Eutony | Todd Anderson

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚚𝚞𝚎 𝚒𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚒𝚝, 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢 𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜. - 𝙺𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚕 𝙺𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚘𝚛

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𝐎𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 Neil and Todd's bedroom door the next morning. She was about to knock, till it opened, not giving her the chance to. She was met with the same blue irises that plagued her dreams, her heartbeat picking up ever so slightly. "Morning Todd. Are you eating with us today?" she questioned, a soft smile gracing her features, tired eyes filled with hope. He hesitated for a second, before nodding and moving to follow her. They walked silently, both their breaths hitching whenever their hands would brush against each other. They soon reached the hall, where they darted to the table occupied by the familiar group. "Morning doll," Charlie greeted, charming smile etched on his face, as she plopped herself in the seat next to him. She smiled up at him, looking around to see who was there. She greeted Neil, who Todd had sat himself next to, then Cameron. She placed a piece of toast on her plate, smearing blueberry jam on it, then placing scrambled eggs and bacon on top. "How do you like that?" Cameron questioned, disgust written on his features. "It's delicious, Cameron. Maybe if you had taste you would enjoy it," she answered before taking a bite, Charlie promptly following, causing her to glare up at him. "Did you sleep last night?" Neil questioned her, noticing the purple marks which occupied the space under her eyes. Ophelia shook her head slightly, replying, "I stayed up with Knox till around four. He was pretty upset about Chris." He sighed, nodding his head and carried on chewing his piece of bacon. Pitts, Meeks and Knox sat down in the last vacant spaces around the table, greeting them with yawns and tired smiles. "Thanks again for last night, Lia. I wouldn't have been able to get through it without you," Knox said, smiling gratefully. "Of course, what are best friends for?" she replied. "And what am I, chopped liver?" Charlie asked, raising his arms dramatically. "Oh shut up, we've been best friends for two years now, it's not like I'm suddenly going to forget about you," she said whilst scoffing, the slight relaxing of Todd's shoulders going unnoticed. He smiled fondly at the memory of when they first met, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and drank his orange juice. "You ready for Keating's class?" Cameron asked from the other side of the table. Ophelia nodded enthusiastically, excited to hear more of what went on in the man's mind. "We better get going then."

"Lady and gentlemen, open your texts to page 21 of the introduction. Mr. Perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface entitled 'Understanding Poetry'?" Mr. Keating requested from his desk. Neil placed his glasses on his face, gently resting them on his nose and began reading. "'Understanding Poetry,' by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and two, how important is that objective? Question 1 rates the poem's perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter." Neil paused briefly, hearing the sound of chalk on the board. "If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry." "Excrement!" Mr. Keating exclaimed, causing Ophelia to jump out of surprise. "That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. We're not laying pipe. We're talking about poetry. How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? Oh, I like Byron. I give him a 42, but I can't dance to it. Now, I want you to rip out that page." The teenagers looked around in disbelief, trying to figure out whether he was being serious or not. "Go on. Rip out the entire page. You heard me. Rip it out. Rip it out! Go on. Rip it out!" The dragged out sound of ripping was heard behind Ophelia, who turned and found Charlie holding his page up to show Mr. Keating what he had done. "Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Gentlemen and my fair lady, tell you what. Don't just tear out that page, tear out the entire introduction. I want it gone. History. Leave nothing of it. Rip it out! Rip! Be gone, J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. Rip. Shred. Tear. Rip it out! I want to hear nothing but ripping of Mr. Pritchard. We'll perforate it, put it on a roll. It's not the Bible. You're not gonna go to hell for this. Go on. Make a clean tear. I want nothing left of it." He walked towards his office as they all began ripping their pages out. Ophelia looked down at the page, slowly ripping it out and proceeding to do that with the rest of the introduction, smile making its way onto her face. "We shouldn't be doing this," she heard Cameron say across the classroom. She laughed, causing Todd to turn to look at her. She smiled at him gleefully, placing the pages at the edge of her desk. "What the hell is going on here?" she jumped, turning toward the source of the sound. Mr. McAlister stood at the door, seething in anger, demanding answers. "I don't hear enough rips!" Mr. Keating exclaimed while walking back into the classroom. "Mr. Keating," Mr. McAlister uttered, shock and embarrassment written on his face. "Mr. McAllister," he greeted with a smile. "I'm sorry. I, I didn't know you were here," he said, still feeling incredibly embarrassed. "I am, yes," Mr. Keating said, mischievious smile on his face. "So you are, excuse me," he said before rushing out the door. Mr. Keating passed a dustbin around the class for their papers. As Ophelia reached for hers, she found they weren't there. Looking around the floor confused, she looked up when they were placed back on her desk by a sheepish Todd. "Uh I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't want you to get in trouble," he said softly. She smiled at him, grasping his hand, "Thank you, Todd. That was incredibly kind of you." He quickly turned around, leaving Ophelia to try to calm her racing heart and cherry cheeks. "Keep ripping, gentlemen! This is a battle. A war. And the casualties could be your hearts and souls. Thank you, Dalton. Armies of academics going forward, measuring poetry. No! We'll not have that here. No more Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. Now, my class, you will learn to think for yourself again. You will learn to savour words and language. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. Now I see that look in Mr. Pitts' eye, like 19th-century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school. Right? Maybe. Mr. Hopkins, you may agree with him, thinking, yes, we should simply study our Mr. Pritchard and learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions. I've a little secret for you. Huddle up. Huddle up!" They surrounded their teacher, hanging onto his every word. "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life! Of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless, cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here.  That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse'. That the powerful goes on and you may contribute a verse." He paused for a second, gazing deeply into Todd's eyes. "What will your verse be?"

As they left the class, Ophelia felt something inside her stir, as though it had been waiting to be awoken and was begging for release. She glanced at Neil, seeing her emotions were mirrored in him. The group made their way to lunch, Neil telling them he would catch up later. They stood around their tables and said the prayer, "For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful. Amen." Sitting down, they began to tuck into the meal in front of them, still thinking about the lesson they just had. Neil soon pushed his way in between Ophelia and Pitts, placing a book on the table. "Hey, I found his senior annual in the library. Listen to this. 'Captain of the soccer team, Editor of the school annual, Cambridge bound, Thigh man, and Dead Poets Society'," he said, trailing off toward the end, wondering what the last one meant. "Man most likely to do anything," Cameron read with a smile. Charlie couldn't help but smirk and comment, "Thigh man! Mr. K was a hell-raiser." "What's the Dead Poets Society?" Pitts asked. "I don't know," Neil replied. "Is there a picture in the annual?" Meeks asked while pushing his glasses further up his nose. "No," Cameron replied flipping through it. "Nothing. No mention of it," Neil said, looking up at Mr. Keating in curiosity. "That boy there, see me after lunch," Mr. Nolan's voice was heard, causing them to hide the annual and carry on eating their food.

After lunch, the group found themselves running after Mr. Keating, who was once again whistling the '1812 overture' as though it was his anthem. "Mr. Keating! Mr. Keating! Sir?" Neil called out to him. Eliciting no response from him, he tried again saying, "O Captain! My Captain!" Mr. Keating turned around, causing the group to laugh at his antics. "Gentlemen. Miss. Williams."
"We were just looking in your old annual," Neil said while holding it out towards them. Mr. Keating crouched down, reminiscing his younger days. "What was the Dead Poets Society?" Neil questioned. Mr. Keating looked up before replying, "I doubt the present administration would look too favourably upon that."
"Why? What was it?" Neil frowned. Mr. Keating looked at them all, seeming deep in thought before asking, "Gentlemen, Ms. Williams, can you keep a secret?", to which they all nodded. "The Dead Poets was dedicated to 'sucking the marrow out of life'. That's a phrase from Thoreau we would invoke at the beginning of every meeting. You see, we would gather at the old Indian cave and take turns reading from Thoreau, Whitman, Shelly, the biggies. Even some of our own verse. And, in the enchantment of the moment, we'd let poetry work its magic."
"You mean, it was a bunch of guys sitting around reading poetry?" Knox asked confused. "No, Mr. Overstreet, it wasn't just guys. We weren't a Greek organisation. We were Romantics. We didn't just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared, women swooned and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh? Thank you, Mr. Perry, for this stroll down Amnesia Lane. Burn that, especially my picture." With that, Mr. Keating carried on his walk, whistling once again, acting as if he didn't just tell them of something which would change their lives. Neil muttered something to himself, jumping up and walking to join the group. "What?" asked Charlie. Neil looked at each one of them before saying, "I say we go tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Now, wait a minute," Cameron interjected. "Everybody in?" Neil asked ignoring him. Pitts looked up at him in question, "Where's this cave he's talking about?"
"It's beyond the stream. I know where it is."
"That's miles!" Pitts complained. "Sounds boring to me," Cameron muttered, causing Charlie to retort, "Don't come."
"Do you know how many demerits we're talking, Dalton?"
"So don't come, please." "Look, all I'm saying is that we have to be careful. We can't get caught."
"No shit, Sherlock." Mr. Hager interrupted their arguing, "You lot there, hurry up!" Neil stopped and turned to look at them, "All right. Who's in?" Cameron looked up worried, "Oh, come on, Neil. Hager's the-"
"Forget Hager! No. Who's in?" Neil asked, cutting him off. "I'm in," Charlie replied immediately. "I'm warning you! Move!" came Hager's voice again. "Me, too," Cameron sighed, desperate to leave and not to get in trouble. Neil turned to Ophelia. She saw such determination and hope in his eyes, that she immediately responded, "Alright, I'm in."
"I don't know Neil," Pitts said while pushing past him. "What?"
"Pitts! Pittsie, come on!" Charlie tried to reason. "His grades are hurting, Charlie." Meeks said, catching up to them. "You can help him, Meeks," Neil said with a shrug, hoping to convince his friend to join. "What is this, a midnight study group?" he questioned exasperated. "Forget it, Pitts, you're coming. Meeks, your grades hurting, too?" Neil asked with a smirk. "I'll try anything once," he replied. "Except sex," Charlie commented cheekily, causing Ophelia to roll her eyes. They carried on making their way inside, Ophelia falling into step with Neil, who grabbed her hand, excited for what was to come.