Loren Logsdon Till Time and Times Are Done
Professor Lancaster Markem sat at his desk at Heliotrope University after an exciting class session with students discussing Carson McCullers' novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
Markem had asked the students to consider the complexities of love. The class responded with their best thinking, and Markem was disappointed to see the hour pass so quickly.
Paul Buss, a student Markem could always count on for an idea or question to start a discussion, observed that one of the vexing problems with love is that humans do not always see clearly, as if we look at the world out of the corner of our eye, often causing us serious mistakes.
Bim Winston, a most perceptive student, added that another problem is the nature of time and how it can play tricks on people. As Bim explained, time is an arrow that flies in one direction. In almost all situations, we get to make one decision or choice and have to go forward with the consequences of that decision.
But on rare occasions, that one-way direction of time gets bent backward, and we do get a second chance, albeit a slightly different chance because we are older and, perhaps, wiser. If by some miracle time gives us a second chance or tantalizes with the possibility of correcting a wrong choice, then life can be what we wanted it to be.
Sylvia Penn, who planned to teach high school English, opined that the power of McCullers’ fiction lies in the author’s fascinating exploration of the mysteries of love and the dominant role it plays in the lives of people.
Other students responded with comments and questions, and Markem left the room feeling good about the quality of the discussion.
After each class, Markem took a few minutes to write down the questions and ideas that had been raised during the class. He noted further reading that he needed to do to help him the next time he taught the work.
One of the strengths of Markem’s teaching was his preparation for class. Markem had just finished writing his notes when his office door was flung open, and a colleague, an agitated and obviously bewildered Thornton Northern, came in and said, “Do you have time to talk? I need your advice.”
Thornton Northern was the department’s authentic superstar. He had published five books of poetry and a recent collection of short stories. Two years ago, he had been named Poet Laureate of Illinois, and he had a national reputation as well.
Professor Northern was seventy years old, but he had no thoughts of retiring; and, because of his fame, the Heliotrope University powers that be were pleased to let him teach as long as he wanted to. When the Heliotrope administrators attended professional conferences and announced the name of their school, people would invariably remark, “Oh, that’s where Thornton Northern works, isn’t it?”
Although Markem and Northern had enjoyed many conversations over the years and shared a passion for the Chicago Cubs baseball, Markem wondered why Northern would seek his advice in such an urgent, agitated fashion.
“Yes, I have time to talk. I sense that you are troubled. Go ahead and spill the beans.”
Getting right to the point, Thornton said, “Have you ever had a female student tell you she was in love with you?”
Markem could not conceal the look of surprise that appeared on his visage, and he replied, “No, that has not happened to me. I have always considered the relationship between teacher and female student to be a power relationship that can easily be abused unless the teacher is determined to regard it as sacred. I have deliberately tried to project the image of the benevolent father, the kind uncle, or the helpful elder brother to my female students. The closest I have even come to a problem came a few years ago when two young women stopped by my desk after class.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” one said, “but we have decided we want a man like you for a husband. We think you would be a good father to our children.”
“I thanked them for the compliment and breathed a sigh of relief because I knew they intended no romantic hanky-panky. They were not suggesting anything unseemly or untoward. But to answer your question, No, I have never had a female student tell me that she was in love with me. In fact, my students seem to realize that I am happy in my marriage and would not be interested in them in a sexual way. Now, has one of your students told you she is in love with you?”
Thornton Northern, accomplished poet and highly respected professor, the fair-haired boy of the administration, but presently acting like a helpless freshman, clasped his hands as if in prayer, and said, “Yes! God save us all! This afternoon a coed whom I will not name came to my office and announced that she loved me and intended to lure me into a connubial relationship. She promised that she would do everything in her power to make sure we lived a life of wedded bliss. She added that if marriage didn’t appeal to me, she would live with me without the benefit of clergy and all of the hoopla that goes with a church wedding.”
Markem wanted to guffaw, but he stifled that impulse. Instead, he said, “Why don’t you tell me the entire story from the beginning. I have a three o’clock class, but I will have Della Alley meet the class and inform the students I might be a few minutes late because I have an emergency. And I can see that your problem is an emergency. Now, take your time and tell me the conversation you had with the young woman, leaving out no detail no matter how insignificant you think it might be.”
With a superhuman effort, Thornton Northern pulled himself together and began the following story.
“When the young woman announced she loved me, I wanted to laugh and tell her I wasn’t in the mood for April Fool’s jokes. Fortunately, I could see that she was serious, and so I tried to appeal to her common sense. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. ’Don’t you realize that I am almost 70 years old and you are probably 20?’ I asked.
“'I’m 21,' she answered as if she expected one year would make a significant difference.
“When she said that as if it removed all of the problems, I realized I was in trouble. I wanted to put a stop to this strange encounter as soon as possible. ‘But the age difference is too great an obstacle. I believe that young people should love other young people and certainly marry other young people.
"Even if I did love you, we are too far apart to consider marriage or cohabiting. Can we settle for friendship?'
"She smiled and said, 'Friendship is the most important part of love.'
“Grasping at straws, I replied, ‘Look, there are many fine young men on this campus. Surely, you can find one to love. In fact, I will try to help you.’
“She was unmoved by my common sense suggestion and replied, ‘The age difference does not matter to me. Besides, the young men I have encountered are superficial and immature. They have no sense of the sacred in life, let alone notions of the of the heroic or the idea of the quest. All they want to do is drink beer and call attention to themselves by displaying their machismo. Their ideas of love are too shallow. I believe that the best kind of love is mental and spiritual—a matter of the mind, the imagination, and the soul. Remember the opening lines of your poem To Dionysia: ’Once true love bloomed in summer’s sun and souls were joined together.’
“When she recited that line from my most famous love poem, I knew I was in trouble, but I pursued the practical to try to overwhelm her with objections. ‘Look, I said, suppose we would get married and by some miracle have children—I will be over 70, you know—I might not live long enough to be a good father to them. You could be left with the enormous task of raising children without me.’
“She shook her head, ‘Of course, I expect children. Socrates was 70 and had a young wife and child when he died. He wasn’t afraid of death, and you shouldn’t be either. Besides, your spirit, your knowledge, and your wisdom will live on in your poetry even long after your death. But let’s not talk about death. Let’s talk about life. I know that you are not married now. Have you ever been married? Have you ever been in love?’
“I wanted to tell her I had been married five times and had some stubborn STD to destroy all her romantic illusions about me, but something told me I had to be honest with this young woman.
"Thus, I answered truthfully, ‘I have never been married, but I was in love once when I was your age. It was my senior year in college, and I became friends early in the year with a fine young woman. Our friendship blossomed into love, but the timing was all wrong: She was a sophomore and wanted to complete her degree at State, and I was planning to enroll in graduate school in the University of Virginia at the end of the year. I decided that a long-distance relationship would not be good for either of us, so I broke up with her.
"'After a few weeks in graduate school, I decided to dedicate my life to my poetry, and so to this day I have not thought of loving a woman in a romantic way. You might say that I’m married to my poetry.’
“'I am perfectly willing to share you with poetry,' she answered quickly. 'I think my life would be much richer if I were married to a poet. Poets open your eyes and get you to noticing things that otherwise might escape your attention.'
“I reminded her again that I was 70 years old. Then I asked her, ‘What made you fall in love with me?’
“She looked at me as if I were a fog-bound child and said, ‘As a poet, surely you realize that love is a divine mystery. Too much analysis and talk will kill love. But I will answer your question. I discovered your poetry, and I have read all of it. When I read your poem To Dionysia, I realized that you were describing me exactly the way I wanted my true love to look upon me Then it occurred to me that Petrarch had Laura, Dante had Beatrice, and Poe had Helen. Oh, Thornton, I am your Dionysia. I stand before you in the flesh. I am she. Please embrace me, kiss me, hold me forever, and love me. I am yours.’
“When she said that with such passion, I knew I had to be gentle in my response, and I said, ‘Don’t you realize that Laura, Beatrice, and Helen were so important because they were unattainable? They were ideals to be pursued; they inspired the poet to transcend the ugliness, cruelties, and meanness of this fallen world. The poet is like the speaker in Yeats’ poem ‘Song of the Wandering Aengus.’ Listen to these lines:
Though I am old with wandering/Through hollow lands and hilly lands/ I will find out where she has gone/And hold her hands and kiss her lips/ And lie upon long dappled grass/And pluck till time and times are done/ The silver apples of the moon,/The golden apples of the sun.'
“She looked at me lovingly and said, ‘The speaker in that poem has not found the girl, but you are the Aengus who has found her. Let us spend the rest of our lives holding hands, kissing, lying on dappled grass, and plucking the silver apples and the golden apples.’
“I had to find some way to persuade her. ‘Don’t you see that poetry is the search for beauty, truth, and love that are embodied in an ideal woman. That woman can never be attained. If she is, then the spirit of poetry as a quest is finished. It’s the search that counts, the dedication to the search for the ideal.'
“'Well,” she said, 'you can write other kinds of poetry or short stories.'
“'Dear Girl, it’s not the same.'
“She was beginning to get a bit crispy. She said, ‘Look, you seem to think that our loving each other would be some kind of betrayal. But I am not taking you away from a wife and children. I am not coming between you and a woman you love. But even if I were violating some law of morality, I would still love you and use the words of Hester Prynne, when she said to Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, ‘Our love has a consecration of its own.’
“I realized that she was determined, so I decided to buy some time. Thus, I said, ‘Your declaration of love has taken me completely by surprise. I need to think things through before I decide. I will admit that I am flattered that you should display such strong affection for an old geezer like me. I am not unmoved by your entreaties. Please allow me time to get my bearings. Let’s meet tomorrow, and we will talk further.’”
Relieved to have spilled the beans, Thornton Northern said, “And that’s how I left things. I don’t know what to do. I am asking you to tell me what I should do? I will do what you tell me to do.”
Lancaster Markem shook his head and said, “Thornton, you know that no one should tell you what you should do.”
“Please just tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Markem realized that his friend was serious, so he decided to buy some time. “Look, I had better run and meet my class. Let me think it over and I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.” he said.
That night Lancaster Markem could not sleep. In fact, he left his bed at three in the morning and sat on his front porch and watched the full moon, listened to the night birds cry, and thought about Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. He wondered what she would say to Thornton.
Mary Markem discovered her husband was not in bed and went looking for him. She found him on the front porch lost in thought, and she asked what troubled him, thinking that faculty politics had erupted into a brutal war. When Markem explained his problem, Mary said, “What are you going to tell him?”
Markem gently embraced his wife, kissed her, and said, “I don’t know! I just don’t know!”
The next morning Markem used every excuse he could think of to delay going to the university.He still didn’t know what he would say to Thornton Northern. But Markem was a friend, and Thornton had asked him for advice. He could not turn his back on his friend.
When Markem arrived at his office, he found Thornton waiting by the door. Before Markem could say anything, Thornton smiled and said, “I have decided to marry the girl. If a young wife was good enough for Socrates, then a young wife is good enough for me. Besides I am feeling an excitement I have not experienced since my senior year in college. I know most people will say ‘There’s no fool like and old fool,’ but I don’t care. Sometimes life gives people a second chance at happiness. They had better take it or lose it forever. We are planning a June wedding, and then we will spend the year traveling all over the world. I want to visit Perm, Russia, and she wants to walk in the moonlight on the beach of the Sargasso Sea. After that, we will go to Madagascar, Australia, and Rangoon.”
Relieved that his advice was no longer needed, Markem asked, “By the way, what is the young woman’s name. Perhaps I know her.”
“Well, you do. Her name is Marcella Livingood, and she told me she took your science fiction course her sophomore year.”
“Why, yes, I recall Marcella; she was an excellent student and was always good at original thinking.”
It wasn’t until he was pulling in his driveway that Markem remembered that Marcella wrote a profound, searching paper on the possibility of time travel. DSS
Loren Logsdon of Eureka, IL is a retired emeritus English professor from Western Illinois University and Eureka College. He's written many stories and books. This brilliant story reflects his knowledge and wit.
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