TITLE: Dry Kind of Love 3/?
AUTHOR: tanith
RATING: PG-13, just to be safe.
ARCHIVE: It's all yours, just let me know.
FEEDBACK: Bring it on. akirgo@yahoo.com
SPOILERS: Probably some minor ones here and there.
DISCLAIMER: See previous chapters.
SUMMARY: You can run, but you can't hide. Future fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Patience, please! I'm still setting up our heroes' calm little world before shredding it to pieces. And the poetry stuff (besides being slightly amusing, IMO) does come into play later. Really. Oh, fine. Just skip it if it bores you.
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Being in her father's class is far from easy for Zoe, even if she were able to ignore the Kelly and Emily factor. Because she has to deal with William both at school and at home, if she misbehaves it will come back on her double. Furthermore, he refuses to let his daughter off easy, perhaps holding her to an even higher standard than the rest of his students. And worst of all, even after eight months, she still slips sometimes and calls him dad instead of Mr. Barnet. Kelly and Emily just love that.
And today is shaping up to be one of the less good days. As she enters the classroom, still flushed from kissing Roger, William rises from his desk - around which Kelly and Emily are huddling, Zoe notices with displeasure - and approaches her.
"You're ready for your presentation, right luv?" he asks, looking at her over the rim of his glasses. Behind her, Kelly and Emily laugh giddily.
"Of course," Zoe lies, while her mind screams, what presentation? And then it comes back to her: she was to pick a poem and analyze it, and then present the poem and the analysis to the class. Only somehow, she forgot. Why can't you remind me of these things when there's still something I can do about it? she thinks. "It's not like I need you to remind me of these things," she says.
"Of course not." William walks back over to his desk, over which Kelly is now leaning, exposing her breasts suggestively. "Girls," he says, through slightly clenched teeth, "why don't you both take your seats?"
Zoe takes her seat as well, desperately trying to recall any poem she might have accidentally memorized, as she accidentally memorizes everything from song lyrics to TV commercials, and decide whether she can use it. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"? No, too obvious. This was Vermont, for christ's sake, half the class probably chose to do Robert Frost. "Hanging Fire"? Did she actually have all of that memorized?
She is interrupted from her reverie by the arrival of Roger and Sarah. Roger smiles at her, uncharacteristically shy, and sits at his assigned desk across the room from her. Even though they had been going out officially for over two months, it is still weird for both of them, and perhaps weirder still for Sarah. She takes her seat next to Zoe, an unreadable expression on her face.
"My, if it isn't PDA girl," she says, not unkindly.
"My, if it isn't British accent fetish girl," Zoe replies, a bit too loudly. Sarah looks up at William, mortified, but he is writing on the wipe board and not paying any attention. But then Zoe turns to her friend and says, much more quietly, "Did you remember to prepare your presentation?"
"Crap!" Sarah swears under her breath. "Tell me yours is all ready."
"It will be."
Sarah bangs her head on the desk. "Great." The first bell rings and the rest of the class begins shuffling in. "Why does your dad have do everything in alphabetical order? And why do we have to be B's? Why should Roger have all the luck?" She sticks her tongue out at Roger, who gives her a strange look from his place across the room. "You don't deserve to be a W!" she yells.
"Shut up, Sarah," Zoe says, and is pleased when her friend complies, even though it had more to do with the fact that William looked over his shoulder and arched his eyebrow at her. "I'm trying to concentrate."
The second bell rings and William turns to face the class. He leans against the old wood lectern on which his attendance book is spread and speaks to the students as he checks off their names. "First the good news. We only have to deal with each other for another 43 days and then we're all free for the whole summer." Several people cheer. William grins. "Believe me, you lot are nowhere near as happy as I am. But sadly, we have the inevitable bad news to contend with as well. Starting Monday, we enter AP prep hell. So prepare yourselves for cramming and that weird buzz you get from too much pizza and Dr. Pepper." He takes off his glasses and fixes the class with a cold stare that Zoe is sure he must think of as intimidating. "And study your vocab words! Honestly, they really do help."
The glasses go back on and Zoe can feel William about to shift subjects. Talk more about the vocab, she prays.
"And now we're going to start our poetry presentations," William says. Since Avery's conspicuously absent, we'll begin with Zoe."
"Take a really long time!" Sarah whispers as Zoe rises from her seat. Zoe shoots her a dirty look and takes her place at the front of the class. She looks at her father, back behind his desk and watching her expectantly. Then she takes a deep breath, and begins to recite.
Death is before me today
Like the recovery of a sick man
Like going forth into a garden after sickness
Death is before me today
Like the odor of myrrh
Like sitting under a sail in a good wind
Death is before me today
Like the course of a stream
Like the return of a man from the war galley to his house
Death is before me today
Like the home a man longs to see
After years spent as a captive
Once she finishes, Zoe stands dumbly for a second. Most of her classmates are either staring at her with glazed-over eyes, or ignoring her all together. Roger is still smiling at her rather shyly, and Sarah mouths "Good cover!" when she looks her way. Her father sits silently in the back of the room, a small twist of a smile playing on the corner of his mouth. She finds she cannot read his expression at all. Just open your mouth and start analyzing, she thinks. So she does.
"Um, there have been many poems written about death, but what made me choose this one is the fact that it presents death in a totally different manner than most. To most people and poets - not to imply that they are two separate groups," she adds, and she watches as her dad's odd little half smile grows, "death is regarded as the inevitable end to the wondrous journey that is life; it is viewed as something to dread, something to attempt to avoid, even though one cannot. For most, death is the ultimate enemy."
She pauses, partially for effect, and partially to gain a moment to figure out where she is going to go next. Rhetorical devices, she thinks. Now is the time to start blathering on about metaphors.
"But not in this poem," Zoe continues. "This poem is essentially a group of similes - death is like the recovery of a sick man,' death is like the course of a stream' - that make up the underlying metaphor: death is the natural end to life, death is the rest and relief one finally achieves at the end of their journey. It seems that the poet is almost anticipating his death, because he longs for release. It is an interesting and not often explored point of view."
Again, she pauses. Just keep going, she thinks. You're almost there, almost there!
"Er, other elements of the poem, such as the structure, seem less important to me. While the stanzas and lines are all approximately the same length, this does not strike me as a particularly conscious choice on the part of the poet. Of course, in poetry, the selection of almost every word involves conscious choice," again, William favors her with an odd smile, and she wonders what was so funny about what she said, "but this element still does not have much to do with the meaning or power of the poem in my opinion.
"Elements of the tone, however, do. This poem uses very simple, sparse language, quite intentionally. It has a very soft tone, and when I read it, it calls to my mind the image of a man on his deathbed, explaining, in a whisper to the loved ones around him, why he is not afraid of his approaching death. The tone speaks so strongly of bravery and acceptance in the face of the terrifying unknown and usually unacceptable that it really serves to strengthen the poem's metaphor. The tone enables the poet's unconventional ideas to be expressed with a sense of truth."
Home stretch! she thinks, and finishes off in a last rush of air.
"I chose this poem because, using all the things discussed previously, the poet has been able to convey a message I have often sought to convey, only without sounding so cynical. Death is nothing to dread any more than one dreads the sunset and the coming of the new day. Instead, it is the natural end to the journey we have all begun, and all one day must finish."
She moves unceremoniously back to her seat, and the class applauds without enthusiasm. William nods to himself. "Very good," he says, the greatest praise he'll ever give to any student while the rest of the class is present. "Sarah, you're up."
Sarah gets slowly to her feet. "You could have talked slower!" she whispers to Zoe before trudging to the front of the room. She clears her throat. "Uh..." she says. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,' by Robert Frost."
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TBC
