A gift-fic for Codapup on tumblr, and a chance to multiship like a champ!

I was under finals stress when I wrote this last year. You can tell.

The Colour Blue

Go back to school, they'd said.

It'll be good for your career, they'd said.

Well it was bad for his wallet but Alfred F. Jones was no quitter, and if the machining company he worked for was willing to pay for him to take courses and upgrade his certificate to a Degree in Engineering, who was he to complain? He hadn't been out of school for too long- maybe four years after the two he'd spent getting that tradesman's ticket after high school. Yes he'd said that was the last time he'd step into a classroom, but-

"As we say in my country: non."

Non, Alfred didn't regret coming back.

"It is extremely important to remember that as a student of literature," he really should have though, I mean his professor was so French. "No matter how opposed we may be to the thoughts and ideas expressed on the page, we must be able to face these problems logically and with grace." Mousey blond beard, fashionably wrinkled blue blazer, missing tie and novel in hand, the man looked like a confused poet who'd wandered into a Parisian café and had somehow wound up in a California English Classroom.

"I do not care that you do not like poetry." His accent was so thick that usually, like right now, he had to slow down his words and use his hands like a conductor to bob and swing in time with his words. "What I care about is that you can tell me why you do not like it, what negative aspects jump out at you, and how you translate this dislike beyond its aesthetic limitations into practical discourse." He wasn't the kind of professor who just stood at the lectern and droned on and on and on at his night course, which, with a running time of six-thirty to nine-thirty twice a week, was what this course counted as.

"Therefore, what Monsieur Vargas has said is completely incorrect and utterly beside the point, and irrelevant for this medium of discussion." How the hell could a grown man from the stereotypically floweriest place on earth make bouncing on his toes and swinging his fingers look like a commanding gesture? Alfred should have been doodling Fairy-Francis on his notebook, not the "Why What How" the professor had just outlined. "Alfred, sil-vous-plait, have you anything to add? You seem to be scribbling furiously at this late hour?"

Uuuh…

"Add, you mean like, uh…" Oh god now he had those blue eyes and that slanted pink smile to deal with, sitting up in his chair and curling his fingers tight around his pen. Um, well, uh… He looked down at the book of poetry in his hand and, err, he-

"Lovino has made a blunt opinion, yes, but can you see a way that we can salvage his argument? Is there any merit behind his criticism of 'The Man with the Blue Guitar' as 'a stupid piece of excrement which makes no sense'?" Uuuuh…

Alfred's eyes fell to the Why What How on his page again and he swallowed the nervous laugh that kept bubbling up when he tried thinking fast with those clear blue eyes on him. Why did the professor always like to call on him?

"Y-Yeah, I guess… I mean, I didn't like it either." Why. "It was confusing, like:" What. "You said last class that Wallace Stevens had a language of colour, so the blue is important." How. "But we don't know what that symbol actually means, and it's not really available to us without going through anthologies of his work online: it's another step that if we didn't have the internet would be almost impossible to take."

"Could we not just go to the library?" Please please please don't do that it wasn't fair to have the professor glide across the lecture hall's dirty grey floor and stand there, arms folded and hands gesturing slowly. "They have those in America, no?"

"Yeah but what if you're from a small town?" Alfred choked, he could argue his way out of a bar-fight or a foul on the basketball court, but damn was it hard to try and evade the professor's jabs. "Like, where I grew up we had a really small library, all old books, what if they didn't have that one with his colour chart in it? And if it's not a chart it's a whole book: I gotta read a whole big book about poetry to understand one page-long poem? After waiting three weeks for them to ship it out to me? It's irrelevant at that point."

"Irrelevant!" Oh shit, shouldn't have said that to the poetry pro- "As we say in my country!" Professor Bonnefoy had both hands in the air now, one still holding his copy of Wallace Stevens, the other pointing at the ceiling like he was holding a gun. "Excellent!"

…What?

Oh god, blushing, no blushing, come on man he was too cool for this shit.

"That is exactly what I want to see from the rest of you! Bravo, Alfred, bravo!" The professor could be condescending, but he could be excitable and make those tip-toe steps look so light and easy, like Jean Kelly had handed his dancing shoes to the Frenchman after giving his last performance. Bonnefoy reached the lectern and slammed down his copy for the book with a loud boom, freeing up both hands for wide and emphatic gestures.

"Ground your argument! Take it from this abstract, useless body: a book of wood pulp and plastic, and make it something real! Something in your life!" He wasn't bullshitting them, he meant what he said and when you saw that kind of passion flushing a man's face… "I know most of us here are in English, but! You, Alfred, you are an Engineering Major, Kiku you are an animator-" He remembered Alfred's major… "Why? Why!"

Bonnefoy raised one hand again and snapped his fingers, looking for attention when Alfred couldn't understand why everyone else wasn't already hanging off his enthusiasm.

"Why would you wait three weeks for a big heavy, boring book about poetry and poetic form and language and structure, read the entire thing, so you could understand one word in a poem you didn't even have to read? Why? Why would we do this? What purpose does this serve?" Before Alfred was ready for it his professor caught him with his blue eyes and that eager smile again, and he wanted to vanish under his desk. "Finish your argument, Alfred: yours and Lovino's, but make it your own! Why?"

"I wouldn't?"

"You wouldn't?"

"Unless you wanted me to-" NO NO NO NOT WHAT HE MEANT- "I- I- mean-!"

"Unless I wanted him to! You see? That is a brilliant argument! Thank you, Alfred!" No- but-! "Unless presented with sufficient external motivation such as a higher grade in this course or my own personal respect for him, Alfred is telling us that this poem is irrelevant in his life, incomprehensible to someone who does not have a month to spend on decoding a single word, and ultimately inconsequential in his life." That was… harsh.

"THAT is a layered argument!" Let him die, let him die, it was nine-twenty-two, only three more minutes until they were dismissed. "That is what I want to see in your papers come next week: take the abstract and wrestle it to the ground!" Three more minutes of watching Bonnefoy grapple with an imaginary person, those lively hands clawing the air before they changed to a gathering motion and brought whatever it was up to caress by his face. "And then comfort and exalt that opinion, that theory, until under your gentle menstruations and gratuitous research it rises up like Apollo in the Dawn." Apollo, huh? Alfred was pretty sure why his brain pulled the next trick on him, but he could have sworn Bonnefoy opened his eyes and was looking at him, not the other, slightly younger crowd of students sitting around him.

But then those blue eyes flickered over to the clock, so he must have been mistaken.

"That is what I expect for this assignment, and that marks the end of tonight's lecture. Bon soir, everyone! Bon soir, Alfred! Until Thursday, oui?"

"R-Right…" Good evening?

More like good-get-your-ass-to-the-library-for-a-book-on-Wallace- Stevens…

I hated my course on Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. I hated it. I hated every moment of it because to be honest I had a really REALLY bad prof for it.

Professor Francis is based on the best of my two most favourite professors from UBC, one for his complete flamboyance and unmistakeable passion for his work, and the other for her incredibly sharp wit and love of teaching and discourse. Alumni feels...