This choice: Ernest, a tenured college professor • Go Back...Chapter #3Ernest, a tenured college professor by: JackHalf   Ernest looked every bit the musty, practically fossilized, tweed-wearing college professor that he was. Almost to the point of being a cliche. With a tussled head of white hair, and a matching bushy mustache, the bespectacled, easily distracted older gent probably should have retired a decade or more before, but he was a creature of habit and routine and he was all-too comfortable in the prestigious post as faculty head of the playwriting program.
He'd spent the last hour or so rifling through paperwork, old playbills, and student creative writing exercises on his desk, without making any real headway thanks to his absolutely pathetic attention span.
"Are you accomplishing anything Ernest, or are you just moving those piles around?" Lydia Barhall chuckled as she sauntered into the Professor's office.
Middle-aged, but absolutely gorgeous, the leggy, top-heavy chief administrative assistant to the Dean of the college was the object of unvarnished lust amongst the bulk of the male student body, and quite a few of the faculty as well!
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a7/e1/ee/a7e1e...
Aged, but not dead, Ernest jumped in his seat, startled and thrown off balance by the entrance of the beautiful secretary. "Oh! Lydia...I...ahhhh...excuse the mess...goodness me!" the Professor struggled to keep some of his piles of papers in their towering stacks, as he tried to make his desk look like less of a chaotic maelstrom.
Lydia laughed. "Oh Ernest, if it wasn't a mess, I'd be worried! Organization would be so out of character for you!" She smiled and gave the Professor a wink.
"Ahhh...yes...very well...uh, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Ernest smiled at Lydia, trying not to linger too long on the long, lovely legs she was perched upon, or the enormous breasts straining against the fabric of her canary yellow sweater.
"I was in the mood for a walk, and, you happened to have some mail delivered to the Dean's office by mistake." Lydia's high heels clicked as she strutted closer to Ernest and handed him a small box wrapped in parchment paper.
Ernest took the small box from her, nearly dropping it in the process. "The writing is gorgeous. Is that calligraphy?" Lydia asked, genuinely curious.
Ernest looked over the label, reading the ornate script aloud. "Care of Professor Ernest J. Turpin, Esquire." He looked over the package, finding the paper wrapping expertly folded and applied. "I don't recall ordering anything."
"Well open it up! I'm dying to see what it is!" Lydia walked over next to Ernest and gave his arm an encouraging squeeze.
"I'm intrigued as well!" Fumbling with the packaging, the Professor gradually unwrapped the box, sat it on his desk, and pulled the strange object it held within out with his aged hands. "Is it some sort of stopwatch? How odd."
Lydia leaned in and looked at the bronze, ornately decorated, scrollwork-etched artifact a once over. "I don't know, it kind of looks like one...but much more elaborate...how odd! You're sure you didn't order it?!?!"
Ernest turned the device over in his hands, fidgeting with its strange dials and buttons. " I don't think so...or don't remember doing so. Granted, my memory isn't what it used to be. It doesn't seem to be for telling time, at least it doesn't have a watch-face in a recognizable form...I wonder what it's supposed to..."
Suddenly, the device's reels, dials, and shapes began to whirly and buzz, clicking into place as a bright, eerie green light began to shine from it, enveloping Ernest, Lydia, and the entirety of his office in it's blinding jade light! The whole thing happened so quickly, the pair couldn't really react. Lydia managed to let out an awed gasp, before the pair lost all sense of self and awareness.
After a few seconds, the green light faded, leaving...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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