them in under forty-five minutes to boot.

“These are so pretty, Nick!” she says. She takes them out of the box and holds them up to the light. “I think I will put them in right now!”

“I’m glad you like them, babe,” I say to her. The waiter comes back with our drinks.

“The food will be out shortly, sir,” he says to me and I nod at him. As he walks away I start talking about my paper.

“I hope they don’t take forever today,” I say.

“Why?” Becca asks me.

“Because I’ve got to finish Vayan’s paper tonight,” I tell her. She frowns a bit.

“You didn’t finish it yet? I thought you said you’d be done in time for my birthday,” she says to me.

“I tried, babe, but I just can’t seem to get down what I’m thinking in a way that I know Vayan will appreciate. I never know what that man wants,” I tell her and take a sip of my drink.

“Maybe if you paid more attention in class you would know. Doctor Vayan is a very complex thinker, Nick. He really likes to get into the heart of the book, read into every meaning, understand what the author was really trying to say. There is always a hidden message in a book if you’re open and let the writing take you where it needs to take you,” she explains to me. I couldn’t care any less about this literary babble, but I can pretend I care about Vayan and all of his hidden meanings.

“I don’t read like that, though, babe. I guess I’m just not as literarily inclined as you and Vayan.”

“He has a lot of great things to say if you’d just listen,” she tells me. Finally, our food comes.

I glance at my watch and see that it is 9:30. The birthday sex I am obligated to engage is in is about due, especially since she is already leading me up to her bedroom and must have mentioned fifteen times that her roommate is out for the night. It isn’t long before I am down to nothing but my socks and I am warning her not to be too loud. She puts her hand on my chest and pushes me away a bit.

“Wait!” she says. You have got to be kidding me.

“What?” I ask. Tick tock. Tick tock.

“I have to take out the earrings, I don’t want the shells to break,” she says as she quickly slips them out. I take a deep breath and look her in the eye.

“Are you good now?” I ask. She nods.

Before I know it, I am sitting in shorts at my computer staring at the cursor blinking at me. She is mulling around behind me. I see her putting in her earrings and I smell what must be every scent she owns being sprayed. I turn around and see her hairspraying her hair.

“Where are you going?” I ask. I turn back around and stare at the screen. I know she will be pissed we didn’t spend all night cuddling and talking about the kids she wants us to have “five or six years down the road,” but, really, I have this paper due. Deadlines are approaching, ma’am.

“I’m just going out with Andrea and Liz. They wanted to have a few birthday drinks and I figured you could finish your paper,” she tells me. Perfect.

“Oh, okay. Just don’t get too sloshed and throw up on me in your sleep or anything,” I tell her. She hits me in the back of my head playfully and sighs as she walks out her door.

“Bye, Nick,” she says as she sakes her head. I glance at the clock in the corner of my monitor. 11:08 and I am only three pages in. I sit for another fifteen minutes thinking before I start typing everything I can as fast as I can. I Google search for a few interpretations of Marseilles’ book and get four more pages done before I look at the clock again and realize that it is 3:19 in the morning. Becca still hasn’t come back to her room. I check my phone and see that I haven’t missed any texts or calls. She probably went back to Liz’s place, it’s closer to the bar they normally go to. If she doesn’t call by the time I brush my teeth and get in bed, I’ll see where she is.

I sleepily brush my teeth and get under the covers. I glance at my phone again and shoot Becca a text asking if she’s alright. I fall asleep quickly and I only wake briefly when I hear her come in. I look at the clock by the bed in my sleep daze and see that it is 4:37. I mumble something I can’t remember and go back to sleep. I feel her crawl into bed next to me sometime soon thereafter. I fall back to sleep almost immediately. Of course, I have a dream that Vayan is teaching class and asks me to present my novel about ancient cave peoples in front of Congress. God, that man is even invading my dreams.

I wake up around 10:30 the next morning only to find that Becca has already left her room. She has typed me a note in Word on my laptop to read when I wake up telling me that she will be in the library proofreading and finalizing her paper for Vayan’s class all morning. I eat a stale box of Cheez-Its as I finish fluffing up a few more pages of my paper. It’s 12:13 when I finish. I decide to email myself the paper and print it in the library so I can catch up with Becca before she hands hers in, if she hasn’t already. Maybe she can skim it and see if it will feed into Vayan’s ridiculous ego and kiss his ass sufficiently.

I find her in the library sitting next to Andrea checking her email. I sit down on the other side of her and wave at Andrea.

“Hi Nick,” she says but doesn’t look away from her computer. “Did you finish the paper?”

“Sure did,” I say. Becca looks over at me and smiles.

“Good job, baby!” she says in her patronizing tone and opens an email telling her that Bath & Body Works is having a sale. They’re always having a sale over there. She owns every product they’ve ever made.

I open my own email and double check that my file opened properly. I decide that I don’t care enough about Vayan to have Becca read it, I’m not rewriting any of it anyway. I get up to collect my paper and on my way back I decide to shamelessly promote how thoughtful and caring I am by mentioning the gift I got Becca for her birthday.

“Hey Andrea, did you see the earrings I got for Becca yesterday?” I ask her. She looks at me for a second blankly and then nods her head.

“Yeah, she saw them when we went out,” Becca says to me. Andrea nods and keeps working on whatever she’s doing. I look over at Becca and notice she’s not wearing the earrings.

“Where are the shell earrings I gave you, babe, you’re not wearing them?”

“Oh, I took them out last night because they were starting to hurt my ears and I think I left them in Liz’s car,” she tells me. Not getting the back patting I think I deserve, I decide to just staple the paper and deliver it to Vayan’s office and forget about it.

“I’m going to hand this in,” I tell them.

“Well, okay,” Becca replied. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

I head over to Vayan’s office and find that someone else is already in there with him. I wait about fifteen minutes before I go in and sit down in front of him.

“Welcome, Mr. Davis,” he says to me. “Nice to see you in my office finally.”

“I’m just here handing in the paper,” I tell him. He takes it from me and starts glancing through it.

“You have some good ideas and insights in here, Davis. You really could have excelled if you had applied yourself more instead of playing Orc Land or whatever it’s called during my class. You’ve got some real ability,” he says to me and sets the paper down. He removes his glasses and I look at him for a minute before I respond.

“I never really thought I could analyze things like you can, Professor.” He grins and bit and chuckles.

“That’s why I’m a professor and you’re a student,” he says. I stand up and start to walk out. Before I am out the door, he calls my name.

“Mr. Davis!” he yells. I stop and turn around.

“I am a level 21 mage, myself,” he says.

It is when I start to laugh that I notice a pair of seashell earrings sitting in the lefthand corner of his desk.