Promising student and avid reader, Zahra Calimeris, attends a book club where she meets Romero Vitale; A judicious professor and bibliophilic aesthete.
book 1 | ongoing
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I STROLLED INTO the lecture theatre at precisely nine-fifty. Punctuality was a trait I took seriously; I always arrived ten minutes before the lecture began, neither a minute more nor a minute less. I liked to have enough time to mentally prepare and review the pre-reading.
The lecture hall was nearly empty, save for a few scattered faces near the front. I made my way down to an aisle seat on the lower level and settled in, taking out my old notebook and a pen from the depths of my bag. I was ready to jot down any important points Professor Miller might make during his lecture.
The dimmed ceiling lights above me brought out the small chips and imperfections in the walls and cream-coloured stone columns. I gazed around the room, taking in the quiet atmosphere as I went over my notes in my head. As the larger of the two clock hands ticked over to the number twelve, the lecture period began without Professor Miller present.
The minutes passed slowly, and we waited for him to arrive. The silence in the room seemed to stretch on for hours until, at last, the door opened, and Professor Miller walked in, ten minutes late.
He carried a pile of books under one arm and his familiar leather bag slung over his shoulder. After surveying the room to ensure all students were present, he set his bag down with an uncharacteristically clumsy movement.
I could sense that something was off by the way his expression and eye bags had sunk deeper and darker over the past few weeks. But he managed to compose himself and began the lecture with a controlled clap of his hands. "Apologies for the late start," he said, his voice reverberating through the hall.
His tie hung loose and lopsided, and he sounded slightly out of breath. Professor Miller stepped away from the lectern, pulled on a cord next to the wall, and the projector screen descended over one end of the classroom. With practised hands, he opened up his laptop and plugged in the cable before pulling up the lecture slides.
"Now that we all have the layout, let's continue this lecture with the theme of 'beginnings and endings.' You would have seen your assignments were related to this already." I listened intently as he took us through a concise timeline of events in literature, from medieval snake women to death in Victorian literature. He spoke about the early sound film and the burning of Shakespeare's Globe, adding depth and detail to his lecture.
At the end of the first hour lecture period, Professor Miller pressed his hands together, indicating that he had finished speaking. "Feel free to take a five-minute break," he said. "If you're leaving the theatre, please make sure you return promptly before the second half begins."
Some students shuffled out behind me, but I stayed in my seat, scanning over my notes to make sure they were coherent. After a few minutes, the rest of the students filed back in.
"Let's pick up where we left off," Professor Miller said, starting the second lecture period. "Now that we've gone over the timeline of the content we'll be covering in this module, we can begin with the first section on ancient literature." He paused and looked around the room. "Can anyone tell me what the oldest piece of literature that we know of is?"
