The Wisdom of The Dead
by Cody Saoyrn
(no beta; takes place sometime after the "sweaty-toothed madman" incident and before not much else.)
"Neil, I told you, it's just—"
"Just what? Just a poem?"
Neil dangled the notebook page above his head, his eyes strangely intense beneath his heavy brows. Todd, still panting from chasing Neil around the cramped dorm room, swiped at him in an attempt to rescue the scrap of paper fluttering forlornly in the aspiring dramatist's hand, but Neil nimbly darted out of reach. Rolling the sheet into a mock megaphone, he leapt onto his bed with a laugh and turned to face Todd.
"When is a poem 'just a poem?' When is a person just a person?" Todd let loose an exasperated "For God's sake!" but Neil barreled on, silencing his schoolmate with a broad sweep of his other hand. "When they are without intent, without passion, without heart. And I know—shut up—I know that you have all these traits. And that's why," he grinned, "I'm going to read your damn poem!"
Raising his hands in surrender, Todd flopped onto his own bed and kicked off his shoes. One hit the wall with a resounding thud, causing a muffled chorus of 'knock it off's to rise up around them and fade out.
"You're crazy. Where did all that even come from?"
Neil shrugged without looking up from the now slightly crumpled page.
"Maybe next time you'll just give the stupid thing to me so I won't have to try and monologue you into submission. Now shut up and let me read."
Todd gave his head a bemused shake, glancing over at Neil (who was subconsciously making his bed creak by shifting his weight back and forth, much as he would jiggle his leg if he were in a chair) as he relaxed on his own bed and laced his fingers together.
Staring at the ceiling and aimlessly playing with his hands, intertwining and untwining his fingers in time to the creaking, he began to dread Neil's reaction. It wasn't just the standard anxiety that goes with revealing an unfinished creative work, but trepidation bordering on genuine fear. Todd felt as though Neil was taking far too long to finish the poem—or was he perceiving time differently, adrenaline twisting through his veins?—there were only a few lines, it wasn't anywhere near the scale of Prufrock's ramblings, was Neil trying to find words that adequately summed up his loathing? Todd could think of a few, including some not yet in the dictionaries, but he was getting distracted and—
His fingers froze mid-twine. Suppose Neil had seen past the clunky verse to its meaning, its intent?
"Todd."
"Aagh!"
Neil chuckled and jumped down, eliciting one 'knock it off' and a 'quit it,' so he bowed theatrically before padding over to Todd's bedside, paper in hand.
"Fell asleep, did you?" Neil's tone was half amused, half sardonic, and Todd scowled good-naturedly as he sat up.
Todd eyed his schoolmate with wary anticipation. "Go ahead; make fun of me, make fun of, of it, say what you will—but get on with it!"
In unison, Neil raised an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth. He pushed Todd to one side of the bed, smoothed out part of the bed sheet, and sat.
Clearing his throat pompously, Neil held up Todd's poem with a flourish. "I shall now read 'Untitled,' by Todd Anderson.'
Todd groaned and shoved Neil, earning an elbow in the stomach for his effort. After further tussling and subsequent recovering, he anxiously resumed his protest.
"It's not even a poem, really, so you shouldn't read it out loud, it's more of a draft—notes, actually, it's just notes, not a draft, so—"
"Shut up!"
Try as he might, Todd was unable to force Neil from his perch. With a sigh, he resigned himself to a smirking rendition—no, parody—of his incomplete verse. (It probably deserves to be mocked anyway, he thought.)
Yet Neil wasn't smirking.
"Eyes of freshly turned earth,
or a robin's wing,
fresh and eager
to catch the wind.
Hair woven with the
intricacy
of winter branches
and the vitality
of summer grass.
Voice…"
Here Neil paused, though the reason was unclear.
"Voice subtle
as a cave
entered
and lit
by a god
holding a candle
over his head."
Todd, afraid to break the room-filling hush that had enveloped them, stared at Neil's back, marveling at his ability to breathe despite the suffocating silence. The silence was also oddly comforting; it meant neither of them was making fools out of themselves. Besides, if one of them were to speak up, it had better be Neil, as Todd just wasn't the sort to plunge into situations recklessly.
But what of 'carpe diem,' he could hear Mr. Keating say. Which is better, Todd asked himself, running about carpe diem-ing and getting into God knows what, or letting other people do the carpe diem-ing, especially when they're better at it anyway?
Listen to yourself, Todd's portable Mr. Keating said, you can do better than that. He listened. And he realized he wasn't part of the Dead Poets Society for nothing.
"Neiltodd—" Their voices merged, and they eyed each other with confusion.
"Um, you, you go first," Todd mumbled, looking away.
"N-no, go ahead," Neil looked down at the paper grasped in his hands. His tight grip had caused sharp creases, so he muttered under his breath and tried to smooth them out.
"Well, um." Todd stopped. What should he say? What could he say? "Uh, there's, I was thinking of another bit or so to go after that last…bit."
"Oh, really?" Neil sounded interested, but it was difficult for Todd to tell as he wouldn't raise his head, still intent on the paper before him.
"Yeah, uh, this is just off the top of my head, but, okay." Todd cleared his throat (the cough unusually loud in the suddenly tiny room) and plunged.
"Voice soft
the first leaf
of autumn
turning from
green
to
gold.
He…"
Neil was looking at him now. Keeping his eyes on the ceiling, Todd swallowed and continued to improvise.
"He is only
a youth
a poet
yet
he has the wisdom
of the dead."
As the silence gathered around the two boys again, Todd began to feel compelled to continue, even if he didn't know what to say.
"Stop." Neil quickly reached out to touch Todd's shoulder, shaking his head. "You… That's fine. It doesn't need any more." Neil's hand lingered. "Would, er, would it be all right if I guessed aloud as to, uh, the meaning of your poem?"
"Sure, whatever." Todd said quickly. The sooner this was over with the better, and they could forget about whatever this was.
"Okay then."
Neil stood up (using Todd as leverage) and strode to the center of the room, leaving the paper on Todd's bed. Hands clasped behind his back in an imitation of teachers everywhere, he began to pace back and forth.
"Well, uh, I'd just like to say that I rather liked the first two verses, especially that bit about winter branches and whatnot." Neil paused to check if Todd was actually listening, resuming only after he had visibly nodded. (He had also blushed at the compliment, a fact Neil tactfully overlooked.) "Now, let's see. The poem's clearly about a guy, but that's not a big deal as Shakespeare and Whitman and a bunch of those others did the same thing. The romance of youth and all that. The thing is, this seems to be specifically about one person."
Todd squeaked—a word choked off in its prime. Neil's eyebrows rose, but the rest of him ignored the odd outburst and pressed on.
"The third and fifth stanzas are pretty blatant, in my opinion, and quit fidgeting or I'll wallop you. The stuff about poets and the dead and a cave point to our little Dead Poets Society, because could you be any more obvious than that?" Neil's pacing turned him towards the door, and Todd took advantage of this to hit himself in the face with his pillow. As Neil turned back, Todd fumbled to get the pillow back into his arms and appear relaxed once more.
"Right. And the part about the god with a candle is particularly interesting, as it helps to narrow down the candidates. So, I have come to a conclusion." Neil did an abrupt about-face, marching over to Todd's bedside once more. "It's…"
"Mm?" Todd did his best imitation of an utterly disinterested person.
"You."
The silence that had threatened to fall once more was suddenly dissipated by a shout from the now-airborne Todd. As he tackled Neil—successfully this time—and the two of them crashed to the floor, their laughs mixed with the complaints from next door.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" Todd said breathlessly, struggling to fit Neil into a headlock. Neil laughed and effortlessly threw Todd off, rising and untangling their limbs.
"Ah, didn't someone once say I had the wisdom of the dead?"
In response, Todd pulled Neil's leg out from under him. Todd's breath whuffed out of him as Neil landed across his chest, but the battle had been won, the two soldiers entered into a truce, and they rested.
"I do know…" Neil started, breathing raggedly, as Todd stirred beneath him. "Who the poem is really about."
"Well, I figured as much," Todd retorted, unwilling to bring up the subject once more. He began to sit up, but Neil refused to let him up and he fell back with a quiet thump.
"It's about the one you love."
Some strange element in Neil's voice caused Todd to grow still. As Neil shifted his position and brought their faces closer, faint fractures slowly appeared in Todd's carefully reconstructed façade.
Brushing his lips against Todd's cheek, Neil murmured so quietly it took a few moments for Todd to understand what had been said—and by then, the dinner bell had rung and Neil was out the door.
"I won't tell a soul."