Déjà vu

ASSIGNMENT ONE

1. Choose a theme (your choice) and write a new story using the thematic elements covered in this lesson.
2. I expect at least 250 words and no more than 2,000.
3. Do not state the theme you have chosen anywhere on the new piece.
I do not expect you to add symbolism in the new piece, but if it shows up, all the better!
I expect you to practice the techniques you have learned so far in this class in your piece.
Post this piece as lesson 5, part one, in the forum.



                   



The moon plunged it's glow in the puddle snuggled in the dip of the cobblestone. It's many tiny shimmers surfed the ripples each time a vehicle whizzed past and sent a gentle breeze over the waters. Taharqa sat beside the moon, on the curbs. Choking on a sob. The storm was spent. In it's place, droplets of rain moistened the air around him. A slight breeze whipped mizzles on his face. It nestled in the shock of his hair and snaked down his face to mingle with his tears.
         His heart was full of rain.
Breakers of memory flooded his mind with intense waves. Pangs from a nightmare he didn't want to recall.

'Tahaqar.'

The sound of his name transmitted him. He was walking down a dimly lit corridor. He knew his way by rote, this path bore familiar directions. The end of the passageway was sealed off by an expansive mahogany door. He reached for the knob. Turned. Shelves and shelves of books lined up against the wall in a massive ancient Alexandrian-style study. Backing the window, a mammoth cedar table sat emitting a literary reverence. His father's personal study. On his father's reading chair, sat Shebit, his face swallowed up in the pages of an archeology journal. The door clicked. Shebit angled his head a degree. He had a habit of inclining his head and wrinkling his forehead when he addressed a person like someone looking over the rims of a lens. Though, he never used any himself.

'Drag that chair over and make yourself comfortable, young man,' Shebit said pointing Taharqa to the back of the door where a seat hid. Shebit was brother to Dr. Khuru (Taharqa's father).
         Under the watchful eyes of reseach resources, ancient papyrus scrolls and encyclopedias that commanded awe, Taharqa took his place at his father's study table. A peculiar kind of respect often accompanied his thoughts about his father's study. Today, the sensation was tuned up a notch. It clung on the atmosphere like an arrow shot into the air that stuck. An admonishing hush.
The antiques which stood frozen on special shelves (Dr. Khuru, Taharqa's father was member of the Egyptian 'Supreme Council of Antiquities'. He had unreserved access to relics. A few were skillfully displayed in his personal library.) listened with ancient ears. In the breathing silence, he could hear the echo of their attention.

Shebit was a man of few words. In-between speech, he payed out enough pauses for a nervous person to make a noose and hang himself.

'Would you be so kind as to indulge me a few minutes? I have class in half an hour.' He didn't wait for an answer. 'I've been wondering. And really, it's taken me a while to make up my mind about this matter. I think I should be able to set things in their proper order after so much pondering. It's about your father.'
         Shebit paused. The waiting game was underway.
         Taharqa absorbed himself in the swing of the pendulum clock strung just above the study's wall length window. He leaned on the oscillations to discourage the jitters. It was not as effective as he would have liked it to be. Shebit intervened just as his patience cracked.

'A man can only be as strong as his strength permits him. To reach beyond himself, he must possess properties of a divine nature. That was one distinctive feature Khuru exhibited in all his affairs, he was a sphinx, half-man, half-god. That attribute carried him through life, through his time in school. It made him the man you call 'father'. I can tell you this 'cause I've known him all my years on earth,' Shebit said.

Shebit and Khuru had been through school together. From childhood years right up to university level. Shebit owns a Ph.D. in Egyptology. Khuru is a professor of Ancient African History and Technology.

'Similar fields,' Professor Khuru once told Taharqa. 'Similar, yet two distinct fields of study. One supports the other like the moon picking up where the sun leaves off.'

It often puzzled Taharqa, whenever his father's words came to mind, which field was the sun and which one did the 'picking up'.

'The liver is the largest internal organ, performing over one hundred functions in the human body. It's complexity makes it a magnet for every conceivable internal disease.' Shebit paused and inspected Taharqa above the rims of his invisible lens observing a trace of interest that creased his features. He grunted and resumed his speech. 'Khuru was diagnosed with a rare liver disorder. Cirrhosis.'

Shebit paused. The books on the shelves leaned forward, anticipation sticking out of them. Taharqa's patience was tearing in places like a chord under the strain. Shebit caught him gasping and asked,

'Is anything the matter, young man?'
He was ignoring the fact or was not aware of the electric in the air.
'You appear to be . . . suspiring.'

The question met with several seconds of silence. Taharqa knew from experience. It was wisdom not to rush his uncle, he would prolong the static between speech. This knowledge advised his reply, as he strained to hide the emotion in his voice.

'It's my father of whom you speak, uncle. I find it difficult, almost impossible not to reach beyond your words and imagine his present condition as he lies in an hospital bed. Dying. He's going through a trauma which I can't share with him. That single fact hurts like a thorn in my side.'

Shebit nodded knowingly. 'Understandably, you feel obliged to know the state of your father's health. I think it's perfectly normal as his eldest son that you are well-informed concerning Khuru's situation. The doctors said his chance of making it is pretty slim. Khuru might never get out of the hospital alive.'

Outside the window of the study, a lightening streak stole across the night sky. It was followed by a thundershower that ripped the still of night. Nimbus weeping like an orphan.

'Mr. Taharqa?'
The voice was feminine and possessed an anesthetic feel that wound around the words like a ring. Taharqa levitated through the ceiling of the library towards his body bent over on the curbs. Beside the moon. He felt like a movie character conscious of his own presence in the gallery of a cinema watching himself act.
         He came into his own body. Back to reality.

'Mr. Taharqa?'
It was more an inquiry than a pronouncement. Taharqa turned to find a nurse standing behind him. She was tall with a funny face like a baby wearing the body of a woman. When she talked it looked like she smiled the words out the curves of her mouth.

'Yes?' Taharqa said.

Behind the nurse, the structure of the Alexandria Center rose into the evening sky, donning a wig of rain clouds. He had collapsed three separate times inside the hospital. Been revived three times. He wearied of passing in and out of life and came outside for fresh air, inspite of the rain.

'The doctor would like to have a word with you,' said the nurse.

Fear triggered the sirens of his heart. He had been fooled into thinking the nurse was just checking up on him. A word from the doctor at this point might be fatal. He tried to keep his thoughts on the bright side but the sight of his son in the ICU Unit of the Alexandria Center was too much for him to bear. Three years ago, he ran away from home when Taharqa took a second wife after the death of his first wife. Taharqa had not set eyes on him again until today when he saw him briefly through the glass of the Intensive Care door. A call had come through earlier that evening informing him that his son was in ICU.
         His twenty two year old son whom he named after his father. Khuru. Was dying of a severe liver disease otherwise known as cirrhosis as a result of chronic alcoholism according to medical report.

He tried to get up and follow the nurse but found that he was weakened by despair. He reached into his reserve and plucked the last pebble of strength. He propped himself against it like a crutch and heaved himself up in stages. His body groaned with every pull and his head spun like a wheel of fortune. It took him a while to get used to standing. The nurse was already moving. He hop-skipped to catch up with her.
Into the reception. The elevator.

'This way, please.'
He was guided through a maze of offices until he found himself inside an oval office sprinkled with Greek furniture. There was a large desk, surprisingly empty except for a telephone and a litter of medical folders. Seated at the desk, Dr. Tamani had an open folder in his face.

'Sit, Mr. Taharqa,' he said without looking up from the files.

Taharqa took his seat like a man on death row.

'The liver is the largest of all the organs inside the human body and the busiest of them all. It is a delicate organ which makes it susceptible to lethal diseases,' said the doctor his face still on the files like he derived courage from the inscription.

In his mind, Taharqa was experiencing a playback of the night with Uncle Shebit in his father's study. Taharqa heard the Doctor's words without listening. He was alone with his fears. A few days after that night with Shebit in the study, his father had died.
         He closed his eyes and wished that the mere fact that his son was back in his life was only a dream. If only he could live.