Chapter 4
Dorothy Ann picked up her phone and texted Carlos.
I'm coming to Christmas. Please make it stop.
She stared at the screen, but there was no indication of a forthcoming reply. She tried to stay awake, but realized that she was unsuccessful when the chime woke her.
"No, not again." Dorothy Ann said, but despite her protestations, a hooded figure appeared in her kitchen. The lamplight coming in through the window emanated around the figure, giving it a strange aura. "Who are you?"
The figure didn't reply. Dorothy Ann felt herself grow cold, and all the sadness she had felt earlier that evening from the memories and the realization that she had grown into a curmudgeon weighed upon her. "Please, don't. Just leave me alone."
The hooded figure didn't. Instead, Dorothy Ann found herself in a drab conference room with a "Happy Retirement!" banner haphazardly hanging on the wall. There were some mostly full fruit trays and three-fourths of a small sheet cake. She couldn't place the faces, although some were familiar. "Did the cake get eaten?" A young man, probably a grad student, asked.
"No," a middle-aged man replied. "We even bought a small one."
"Really?" The grad student grabbed a knife and cut into the cake.
"Is this Dr. Decker's retirement?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Those fools never recognized his genius anyway." The hooded figure made no reply.
"At least this frees up a tenure position," the older man said. "Are you interested in staying here after your postdoc?"
"Maybe," the grad student said after chewing a bite of cake. "I really like the area, and my wife has a good job here."
"That's good that you're both happy." The older man said. "It makes things a lot better when the whole family is happy."
Dorothy Ann looked at the hooded figure quizzically. She had never enjoyed small talk, and didn't understand why the spirit was showing her this of all things.
"She's been here and left already, hasn't she?" The postdoc asked. "She always hated pleasantries like this."
The older man nodded. "Her students didn't even show up. It's a shame. She's brilliant."
"She?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Oh my God, this is my retirement! And no one's coming?" She was at once shocked and angered. "Those assholes are already giving out my tenured position at my party? All those students I mentored didn't bother showing up?"
"Brilliant but harsh," the postdoc said. "I heard one of her grad students got pneumonia working in the building without heat one Christmas. That's cruel."
"It was regrettable, yes," The older man recalled. "I think it didn't even make it into a top tier journal. A lot of her career was like that – she was brilliant and driven. Maybe too driven. She needed hobbies."
The postdoc laughed. "Yeah she did. I talked to her about a potential research project and I could tell she didn't think about anything other than her specialty."
"She did have fair teaching evaluations from her freshmen." The older man corrected. "Let's not speak too ill of the recently retired."
A young woman stuck her head in the conference room. "Did I miss her?"
"You did," the older man, whom Dorothy Ann was beginning to like, replied. "Come have some cake."
"Don't mind if I do." The woman said. "Wow, it's the end of an era."
"I'm going to see if any of the other people in the department want any cake." The older man said. "And then we can go through her office. She had a really great desk chair that I'm claiming."
"WHAT THE HELL!" Dorothy Ann yelled.
The conference room faded to black. All Dorothy Ann could see was an entry in the personals column of one of her journals.
Dorothy Ann Mauer, astrophysicist and Distinguished Professor Emerita at Walker State University, passed away. She made many contributions …
The text faded away. "Many contributions?" Dorothy Ann demanded. "Walker State? I do all this work to become a mediocre professor at a state school?" She began to cry. "No one comes to my retirement, I don't have a significant accomplishment, and no one cares? Why am I doing this?" She composed herself and thought aloud. "Many discoveries aren't recognized until much, much later. This is for the good of humanity, not for me."
Still, Dorothy Ann wasn't putting in all this work to be remembered in mediocrity. "Who will remember me?" She asked. The figure stretched out a bony hand, holding a photograph of her friends. "Of course. That's what this is all about, isn't it? Why are you doing this to me? Why is this so elaborate? STOP IT, CARLOS!" She grabbed at the hood to throw it off, but found herself grasping into cold air. "Why are you showing me this?"
Before her, she saw a gravestone. She knew exactly what this was. It had to be her own, and it had to be isolated, as she had been in life. The vision did not disappoint. Although she'd read and heard and seen the story many times, there was something about seeing her own name engraved in stone that made her insides seize up. The stark reality of her own mortality was staring her in the face. When she was gone, she'd take none of the things she worked for with her. She'd leave articles and accomplishments, but clearly she was being recognized as unlikeable, except for her choice in office chairs. The people who loved her were the ones that sent her texts and possibly made her hallucinate this whole fable. Although their lives were messy and they were facing problems without clear answers, she had to do something to be with them again.
"Please tell me this isn't the way it has to be." Dorothy Ann said through tears. "Please tell me this can change." She grabbed the figure's hand. "Tell me I can change this!"
She heard the echo of her cry on the walls of her bedroom. She grasped the headboard of her bed, squeezing it as hard as she could as her alarm clock went off.
It was Christmas morning.
