When Oscar awoke the next morning, he found himself firmly entrenched in his own bed, having moved there from the couch sometime in the middle of the night. He couldn't recall waking up in the living room or shuffling down the hallway, so he took this as the first sign of his somnambulism returning. Checking his bare feet for stray pebbles, just in case he had gone for an unconscious stroll, he found nothing, not even a dark coating of dust on his soles to denote having left the house, but he was entirely satisfied with the prospect of being able to sleep once again.
As he roused himself from the bed, he found he was able to completely fall in line with the morning routine to which he had once been so intimately accustomed. First came the warm shower and shave, followed closely be the practiced preparation of breakfast (toast and two eggs today, he thought), and then a quick read-through of the morning paper while steaming instant coffee drained into the carafe.
Finishing his second cup of coffee, he decided that everything was back to normal, returned to its proper order like a misplaced library book, and since the view from the window suggested a warm, sunny day without a single cloud in the sky, he was determined to go for a walk and stretch the muscles that had languished in the past few sedentary days. Completely rested, he changed out of his flannel pajamas, wisely resolving that it was far past time for them to be washed, and opted for his dark suit, which he then slipped into with a surprising amount of ease. His blue and white sneakers, the very same pair he wore on his last walk, rounded out the ensemble in an odd but fitting way, and with the sun at his back, Oscar went out to greet the world.
His destination for this morning, he concluded, was to be the university, where he would see Walter once again. This time, he was going to tell everything--everything that had gone through his mind on the previous few days, all the things he was too afraid to tell Kate. She reminded him so much of Madeleine, after all, and he would not be able to stand disappointing her more than he already had. She would think he had completely lost his mind, and perhaps he would have agreed, if only temporarily, but there was so much to tell, so much that begged for discussion.
The three miles to campus passed quickly. He believed he owed that, in part, to his restless nature making up for lost time. By the time he reached the university grounds, he was surprised to find them relatively empty. Only after passing the clock toward did he realize that the first classes of the day were still an hour away. Walter surely would not be in at this time, so he took the opportunity to stroll across the campus for awhile, admiring the Colonial Revival style of architecture that seemed to dominate the surrounding buildings, a foreboding sense of order and structure broken up only by the infusion of parking lots and the football stadium that hung onto one end of the campus like an overly long fingernail. Then there was the library--vast, unconquerable, a prison of knowledge where the scholars were to be locked away with their studies, where they would be safe from the outside world and the outside world safe from them.
He imagined that the library, at least would be open. Even in his own university days, he recalled the place opening early to accommodate the procrastinators scrambling at the last minute to finish or begin a project due later in the day. It was a process and ritual that he himself was all too familiar with, having been a renowned slacker in his younger years.
He had hardly been in sight of the library entrance when the great wooden doors, the loud scraping of which had always instilled images of a medieval keep in his head, swung outward, and a small thin body with a heavy stack of books came bounding down the steps. It was Kate. Oscar watched her move, believing that in another life, she could have been his daughter. She swung onto the sidewalk and began trudging away, the books weighing her down considerably.
He thought about running up to her, politely taking the books from her hand, and walking her home, chatting all the while like two old friends. That, however, was not meant to be. The less she saw of him, the better, he thought, figuring some amount of distance would make his inevitable passing that much easier on her. He was concerned, however, about how deeply absorbed she seemed to be in her work. He made a mental note to have a talk with her the next time they met, or else this novel project would be the death of her, as well.
Arriving at the old Liberal Arts building, he found that though the entire structure was open, it was quite abandoned. He made his way to the third floor, pausing briefly against the rail that ran along the top of the steps to catch his breath, and found a seat in the disused secretary's office, parked right outside the locked door to Walter's office. As he waited, he busied himself with a dusty book that had been placed nearby. It was an old novel Walter had written--his second, Oscar concluded after a moment of thought. He flipped through the pages, barely stopping to read entire paragraphs, and it was just as bloated and pretentious as he remembered.
"No wonder people stopped reading," he said to himself.
As he roused himself from the bed, he found he was able to completely fall in line with the morning routine to which he had once been so intimately accustomed. First came the warm shower and shave, followed closely be the practiced preparation of breakfast (toast and two eggs today, he thought), and then a quick read-through of the morning paper while steaming instant coffee drained into the carafe.
Finishing his second cup of coffee, he decided that everything was back to normal, returned to its proper order like a misplaced library book, and since the view from the window suggested a warm, sunny day without a single cloud in the sky, he was determined to go for a walk and stretch the muscles that had languished in the past few sedentary days. Completely rested, he changed out of his flannel pajamas, wisely resolving that it was far past time for them to be washed, and opted for his dark suit, which he then slipped into with a surprising amount of ease. His blue and white sneakers, the very same pair he wore on his last walk, rounded out the ensemble in an odd but fitting way, and with the sun at his back, Oscar went out to greet the world.
His destination for this morning, he concluded, was to be the university, where he would see Walter once again. This time, he was going to tell everything--everything that had gone through his mind on the previous few days, all the things he was too afraid to tell Kate. She reminded him so much of Madeleine, after all, and he would not be able to stand disappointing her more than he already had. She would think he had completely lost his mind, and perhaps he would have agreed, if only temporarily, but there was so much to tell, so much that begged for discussion.
The three miles to campus passed quickly. He believed he owed that, in part, to his restless nature making up for lost time. By the time he reached the university grounds, he was surprised to find them relatively empty. Only after passing the clock toward did he realize that the first classes of the day were still an hour away. Walter surely would not be in at this time, so he took the opportunity to stroll across the campus for awhile, admiring the Colonial Revival style of architecture that seemed to dominate the surrounding buildings, a foreboding sense of order and structure broken up only by the infusion of parking lots and the football stadium that hung onto one end of the campus like an overly long fingernail. Then there was the library--vast, unconquerable, a prison of knowledge where the scholars were to be locked away with their studies, where they would be safe from the outside world and the outside world safe from them.
He imagined that the library, at least would be open. Even in his own university days, he recalled the place opening early to accommodate the procrastinators scrambling at the last minute to finish or begin a project due later in the day. It was a process and ritual that he himself was all too familiar with, having been a renowned slacker in his younger years.
He had hardly been in sight of the library entrance when the great wooden doors, the loud scraping of which had always instilled images of a medieval keep in his head, swung outward, and a small thin body with a heavy stack of books came bounding down the steps. It was Kate. Oscar watched her move, believing that in another life, she could have been his daughter. She swung onto the sidewalk and began trudging away, the books weighing her down considerably.
He thought about running up to her, politely taking the books from her hand, and walking her home, chatting all the while like two old friends. That, however, was not meant to be. The less she saw of him, the better, he thought, figuring some amount of distance would make his inevitable passing that much easier on her. He was concerned, however, about how deeply absorbed she seemed to be in her work. He made a mental note to have a talk with her the next time they met, or else this novel project would be the death of her, as well.
Arriving at the old Liberal Arts building, he found that though the entire structure was open, it was quite abandoned. He made his way to the third floor, pausing briefly against the rail that ran along the top of the steps to catch his breath, and found a seat in the disused secretary's office, parked right outside the locked door to Walter's office. As he waited, he busied himself with a dusty book that had been placed nearby. It was an old novel Walter had written--his second, Oscar concluded after a moment of thought. He flipped through the pages, barely stopping to read entire paragraphs, and it was just as bloated and pretentious as he remembered.
"No wonder people stopped reading," he said to himself.
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