He nodded – exactly ! I loved it . Loved it so much I wish I could have known it more . His face flirted with panic . But wait , he said then – what about yourself , how was your Christmas ?
The room was very solid-looking . As if bound by some convention that prevented a mind to think outside of its confines . Lead-lining for the thoughts . The window was the obvious spot to look , glass , open , free . That wasn ’ t any help at all really . She ’ d arrived here in the middle of that janiform , morning darkness , and now , an hour before her finishing time , that same pupilblack night faced her . A giggle bubbled up from her throat . I think it snowed , she said . But it could be the end of the world out there and we wouldn ’ t know .
Her student didn ’ t reply straight away . His breath slid under his teeth like the hiss of gas . Maybe ? I don ’ t know .
Lauren nodded , assured she had made it up . She rubbed her eyes hard , breathed in . She liked this lad well enough – but he was everything she wasn ’ t . He was shy and timid , talked a lot where fewer words would say more , and his distinct lack of self-esteem eroded her patience in a way that she could never really handle him – as though he was seeking permission from her , or paying some kind of undue reverence . Men , she seemed , always were of two kinds . The over-polite or the over-vulnerable . Are you okay ? he asked . She ’ d been quiet the whole time . Yes . So , your project . You have an idea ? I want to do yours , he replied . Mine ? Smiling where a frown would have been more appropriate . What do you mean ? There ’ s an idea in your thesis , I think , that , might , you know , have other applications kinda . He played with his hands . It could bend space in such a way that there could be , like , two opposites . Mine was fundamentally about hyperbolic space . I ’ m not sure what you mean – Oh , he replied with a smile . You will .
***
The laptop wouldn ’ t shut up , it never did . Zoom calls , meetings , student emails – all of them buzzed through without so much as a second break . They all squashed into an endless stream of information that meant , quite frankly , nothing to Lauren .
Lauren who , now , looking round the room , was convinced of a sense of deja vu . Had she been here ? The office space has long been this kind of closed time-like curve . The black nights , the white-LED-lit room . One moment was like the infinitude of others , a string of reactions held together by her standing in this block universe . Books lined the walls . Riemann , Einstein , Feynman , Gauss , mixed in there with Woolf and a few other modernists she ’ d been obsessed
I am the Ocean ; To them I ’ m a Lake 84