White Space

In answer, Kramer jerks open his desk drawer hard enough to make the pens chatter and yanks out a sheaf of paper-clipped pages, which he tosses onto his desk. “You might have gotten away with this … this rubbish if I was any other instructor, but I’m writing a book on the man, for God’s sake. No one except researchers is allowed access to this material. What, did you think I’d simply ignore this? Time to wake up, Ms. Lindsay. I’m not the headmaster, I don’t care about your sad little history, and I’m sure as hell not your bloody psychiatrist. Now I want to know where you got it.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about. Her eyes fall to the first page:

WHITE SPACE

A Short Story

by

Emma Lindsay

Lit. Seminar 058

“Got it?” She swallows. “I wrote it.”

Kramer’s ears flare Coke-can red. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that. Where did you get this? Did you download it from a pirate site?”

She’s getting a very bad feeling about this. Oh boy, is that possible? No, don’t be silly. The guy’s dead. “I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about, sir.”

“You want to play it that way? Fine.” Kramer tweezes out a single sheet. “Take a good, hard look at this and then convince me why you shouldn’t be expelled.”

This is not happening; this is a nightmare. Tears threaten. Shit, don’t cry. She does what Kramer wants—and as her burning eyes trip over the watery letters and spaces of one word, then jump over white space to the next word and the next and the next, it’s as if an invisible fist has wrapped around her throat and begun to squeeze.

So how long would it take? There had to be a way to figure it. Maybe he should’ve stripped the clothes, but then what? Couldn’t bury them. The ground was frozen solid, and some things wouldn’t burn: snaps, buttons, zippers. And didn’t nylon melt? He thought it did, and there’d be the stink.

And didn’t how long really depend on how bad you wanted something? How much you were willing to risk? Sure. So, clothes or no clothes, if you were a wolf or coyote and starving because Wyoming winters were hard and game, scarce … and there was dinner lying right there? All that easy meat?

A wolf would strip that body to bones in no time.

A wave of unreality washes over Emma. A sudden headache spikes right where it always does, under that lacy cranial plate the doctors screwed into place between her eyes so her brain wouldn’t bubble out. (When the doctors had first shown her the plate, she’d thought, Great, the perfect accessory for every occasion.) The pain is blinding, and she shuts her eyes against the sudden tilt as the world seems to slump and run like superheated glass.

“Right. Wasn’t that interesting, Emma? I thought it was. And now let’s listen to yours, shall we? You’ve no objection if I read while you follow along?” Kramer asks, but it’s one of those rhetorical questions a person knows better than to answer. As Kramer drones, she stares at words and sentences that, up to five seconds ago, she thought were hers alone.

There had to be a way of calculating how long it would take. There must be rules, like physics or math; there were variables to take into account. Temperature, of course, but also the clothes. Maybe he should’ve stripped the clothes, but then what? He couldn’t bury them. The ground was frozen solid, and burning wouldn’t work because zippers, snaps, buttons didn’t burn and Gore-Tex melted.