Sojourner (Song of the Sword Book 1) by Brian Shotton

Author:Brian Shotton [Shotton, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sort4
Published: 2020-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

Faner was an ugly building. An attempt at modern architecture in unfinished concrete. It clashed with the homey aesthetic of the rest of the campus. It lacked warmth.

Inside Scott found the directory. A glass encasement with black slot board and cheap white plastic letters pressed into the gaps. Names of professors and office numbers.

Dr. L. McCormack136D

He had found her.

When he reached her office, he verified her name on the door. She didn’t appear to be in office. He knocked anyway. The boom of his knock echoed down the hallways in both directions coming back to him two maybe three times.

The building was as drab inside as outside. Unadorned gray concrete walls and a nondescript white speckled tile that made every sound reverberate as if there were five of everyone.

He heard the clack of hard shoes on tile. By the speed of the gait and authority of each footfall Scott knew it was a professor. Some feeling inside him forced him wait. But already he knew it would be her.

Around the corner stepped a woman. She was stocky. Due more to her diminutive stature than her weight. She approached Dr. McCormack's door—the door Scott stood beside. She stared down her nose at Scott through thick tortoise-shelled glasses. She had fiery eyes. No nonsense eyes.

“Well? You aren't one of my students so why, pray tell, are standing outside my door?”

Scott began to speak when she interrupted him.

“Not here you Philistine. In my office. Once the door is open. Civilized people do not have conversations in hallways. Here. Make yourself useful.” She handed him a book bag that had to have weighed as much as she did.

The door opened into a place wholly different than the anesthetized Faner. It was as if Scott had entered through the wardrobe and found himself standing next to a lamp post. While he waited for Dr. McCormack to take off her coat and situate herself, his eyes drank in the warmth of the room.

Every space of the small office was filled with life. She didn't use the fluorescents overhead. Instead clicking on several patina stained metal lamps. On the walls where there weren’t books, from floor to ceiling were pictures. Pictures of people. Not looking at the camera with an artificial forced smile but in the act of doing real things. Captured secretly. Real emotion. Real smiles. Real laughter. And in some cases, real grief. There were three or four half bookcases crammed to bursting with books. Spines hollered out vertically. Others screamed horizontally. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Beowulf. Paradise Lost. The Canterbury Tales. Piers Plowman. The Complete John Donne. And many Bibles, some of which looked quite old.

When he finished surveying the room he returned to Dr. McCormack who was sitting at her desk looking at him curiously.

“You know I have dozens of students come to me each day. Most profess to love literature. A few are even able to parse the mystery of an artifact from the signposts or lack thereof. But few have ever looked at these walls with as much vigor or wonderment as you just demonstrated.

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