Vox Mentis

You should LEAVE you want to GO this is NOT GOOD start screaming internally, don't just go along with this. This is scary and you would like to leave.

You fight to move but can't. You feel violated and angry but also ashamed that you can't control your own body. It's humiliating. It's making you reevaluate your relationship with yourself. Breathe fast, you tell yourself, because that's like being still but not exactly. You have to find a place to drive a wedge and work from there. Breathe.

You've got all those words, any way they could help?

Though you probably shouldn't try saying any around this monster.

If you could speak, maybe. But right now you're focusing on breathing, silently screaming on the inside.

Thoreau's head turns to you. What he's thinking, you have no idea. But you have the feeling that the golfing part is over. He returns his club to the bag and lowers himself into a wrought-iron chair and begins to untie his shoelaces. He does this with great care, as if his shoes contain secrets. When this is done, he enters a black glossy pair. Business shoes. Shoes for business. He laces them firmly, and stands, and heads toward you.

You breathe. You can force a tiny amount of air between your teeth, making a hsss you can barely hear. That's it.

Thoreau removes his sunglasses and tucks them into his shirt pocket. His eyes are gray and characterless as stone. There's a flatness to his face. You'd suspect a face-lift if it wasn't crazy for a poet to reveal a mental weakness for vanity. Maybe he'd wanted to erase his expressions. Or maybe he's just like this. If you never smile or laugh or frown, you can believe that this is the kind of face you wind up with, smooth and empty as an undisturbed pond.

He unbuttons his cuffs and begins to roll up his shirtsleeves. He's close enough to scratch or bite of kick in the nuts but you can't do any of that, of course. He is going to kill you! you shriek at yourself, but it makes no difference. Your brain has become very fatalistic. It's telling you you're responsible for Jeremy and deserve whatever you get.

Thoreau folds his hands and closes his eyes. For long seconds he does not move. You think, Is he praying? Because that's what it looks like. He can't be, because the idea of a religious poet is even more ridiculous than a vain one. Belief in God is a mental weakness, revealing a need for a sense of belonging and higher purpose: desires poets are supposed to master. They are potential avenues of attack. They advertise your set. You've been taught this. But Thoreau is giving every indication of communing with a higher power. Your heart thumps painfully. There's nothing about this situation you understand.

"Sss," you say.

His eyes open. "Goodness," he says. You think he's mocking you, but maybe not. His eyes search yours. You feel surveyed, as if by engineers: dispassionately, precisely, with instruments. "I was told your discipline was poor," he says. "But this..."

Moments pass. You can see his nostrils flaring in and out. You say, "Sss."

"You are, supposedly, gifted. You possess an aptitude for attack, considered sufficient to offset your deficiencies in defense. I would see this. Because presently, my dear, I have trouble imagining how this could be true. I will allow you one opportunity to speak to me. Use it to convince me why I should keep you. Vartix ventor mannit wissik. You may speak."