gob_bluth

Michael adjusts the shoulder strap on his Tumi bag which cuts a diagonal across his torso from his left shoulder down to the right-side of his waist, where the bag tries to wrap around his upper thigh but is prevented from doing so by Folland's Real Analysis (2nd edition, copyright 1999), Hungerford's Algebra (12th printing), and his notebooks contained therein. "Some grotesquely deformed conic section, though still topologically equivalent to an ellipse," he reckons as he looks at himself and feels as if he should apologize for everyone who has see the physical embodiment that is Michael Allen, mathematics PhD graduate student. A commiseration he occasionally tries to convey by fixing his eyes to molding which runs along the floor. "At least there are relatively few people in the halls at the moment," he thinks as he glances at his watch. He still has a good ten minutes or so to get to his office and probably avoid any empty pleasantries, discomfiture at meeting someone's eyes, or being perplexed at the looks he receives. He guesses this probably accords with some mythical strangeness that people tend to associate with mathematicians, though it seems to him more a function of his own neuroses whose existence has no relation to mathematics, rather twenty-odd years of psychological development, at least as far as he can tell. Still, banal, trite stereotypes alleviate so much thought and have enough vague generalizations and truth trapped away in their lineage that in a society that views lack of intellectual inquiry sacrosanct among its "educated" populace (but everybody's real concerned about the state of the American public school system, let me tell you . . .) that it doesn't seem to bother most people. "Like education is some sort of inoculation. Some set of booster shots you get regularly for 12-16 years or so and you're cured of ignorance," Michael says softly to himself as he reaches into his left pocket where he usually keeps his keys only to remember that had put them in his right pocket earlier in the day because a student in one of his discussion sections had come to ask him a question in his office and he was caught unawares and had to quickly place his keys in some fold of fabric before questions arose as to why he would have a set of keys. He smiles and shakes his head as he has to shift his Tumi bag back and reach into his right pocket for his keys, feeling like an overly aware individual who knows 90% or so of his thoughts regarding social interactions are probably his own mental machinations, but finds this knowledge rather frustrating as being aware of the fact doesn't seem to help the feelings go away.

Turning on the lights he finds a chalkboard filled with bits and pieces of an analysis proof. Undergraduate analysis. "It looks like they're proving Bolzano-Weierstrass," he muses. Michael's eager to get to TA an upper division course as opposed to calculus. A course where you get to take the first few steps in making some statements rigorous and understand the reason behind why theorems are stated in a particular manner. No doubt what English professors and TAs enjoy about upper-level courses. No more slogging through the dross of freshman papers and their utter lack (for the most part) of understanding of the aesthetic nature of writing. Or so Michael supposes.

Tossing his bag on his desk, he hooks his foot around the leg of his chair and with a quick pull rolls it out into the center of the room to meet his body as he falls into the seat and reclines back, arching his body and feeling the tension pop and dissipate from his shoulders and spine. Kicking off his desk with his right foot he spins around in his seat a few times and stops himself facing the chalkboard and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and enjoying the mathematical landscape on the board. He had a professor say as an undergraduate that mathematics should only be done on a chalkboard, and he has since come to agree with him. Spinning back towards his desk, Michael reaches into his bag, grabs something without even looking at it and then spins back around to stare at the proof. "I wish I could see this," he says. "I want so badly to be able to make this perfect, but it seems I must relinquish control at this point. There will be beauty in its imperfection."

Michael spins back around to face his desk, places the barrel of the revolver in his mouth expecting that sweet, bitter, metallic taste of a quarter that's been held by too many people, but it doesn't come. Only the scent of gunpowder wafts into his nostrils. He pulls the trigger. The x's, y's, deltas, epsilons, and inequality signs are now adorned with drops of blood, curly brown hair partially buried in larger splotches of the crimson liquid and chunks of skull which proceed to slide down the chalkboard a few inches before freeing themselves and crashing into the chalk tray in a cloud of dust. Some remain there, others teeter on the edge and fall to the floor with a gentle thud due to the flesh and hair still clinging to the bone, the blood now flecked with white and slowly absorbing the chalky residue.

Chris Miller

Hey glob,

Well written, thoughtful and funny, erudite.

Only spotted one edit:
“who has see the”
seen

"Like education is some sort of inoculation. Some set of booster shots you get regularly for 12-16 years or so and you're cured of ignorance,"
Nice. Ideas like this are what make this piece fly.

Strong, confident prose.

Normally I find endings where the prot offs himself a bit cliché and overused. But here you caught me off guard with it and actually gave me something to think about. The powerful poetic description of it also made it work.

“Some remain there, others teeter on the edge and fall to the floor with a gentle thud due to the flesh and hair still clinging to the bone, the blood now flecked with white and slowly absorbing the chalky residue.”

The “genlte thud” seems not quite right, contradictory, like a quiet bang. Maybe “thwack” or some other onomatopoeia.

The “absorbing the chalky” also seems wrong and a bit out of balance. What about “dissolving this chalky” ?

Great finish though. Don’t know why I feel compelled to dink with it. You are obviously a strong enough writer to not take this kind of shit personally.

Great piece of work IMHO.

Chris

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gohn67

Hey Glob,
I liked this, mostly because the ending really surprised me, even though I also hate suicide stories. Anyways I thought this was pretty original.

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gob_bluth

Thanks for the replies. I have to agree that I too cringe when I see suicide stories, and I don't know that I'm entirely happy with the direction I took here. I'm interested in the idea of suicide especially as viewed from the different philosophical positions today, but I'm afraid it's too easy to slip into preconceived notions about it and get caught up in explorations or explanations which don't really bring much to the table. I think there is still something very powerful in the idea that I'm very much interested in exploring that hopefully I could capture (or at least attempt to) in a story, and maybe redeem it from banality.

I really saw this rather rough sketch as part of a larger piece where we see Michael's development and rationalization of his conception of suicide (which I'm imagining as being more than just an affirmation that it's the right of someone to do, more like a critique of the general consensus that life is worth living, i.e., that this categorization of suicide as the last resort of someone who's depressed in fact short changes the idea. I want Michael to view it more as a social critique, though intermixed with his depression and other mental ailments).

Just out of curiosity, is anyone familiar with novels or short stories which explore similar ideas? I'd be interested in philosophical works too (I mean I know Nietzsche and Mill discuss, among, I'm sure, many others. Philosophy is not my field of study per se, though I do enjoy it from time to time). Thanks again.

P.S. Also, just a side note, the screenname is actually Gob (as in Gob Bluth from Arrested Development if you're familiar with that show - absolutely hilarious in my opinion). Not that it matters terribly since it isn't my name, but reading "Glob" just kind of makes me laugh.

eggo

Hey Gob,

Hmmm...verbose.

The huge amount of words makes it ...wordy? I like the scene you set and the placards you use to mark the road. You create a very interesting picture. One that uses mathematic as a second language. But without the clear break in thoughts broken into segments by the use of paragraph breaks, it makes the story into rather large chunks to swallow.


I think that this is really the first paragraph. A break here gives your reader a chance to breathe and absorb. The latter part of the paragraph is where it gets a bit rocky.I think he is saying the bag is stuffed with books and doesn't fit to his body.

You want to be sure your opener is inviting. Something that captivates.

I saw you fishing for some plot directions,
I would love to see this character interact with the common folk. Driving a car, stopping at a convience store and wandering why these people deviate from the mathmatical purity of thought.

This story needs a salvation to be present as well. Perhaps a hand extended he ignores or a date broken. Humanity should extend a hand to him, whether he rejects it or not.

Lastly, you might think about him reaching epiphany in solving the insolvable.
My way would be to have him prove Hilbert's Tenth Problem for Rings of Rational Functions and then blow out his brains after reaching the pinicle of euphoria.

Of course when his asscioates find him, his brain matter obscures the important part of the proof making it useless. But i'm twisted.

I look forward to reading more,

Thanks for the read.

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gob_bluth

Verbose is definitely an a propos description of the style (and of how I write in general I think). I didn't give much (if any) thought to the paragraph structure, and rarely do on a first draft (probably even after a first draft).

The comment about the conic section (which I'm really not too fond of upon repeated re-readings, but nonetheless) was meant actually to be a reference to the manner in which the strap on his bag cut a diagonal across his torso, like a plane cutting a cone giving rise to an ellipse - though the idea behind the "grotesque" nature of this "conic section" was meant to signify his general distaste and low opinion of himself.

I definitely am fishing for plot directions - I feel as if I have various bits and pieces of things I want to put in but I don't have a good framework to work with as of yet. And while I appreciate your input on the plot directions, my thoughts weren't so much that an understanding of mathematical purity was what he felt was lacking amongst most people, but like I tried to allude to in my other post, rather just a general sense of malaise he has about the nature of society. I don't envision the character having grandiose Hardian ideas that he feels everyone should embrace (even if he himself feels that way personally) about math, rather that he certainly has issues with what he envisions a vast majority of society is like (roughly paraphrased - willful ignorance and shallowness because it's easy), but that even among those that eschew those trends (e.g., intellectuals, professionals, artists, etc.) that there is a lingering misconception or misunderstanding about the world. Not that he is the only one of aware of this, or some such crankish nonsense, but that these misconceptions haven't been explored sufficiently and thus still hinder (in the character's mind) any notion of really understanding reality and the nature of society. Him being a mathematician is almost secondary, formed more out of my own fascination with the subject than any sense I have about some larger significance of the field. I suppose there is also the fact that I like having a character whose background wouldn't necessarily indicate serious thought about some of the ideas I want to discuss, but still might have some novel insight about those ideas.

Sorry to ramble.

ThatSmokingGuy

That was great, reminded me of the start of King's 'Rage'. The pathos of sensitive, intelligent characters are always interesting to read about. Thanks for the nice read, good sir.

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