Ragnar

This is one of my first short stories, it's one of two I am going to post here shortly, though I may post more eventually as well. It's not that great, but I would love criticism, especially if people would read my other short story as well alongside it. This one is more based on form and function of a short story, though it doesn't have much of a plot and is more of an exercise in how to write a scene or two. Here it is:

Late for class: Short Story in the life of Sebastian Henrique


The steady sound of a new alarm clocked waifed a drone throughout the room. It had been doing that for almost half an hour when Sebastian sat up in a groggy stupor. The room he sat up to was small and somewhat cramped. His dorm, Sebastian thought. It could use a quick cleaning, but it was still his. And then he looked at the alarm.

The clock read 10:56, and Sebastian knew that this was a bad thing. His mind, still waking, took a moment to comprehend this new information. He was late for an important class! Bounding out of bed Sebastian threw on an old pair of jeans he’d left on the floor the night before and a shirt that was still lying on his chair. As he left his room he knew that he had forgotten something, but couldn’t quite notice what that was.

The outside was cold, colder still because of the jacket that Sebastian had realized he was not wearing. The sun was bright in the somewhat pale blue sky of winter, and there were only a few piles of snow on the grass. Much worse was the wind. With a gusting sort of fierceness, it exemplified Evanston’s climate. He had lived in the area his entire life, and now he went to school scarce miles from where he was born. He liked the city, but he had always felt restless around it. Now he was a biology student at Northwestern, a prestigious school, or so his parents told all of their friends, but it was still so similar, it was always the same.

After walking for a few minutes, Sebastian reached the Richard James biology building of Northwestern. He knew he had to hurry to hear his professor Dr. Kibitzer, discuss in detail what would be on the final. Kibitzer was loud and liked to pontificate quite often. Still, Sebastian enjoyed his class and thought him far better than a professor he’d had some time ago named Morgan Johnson. The man had taught Calculus and had been terrible at it. Sebastian glared at the thought of the C that Johnson had given him. The only blight on his transcript.

The biology building was laid out much like a cylinder which gradually sloped up into a pyramid. At the top were the biology labs, with the higher floors being for lower level biology classes. The bottom of the building was designated for large, lecture style classrooms, much like the one that Sebastian was going to. It was a large classroom, perhaps 200 people would be there today. The topic was genetics, one of Sebastian’s favorite topics and one of the main reasons he had chosen to declare his major as biology last semester.

He quietly slinked into the back of the room where his genetics class was held. The sound of his Professor’s voice was omnipresent throughout the room, a testament to the Eudaemonic Sound System installed in every room of the college, from a donation given by an alumni in 2027.

The professor’s voiced wheezed nasally “And so, remember that DNA replication is semi-conservative and proceeds from the 5 prime end to the 3 prime end. This will be on the final exam and is extremely important to your understanding of cell division.” Sebastian quickly took this down on his WordPad, a device he loved endlessly. Original forms of it were invented shortly after the turn of the century, and it provided note takers and writers a great deal of freedom. These days most of the functions of notebook computers were included in it, but at a very cheap and widely available price.

The WordPad was a unique piece of technology. It had a reduced size keyboard, and it had a small LCD screen on it. It had the ability to be rolled up, bent, and even folded if the user wanted to do so. Current versions were incredibly light and thin, and needed a change of batteries only every few years, and they also ran on solar power. The WordPad was perhaps the nicest tool of the modern day, and it was this freedom and ease of use that made Sebastian like it so much.

One function it did not have was the ability to keep in contact with a classroom while he was out on one of his many hikes or nature walks. Having a great affinity for nature, he absolutely hated this. He far preferred the inviting visage of the forest, with the slight warmth of sunshine and the smell of slightly damp leaves rather than the stark, cold classroom.

Part of the reason Sebastian had decided to go into biology was this profound love of nature. He knew that biology generally dealt more with the empirical and quantitative sides of nature now, rather than the qualitative, but he also knew that smaller parts made up the whole. An organism may be made of cells, and those cells made up of organelles, but at the end there was still an organism, and he was still studying them. He loved knowing the intimate details, and what made things work the way they did.

The rest of the class passed uneventful and eventually the professor let them out twenty minutes early. As he left the building, Sebastian was confronted by the bitter chill outside and a smell that could only be described as “cold”. The trip to the Dining Commons went uneventful, and Sebastian got a small, light dinner. He wanted to finish quickly because he was planning on hiking through the woods to clear his head.

Shortly after reaching his favorite trail, he heard a strange hiccupping sound. Intrigued, Sebastian decided to follow the sound. As he went further, the noise magnified and it began to sound like the cry of some animal. When he reached the source of the crying, he saw a small child, caught in a thorny bush, bleeding all over from the thorns.

“What’s your name, buddy?”, Sebastian asked with marked concern and a soothing tone. The child, a boy of not more than four years old replied meekly through panicked sobs, “Da-Daniel.” Sebastian knew that he would have to do something about the child’s situation, if he didn’t act now, the child would freeze to death. The child had blood all over his body, and his clothing was torn. He kept wriggling and getting himself more hurt in the process. Sebastian, cold and with only a small bit of clothing on himself, jumped into the brambles, breaking them off the child, and getting the child free.

After the painful incident of breaking the brambles, Sebastian looked at his skin, broken and bleeding as much as the child’s. While he loved nature, it could often teach a painful lesson, as it had done to him, and Daniel today.

“How did you get out here? Are your mother or father around?” Sebastian asked quizzically.

Daniel responded between sobs with “My gamma took me for a walk. I ran after a puppy and I don’t know where gamma is.”

Sebastian knew that he had to find the grandmother, and get the child safely home. He asked Daniel what direction he had come from. The child hadn’t known. He began to call out that he’d found a child, but there was no answer. Sebastian eventually realized that his only recourse was to give the child over to the police.

Sebastian pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911, directing an officer to his location. Sebastian felt he should return to the roadside, and wait for the police. After trudging back through the cold, blood all over him and the child, he made it to the road near the hiking trail he often took. A police car with two officers was waiting in a dead end of the road, with two sobbing women next to them. At the appearance of Sebastian and the boy, both women promptly ran over to Sebastian, and grabbed the child from him. They thanked Sebastian over and over for finding the boy, and the younger of the two women offered him money. He refused.

He was given a ride back in the police car, back to his room on campus, with a hearty thanks, and the officers telling him he had likely saved the child. All in all, he felt it had been a good day.