Fictionlet
“Oh crud,” said Greg, ducking behind a pillar. “Not good.”
Brigid, who had been vaguely browsing a shelf of trashy romance paperbacks, looked over. “Hmm?” she said.
“Shh!” said Greg. “Don’t let him see me! Pretend there’s nobody here.”
“Who?” said Brigid, looking around the musty and crowded bookstore aisle. The only other male in sight turned out to be a rather shabbily-dressed man who was staring at a stack of textbooks. “Hey, I’ve seen him before, who is he?”
“Professor Giers,” said Greg, sotto voce. “I was in one of his ‘contemporary philosophy’ classes.”
“Oh! I must have seen him ’round the campus,” Brigid said. “Why don’t you want him to see you? You still owe him an essay after all these years?”
“I’m afraid he might recognize me,” Greg said. “I once let slip that I thought some ideas were probably more valid than others.”
“You fool!” Brigid said.
“I know, I know, but I didn’t think he would take it so personally.” Greg shuddered. “He chased me around Kimball Hall, shrieking ‘Objectivist scum!’ at the top of his lungs and throwing heavy objects through windows.”
“Heavy objects?”
“Well, bookcases.”
Brigid blinked. “Bookcases.”
“And a bronze bust of Plato.”
She shook her head. “How do you attract these people?”
“Apparently his nervous breakdown had been a long time coming, I just happened to be the catalyst. He’s teaching again, so I’m told, so presumably he’s gotten better. But given the giant plate glass windows in the front of the store, I figure it’s better not to risk it.”
“Right,” said Brigid, putting down the copy of Queen of Porto Bello she had been examining and heading quickly for the back of the aisle. “I was done shopping anyway.”
-The Gneech
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