Dissertation

My heart tightens as I see the bold red ink on my essay paper.

Seventy percent.

My mouth gapes open and the room spins around me. I clutch onto my desk to feel an ounce of security. In the background of muffled voices, someone murmurs if I’m okay. I don’t answer.

Seventy percent. I shut my eyes and open them again to confirm that this indeed is the mark I’ve gotten on the essay I exerted so much effort and time into.

I gulp noisily as reality settles in. Quickly, I snatch away my paper before anyone can take a look at it.

“Hey? You alright?”

“Yes,” I smile a fake smile. “What did you get?” I ask casually.

“Eighty-five percent.” There is a gap in his front teeth.

“Oh.”

“How ‘bout you?”

“Um…same as you.”

“Nice!” He raises his hand up so I can slap it. I decline with a shake of my head.

When the room clears out, I’m still sitting in the seat at the front of the board. My eyes are glued to the loud disappointing red ink.

“Can I help you?” He’s wearing a bold deep red collar shirt and black pants; his sandy brown hair is neatly trimmed in a clean cut manner; the only problem with his otherwise adequate facial features is his untamed bushy eyebrows.

“Uh yes,” I rise up and walk to the large desk where neat stacks of white 8 ½ by 11 paper lie with red marks on it. In front of him are a collection of dissertations; which, before I approached him, occupied his attention. In his hand is a red ballpoint pen, the source of my cringing face.

“Umm…I got a seventy percent.” I hand over my paper to him.

He scans over the essay: “In essence, the subjective views of the two parties involved…one is to assume that in this case, the author…Oh yes,” he hands it back to me.

I wait anxiously at his response. “Although the style and vocabulary was very precise, you tend to beat around the bush a lot and you did not arrive at a specific viewpoint. I couldn’t tell whether you were for or against Lehman’s words.”

“Well you see, I was n-neither for or a-against it,” I stutter nervously. “With my words, I tried to illustrate both sides of the argument and persuade the reader on both accounts so they could make an informed decision.”

“I understand your position, but the purpose of this thesis was to reveal whether you were for or against the case.”

“But you didn’t specifically address that requirement on the rubric.”

“Uh Miss?”

“Fields.”

“Miss Fields, I expect that being in this advanced class, you had the capability of assuming that the nature of the novel was black and white so, the thesis in which I assigned had to follow the same format.”

I clear my throat uneasily and march around in a spot. “But the law is about giving both sides of the story and in writing my essay in such manner; I created an imagery of today’s legal system; which if the jury had understood, would have prevented the chaos that unraveled itself in the novel.”

“It’s great that you’re going beyond the book, but that was not what I assigned and as I said, the purpose was to persuade your reader for or against this position.”

I tuck a loose strand of dark hair behind my ear. His eyes fall back to the stack of papers on his desk.

Seventy percent. This essay is worth ten percent of my final mark. That means I’m currently at a seventy-nine percent. I feel my fingers begin to shake and the walls of my lungs begin to close up. I inhale deeply to clear my mind and steady the rapid pounding of my heart. My head turns to the door and I sigh in relief when I realize that it is closed. I take a deep breath and turn back to him.

“I’ll fuck you.”