October 31, 2023

Midterms had been kind to Sofia. Really, it was her study habits that had been kind to her, and now that her work had paid off, and the anticipated aces had come and gone, it was time to drill down and really work. Work on her thesis, work on herself. Work in general.

To her great consternation, Sofia, like any red-blooded American, liked buying things. She liked overpriced cups of espresso, hardcover books, and strange, thrifted tchotchkes. Specifically, she liked owning them. Much as she tried to deny it, she was at heart a creature of comfort.

She wasn’t struggling. It wasn’t like pink slips were being tacked to her front door. She did receive a modest stipend for her research, sat on savings from her last job, and enjoyed dividends from a healthy portfolio. But she had left her job both out of misery and as an excuse to expedite her PhD, and, having already fulfilled her teaching requirements, had grown to miss the whimsy of disposable income.

Thus, judging by how harried her professor-cum-advisor had grown as of late, she made the executive decision to offer him an extra hand as a teaching assistant. Paltry piasters aside, she could just as soon use the extra experience. And she could tell that midterms had been stressful for him, enough so that even his shaving habits had lapsed.

Not that Sofia particularly minded the moustache. Not that it mattered that she hadn’t minded. Nothing mattered either way.

But she’d be remiss not to offer help. She’d offer at once. For his benefit.

The last class in October, by some great auspice, had fallen on none other than Halloween. Sofia was not costumed—her orange cable-knit sweater was as festive as she was willing to get that year—but as her eyes roamed the room, she spied a few of her classmates clearly dressed for the occasion. There was James as a sexy crayon. Blasphemous buddies Elliott and Mohammed stood dressed as imam and priest, respectively. There was Graham with a printout of a bacteria culture taped to his shirt—gram-positive, if Sofia’s hunch was correct. There was Julia in her old soccer uniform, talking about how she was only dressed to get a discount at Chipotle to Gina, who was dressed as…Gina.

And there was the professor coming through the door at the front of the room, to whom Sofia now found her eyes glued. Clad in a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and comically obvious hairpiece, she finally figured out why his upper lip had gone unshaven.

“You guys ever watch Magnum P.I.?” he asked the class, stroking his ample ’stache.

“Yeah, they’re canceling it,” called out one of the younger students.

“No, Kyle, you philistine. The original. From a time when life was simple and your only concern was which Ferrari Tom Selleck was gonna pull up in that night.”

“No concern for the hostages in Iran?” Sofia piped up, chin against her palm. Professor Artom met her shining gaze from above his sunglasses.

“I’ll have you know I was far too young to concern myself with such…frivolity then,” he said affectedly to more scattered chuckles, hands clasped behind his back as he paced the front of the hall. “I had different priorities, you see. Bigger ones. Like how many Cheerios I was going to throw on the kitchen floor that morning, or whether to projectile vomit on myself or my mother. Could it be that those things were, in a way, sublimations of my intense worry for the victims of a hostile regime? Perhaps. Think it was more the lead paint chips I was snacking on.

“Either way, who cares? By the time I was old enough to understand the flickering images on the TV in my living room, my man Magnum was firmly planted in the driver’s seat of a 1979 308 GTS. And all I knew was that I wanted to one day be that man. So here I am.”

“Pulling up in a Subaru,” Sofia interjected, eliciting a few more snickers. He smirked.

“It’s the next best thing, I’d say. Loves camping, dogs, long-term commitment. Too bad it’s only a car.”

Sofia smiled. A choice retort—one of Subaru’s many subtly sapphic advertising slogans.

“Didn’t Magnum wear shorts?” Julia piped up.

“Yeah, with like, a two-inch inseam,” Mohammed said. “If Doc Artom sat in those, you’d be seeing his P.I., alright.”

The class’ snickers grew into laughter, smirk still firmly on the professor’s face.

“Speaking of Magnum P.I., I want to start off this chapter talking about a few species uniquely endemic to Hawaii to lead us into our igneous unit. Argemone glauca, also known as pua kala, is a poppy and one of the only plant species we know of that can handily tolerate wildfires. But how exactly does a trait like this arise and proliferate?”

Sofia’s smile waned but remained on her face as he launched into the seminar, her pen dutifully making note of his lecturely words as she dwelled on his more interesting ones. She’d laughed along with her classmates naturally enough at the inseam joke, she hoped.

Her eyes remained on his legs as they paced leisurely, wondering how exactly they were shaped, how pale or tan they were under his khakis—then shyly drifted to his groin.

Would anything of his be visible in shorts that short?

Embarrassed by the very notion, Sofia immediately forced it out of her head. She found herself…staring at him lately. Thinking about him. Researching him, reading his publications, listening to talks he’d given.

Dissonance had tinged her searches. It felt almost creepy. Stalkerish. But she tamped the reactions as mere neuroses; he was her advisor, after all, she had every right to familiarize herself with his professional repertoire. In her sleuthing, she’d dug up an old blog he’d kept back in the late 2000s into the early 2010s. Besides, the posts were mostly professional: interesting facets of his research in the field, notable conferences he’d attended, some amusing personal anecdotes and opinions of his.

Of course, to her glee, there were pictures—many pretty photos he’d taken of nature, yes, but also of him. Older, lower-quality ones, almost entirely with groups of people. Him with a smoother, more boyish face. With no grays in his hair, and more of it. In a couple, he had a beard.

Exact same glasses, though. She wondered just how old they were.

Sofia twirled her pen. She decided she didn’t mind the moustache.

“…And nuns don’t work on Sunday, so all I want you guys to do is the reading for next week. Go do your tricks and get your treats.”

The class arose. Whether for a party or just a discounted burrito, most were anxious to shuffle off and start their holiday—save for Sofia, who casually made her way to the front. Straightening a sizable stack of papers, Professor Artom glanced up, a bit surprised to see her.

“Well hi. Nice of you to approach a sixty-year-old.”

“What are those?” she asked, nodding towards the stack in his hands. He noticed her abruptness but indulged her curiosity.

“Tests from an undergrad bio section. Which I unfortunately have to grade tonight, in between answering the doorbell and I guess enabling chunky little kids in Fortnite costumes.”

“Well, don’t you—wait, you know what Fortnite is?”

“I teach college and have two nephews.”

“Aw. Have you ever played?”

“Once or twice. There’s too much going on in that game for my ancient brain. I think I’m better at telling when a student’s playing it during class. Personally, I tapped out at, uh, Counter-Strike, if you’ve ever heard of it.”

“Heard of it? I’d AWP you across the map,” she said with utmost gravity, eyes alight. Professor Artom grinned—a strange look to Sofia, given his costume.

“I’d call your bluff, but these days, you’re probably right. The ol’ reflexes aren’t what they used to be. My nephews don’t even know what they’re doing half the time, but they mop the floor with me with their fresh, springy little brains.” He paused, giving her a look. “I wouldn’t have guessed you played those types of games.”

“I actually find them relaxing. Brain off, gun shoot.”

“Yeah, I used to. Then I found myself just getting frustrated. Was hard to get a good team.”

“Right,” she scoffed. “The guy on Social Security getting mulched by kids thinks it’s his team’s fault he walked into a flash on mid.”

“One of these days, we can settle it 1v1 on LAN.”

“You’re on.”

She stuck her hand out. He shook it.

“By the way, what was it you wanted to ask?” he said, a little anxious to get to her point.

“Oh,” she said sheepishly. “Well, uh…I was just going to ask if you had a TA.”

“Funny. I was actually promised one back in August, but he dropped before the semester started and they had nobody to fill in. Why, do you know anyone?”

Sofia pressed her lips together and raised her hand. He stared at her with mild disbelief.

“Haven’t you already fulfilled your teaching requirements?”

“Yep.”

“Wasn’t your last gig R&D at Jackson Hindler?”

“Yep.”

“Hell of a demotion.”

“I need feudal conditions to thrive,” she fired back. He smirked.

“Right. I could’ve guessed that by your career choices.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, pivoting from cushy corporate lab rat to teaching assistant? You’d have to be a masochist.”

Sofia did her best to appear unaffected by both the tiny shockwave of that word leaving his mouth and its implications. She crossed her arms and stood tall.

“Do you need a TA or not?”

Professor Artom looked at her. Then at his stack. Then back at her.

“I do now, don’t I?”

“Hold that door!”

A familiar little brown hand shoved its way through the closing metal doors, trusting that they wouldn’t sever it from its arm. The assumption was correct—the doors abruptly stopped and opened to reveal Sofia and Professor Artom to each other.

“I would, but you beat me to it,” he said.

“Oh, hey,” Sofia said with a friendly smile, stepping into the glass elevator with him, stripped of all the whimsy of his costume save for the stache and shirt. “Fancy seeing you here. Where to?”

“Twelfth floor.”

“Hey, me too. I’m getting some samples from the lab. You?”

“Forgot my jacket.”

Sofia hummed in acknowledgement, eyes glued to the landscape in front of her. She so relished taking this elevator to the top floor that she secretly found excuses to ride it—its glass provided a panoramic view of the campus and its small mountain range in the distance. Granted, it was a contraption that could’ve used some TLC. Unfortunately, she didn’t see their institution doing anything about it without reason.

Her eyes drifted from the breathtaking view to he whose breath was clearly taken—and not in reverence. It was subtle, but she’d begun to learn his little tics, which expressions and words meant what. His gaze was not admiring the outdoors, it was fixed on the floor; his hands were not fidgeting idly as they often did, but tightly wrapped around the handrail.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“If you say so.”

He remained silent. The elevator chimed and they headed to the lab, retrieving their goods without much fanfare.

As they walked back down the hallway, Professor Artom felt his usual urge to take the stairwell—he usually took stairs on the way down—but realized Sofia was heading full speed ahead towards the elevator. After a little internal debate, he took a deep breath and followed her in. The doors closed. The elevator began its slow, creaky descent.

Then it stopped suddenly with a jerk, the lights above flickering off. Sofia gasped; the professor let out a yell.

“The fuck was that?” she breathed.

“No idea,” he uttered quickly, his body stiff. “Just, just try to remain calm.”

“I am calm,” she replied calmly.

“Just stay calm. Stay calm and we’ll, we’ll uh…” he trailed off. He was breathing heavier now, his mouth open as though a suggestion were on the tip of his tongue. But it wasn’t. It was as far away as everything else was in this moment, helplessly suspended hundreds of feet above the ground. About to die a grisly, crushing death.

“…Press the help button?” Sofia continued for him.

“Yeah, yeah. Exactly,” he said, palm clumsily mashing the button indicated with a glowing outline of a phone.

“Maintenance,” came the crackle of a woman’s voice.

“We’re stuck,” he managed.

“Sorry to hear. I see you’re in the…Keppler Building, elevator seven?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get to you in about thirty minutes.”

“Thirty?” he snapped.

“You’re alright, sir, I promise. The elevator has multiple failsafes in place. The fact that you’re stuck means one of them actually worked.”

“That’s encouraging,” he grumbled.

The static of the phone line cut, leaving only the sound of his ragged, arrhythmic breath. Beyond the glass, the orange sky began to tinge with indigo, the campus slowly dotting with evening lights, little beacons against the deepening Halloween dusk. Sofia watched her professor in silence, his knuckles now white around the steel handrail, clearly avoiding the perilous view.

With a moment of hesitation, she unzipped her jacket, revealing a brilliant sapphire pendant against the warm ocher of her sweater. The professor glanced up, his eye immediately caught by the gem’s facets playing with the dim light of the setting sun as it rested against her soft, rounded bosom. His surroundings attenuated as he focused on it, his lightheadedness intensifying—though he tried not to let it seem obvious.

Sofia took a deep breath. “It’s real, you know.”

“Huh?” he grunted. “Oh, the gem. Nice.”

“I find it has a grounding effect,” she said softly, pinching the chain between her fingers and holding it up. “I mean not that I believe in crystal magic or chakras or whatever,” she qualified, “but they do say blue sapphires have a sort of…calming energy.”

Professor Artom squinted, eyes moving along with the pendant’s natural sway.

“Sounds kinda stupid.”

Sofia chuckled. “Kind of. But there’s a reason the belief is so widespread.”

“Yeah. Placebo,” he muttered. By the second, he was growing more nauseous, more impatient, and of increasingly limited conversational capacity. What on Earth was she getting at?

“Exactly. But it is a powerful thing. If you simply imagine hard enough that an item has a certain effect, so hard that you actually begin to feel such an effect, is the effect itself not real?”

His brow knit, eyes squeezed shut.

“Not the time for…metaphysics.”

“I know, but please bear with me.” She stepped closer to him. “The arc of a pendulum has a clear and simple pattern to it. I don’t know all the math involved, but it’s there, and it’s enjoyable to look at. And we crave patterns, don’t we? Rhythms. Ocean waves. Falling raindrops. They’re safe and relaxing. And the most important pattern of all, I think, is that of one’s breath. A slow breath is a calm breath. In…and out.”

As he contemplated her bizarre patter, she repeated her ins and outs—and in a sort of semi-conscious way, Professor Artom’s breathing fell into sync.

Then his mouth went dry. A corner of his lip twitched into a small, lopsided smirk.

“So what next, make me cluck?” he mumbled.

“No. We don’t have an audience,” Sofia said softly, grinning.

“So what gives?”

“Just a little exercise. You’re afraid.”

“Of?”

“I dunno. This situation, whatever may be at the root. The height. The precarity. It’s very understandable. But there’s no use spending it having an attack.”

His expression contorted as though ready to deny the claim, but he thought better of it. It was indeed the precarity, of being so high up completely severed from the dirt. That he was enduring this situation with her of all people didn’t help a bit. Especially since she was now acting quite strange.

“It’s that obvious?” he said, eyes still following the arc of the pendant. The back of his neck tingled. He really ought to put a stop to this silliness, but he’d be lying if he said the way she was whispering to him now was having no effect on him.

“To a trained eye,” she murmured. “But I won’t tell anyone. I just want to help you. You heard the lady on the phone, we have nothing to worry about. This elevator…it’s old, but not that old. I’ll bet the glass is laminated. I’ll bet it has so many standards to meet. So many tests to pass. So many students and faculty conveyed every day, one after the other, so many faces, none of them failed by this machine…”

Professor Artom’s gaze remained fixed to the dimly glittering gem as she rambled. He could’ve easily looked away if he really wanted to, it was just that he had nothing else to do in the moment. He hadn’t really a choice in the matter; it was either hyperventilate in misery or accept this strange yet helpful turn of events.

Really, they didn’t even feel that strange now that he thought of it. So she wanted to help him quell his anxiety. So what? Stranger things had happened.

He leaned against the wall as she continued, still saying something about how secure the elevator probably was. And she was probably right, but he hadn’t really been listening, so he couldn’t exactly verify. It was usually the content of her speech he focused on, but right now the sound of her voice—its timbre, its cadence, its soft, gentle guidance—had taken precedence.

Gradually, his posture relaxed; his hands dropped away from the cold steel wall to hang loosely at his sides as his eyes, unblinking, remained locked to the gem. He watched the pendant swing left to right, back and forth. His jaw unclenched, his breath slowed.

“Close your eyes.”

His eyelids blinked heavily. His body grew heavy against the cold steel wall; his mind, so often abuzz, drifted into rare quiet.

Just as she was about to break the silence, a hum of electricity sparked through the elevator shaft, followed by a jerk as the elevator began moving again, startling them. Its descent finished as normal. Sofia smiled at Professor Artom before zipping her jacket.

“See you next week,” she said, slipping past him into the lobby.

“…Yeah,” he uttered back. “See you.”