May 22nd, 2024

Armed with camping gear and backpacks, the group bound for adventure stood convened in front of the university, hugged by the gentle crispness of a May morning.

Sofia’s chest ached with excitement, head full of anticipation, bag full of…things. Though her professor had stressed a light pack, she’d lugged along a good deal more than the others. Like she was about to endure sleeping in a god-forsaken cabin or tent without a proper box fan. Or lantern. Or shower caddy. With toiletries.

When that large white passenger van finally pulled up in the empty parking lot, the students wasted no time loading their gear.

“I didn’t know you had a CDL,” Sofia said to him from the open passenger door.

“You don’t need one with fifteen or less,” Professor Artom said, donning sunglasses as clouds began to break.

“Are you sure you’ve driven something like this before?”

“If you die, you die. Get in, we’re goin’ to Dunkin’.”

She did, along with the baker’s dozen of grad students. To nobody’s objection, she took the passenger seat.

The drive started swimmingly. The obligatory visit to Dunkin’ Donuts was indeed paid, the van’s interior filled with scents of coffee and various breakfast items. The sun streamed through open windows, birds chirping, the day’s balmy breeze filling their nostrils as classic rock radio played. Some students napped, some read, some played on their phones, others chattered quietly.

Connecticut turned into New Jersey turned into a very long Pennsylvania. Scenery morphed from mundane to stunning to boring to depressing to very boring. Many hills. Many cows. Many injury lawyer billboards. Endless miles of power line.

At the four hour mark, the students began to feel acutely the discomfort and monotony of the drive, and a few began asking for a break. When they drove past a sign for a rest area coming up in ten miles, they erupted in pleas.

“On trips like these,” Professor Artom started loudly, hand raised, “20% of students want to stop 80% of the time. So when 80% of you want to stop—”

The entire van vocalized.

“…Was that at least eleven?”

They vocalized louder.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he said in good humor. “But we’re losing valuable ground.”

Not long post sketchy truck stop, the gang cruised into some drizzly territory only to find one of the van’s wipers squealing incessantly, its rubber flailing in the wind, prompting expletives from the professor—Hertz would be fucking hearing about this—and necessitating the day’s second pit stop to replace it. It wasn’t a trip without a bump in the road, he figured.

But as they crossed state line after state line, further and further away from their cozy campus on the coast, they found themselves swept up in inclement weather, weather that hadn’t looked so severe on that morning’s radar. The terrain morphed, roads weaving and winding uphill, some of which grew treacherous, sowing tangible anxiety amid some of the students.

Rain continued to pour. Then torrent. The radio crackled with noise; the windshield wipers beat in frantic rhythm. The clouded visibility, a road closed, and a series of labyrinthine detours led them further off the beaten path, further yet from civilization.

Then, puttering along a highway the professor had no intention of taking, his GPS told him to take an exit that somehow did not exist in the realm of their reality. Upon the following exit, a road he figured would allow him to return to the planned route, the pavement suddenly turned to dirt—mud, really—and the vehicle ground to a big, wet, sludgy halt. Accelerating only made its wheels spin helplessly.

The van sat silent. Immobilized. Rain pattered against its metal exterior.

“Well, we all brought ponchos,” Professor Artom muttered, unable to face the rows of searing glowers behind him. “Who wants to build some character?”

He put the van’s gear into neutral and donned his rainwear, his disgruntled underlings following suit before braving the roaring elements. At his direction, some pushed; others pulled. Feet either slipped or mired in the mud. Directions were misunderstood; hearing anything over the rush of water took great effort.

But blessed with the collective effort of thirty disgruntled hands, with much fanfare, the van was freed. After just under an hour.

Once everyone was inside and eager to dry, Professor Artom retrieved his paper copy of the map, and on his dashboard began tracing an entirely new route with a compass.

“What are you doing?” asked Sofia.

“Ordering a Grand Slam! What, you’ve never seen someone use a fucking map before?” he snapped, seeing hers and the others’ dinner plate eyes for just a second before the soggy anger melted off his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, softer. “That wasn’t at you. I am just trying to get us to where we’re going.”

She nodded, heart hammering in her chest. He turned back to his map, his expression a mixture of embarrassed and concentrated frustration, his black curls still dripping wet as he hunched over the chart.

Soon, the show was back on the road, and so were the increasingly unhinged billboards. Advertised for the last hundred miles with strangely religious fervor was an eatery called Granny’s Hearth. Best omelettes this side of the Mississippi, she insisted, her weathered hands offering a tasty plate of eggs to any driver willing to take her up on it. The more they drove, the more the stomachs in the van yearned to test her claim.

And so they did. Though the restaurant’s interior somehow smelled of both bleach and mildew, though it looked as though its decor hadn’t budged since the days of Roosevelt the First, though the omelette on Professor Artom’s plate looked as morose as eggs possibly could, the man’s hopes remained high.

High, but not long for this world—he wasn’t fifty miles away from that Brimstone Hearth when he felt very menacing rumblings indeed. Sofia, spared from Granny’s Prandial Wrath having only ordered a dish sponge (danish) and its accompanying dishwater (coffee), sat watching the man’s expression grow more weary and irritated and drenched in sweat by the minute.

“Are you okay?” she murmured gingerly.

“Fine.”

“Hey, Ben, there’s a stop coming up in twenty miles and we really need to use the bathroom,” Elliott said, his voice weak. He, too, had dared test the omelette.

“Who the hell is ‘we’?” Professor Artom said, his dark-circled gaze glaring at them in his rear view mirror.

“Me, Andrew, and Mohammed.”

“What’re you, a coalition? You should’ve—” he started, about to assail them with his usual admonishment for not going at the last stop. But he only clenched his teeth and clutched his stomach, suddenly himself crushed with an ominous wave of nausea from Granny’s God-Forsaken Omelette, rattling the bars of its prison with mess cup in hand.

“—ugh, God. We’ll stop.”

After yet another unplanned stop, at which it was the professor’s turn to forsake the omelette, night fell. The mountainous turned monotonous, the landscapes barely visible in the vast, remote blackness. He sat gripping the steering wheel in sickened frustration. Each inexorable tick of his watch reminded him just how much time had been wasted.

It was no help that white line after white line on that lonely road flew by in a lulling rhythm, pressing more and more heavily on his consciousness. A few students began offering to drive, but he refused on grounds of liability; he was the only one with authorization.

Less than an hour away from their destination, at which point students were now resting—or trying to—Sofia noticed the man jerk out of the corner of her eye. Looking up from her detective novel, she could tell his struggles to stay awake were nearly getting the better of him. His exhaustion was palpable—he sat piled in his seat, enervated and weak, hands grasping the bottom of the wheel. Labored breath came from parted lips. The glow of the car’s dashboard cast his haggard countenance in shadowy reds and pallid blues. Slow, effortful blinks covered dulled eyes. Whereas he’d been drumming along to the radio hours ago, now, playing at a barely-audible volume, the music affected him naught. She swiveled in her seat and leaned towards him.

“You sure you don’t wanna switch?” she whispered. He tensed, pulled out of his daze, giving her a quick glance.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice thorny and thick with a long day’s fatigue. He rubbed his eye and yawned. “We’re almost there. Just, could you hand me my thermos?”

She did.

“Thanks,” he croaked, taking a sip of the ancient, stale coffee within—useless at this point.

“You look like a man who could use some electrolytes,” she said, rooting through her bag for sports drinks. “Fruit punch or Cool Frost?”

“…Cool Frost. Whatever that is.”

The two sat backdropped by napping students, rocked by the van’s steady, humming rhythm, a setting somehow both tense and relaxing. The drink did help him perk up a little bit, or at least feel less ill. He reluctantly admitted to himself that the bit of care she’d shown did, too, but right now he needed a little more than that.

“Could you, um…” he started hesitantly.

“Yeah?” Sofia said. He took a deep breath.

“…Talk to me?”

“After you berated me? Screamed at me?” Sofia said, her hand to her chest.

“I am sorry about that. I said as much, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I want to make you feel bad.” Professor Artom gave her a sidelong glance. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything. Just keep me awake.”

“Ugh. Fine,” she said, a smile in her voice. She paused, mulling over available topics, ones that would engage him—then clicked her tongue. “The Original Series was better than Next Generation. Change my mind.”

He sighed and mustered a tired glare at her.

“Not this again.”

A hushed yet passionate dialectic comparing Kirk to Picard later, that big white van finally pulled into the national park campground. It was past ten—three hours overdue. Their initial period of setup and exploration would have to wait until tomorrow, buy they’d at least arrived on the correct day.

Itching to rest, the group trudged into their little cabins and slept with ease. Most of them, anyway; Sofia laid awake in her cot. Unlike everyone else, she’d made her way to the public showers as soon as they arrived, knowing she’d be unable to sleep without one. She’d even sprung for an individual cabin so she wouldn’t have to deal with roommates, but still, she laid there, coated in a light spritz of bug spray instead of her bedtime perfume, staring at the ceiling. Wide awake.

She never slept well in new places—as more of an indoorsy person, least of all in places like this. But after lying awake for half an hour, she figured she had no other choice but to get some fresh air. She arose, slipped on her hiking boots, grabbed her flint, and ventured outside.

Professor Artom had not much luck in his own cabin. Despite spending the home stretch of the drive sick, weak, and evading sleep only by the conversational grace and electrolytes given by his lovely co-pilot, it now came to him not even slightly. He was unequivocally, deliriously tired, yet wired, unable to spin down from the day’s stress and the ten or so cups of coffee he’d had.

He, too, donned his boots and arose to fetch some air. On his short walk, he did a double take upon seeing a small fire already roaring in the pit, a familiar mane of frizzy black curls sitting before it. His heart’s pace quickened before making the decision to walk over as quietly as he could, stopping a few feet behind her, absolutely still, watching, waiting to see if she’d sense his presence.

“Hey.”

Sofia gasped and turned around. There he stood, clad in a sleeveless undershirt, hands in the pockets of ratty gym shorts, posture slouched and countenance haggard. She exhaled and rolled her eyes.

“How do you always do that?”

“Sorry,” he said, taking a few steps towards her. “Just, if I were a bear or something, you’d be toast. You’re in the wild now, Bezzina. Gotta keep your ears peeled.”

“I was thinking,” she started.

“You had, like, ten hours to do that on the ride here. Go to bed,” he said, feeling the dangerous affection of that teasing tone creeping back into his words despite himself.

“I tried. I can’t sleep out here. It’s too removed from everything.”

“I getcha. Stars for days. No one for miles. Vast, titanic features and all. Prime thinkscape.”

“It’s actually crazy,” she said, finally having worked up the nerve to meet his gaze. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this isolated from society in my life.”

“And you’re studying what, again?”

“You know what, you drove that thing the whole day. Pushed it out of the mud, puked your guts out. You should be in bed.”

Professor Artom heaved a sigh. His head pounded.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I was biting my tongue to stay awake on the interstate and now I’m…overtired, overstimulated, whatever. I didn’t even know you were out here, I just wanted to get some air.”

“Have a seat.”

He did. The wind was warm. The air was filled with scents of moist earth, plants, and burning wood, alive with the crackles of flame and whispers of leaves rustling in gentle breeze. The pines around them stood tall, vigilant, their needles silhouetted against a sky smeared with thousands of stars and the last vestiges of an early summer’s twilight. A barn owl occasionally chimed in with a hoot from within the forest. All else was still.

Save for the butterflies that flapped in Sofia’s stomach. This man had been playing hard to get, but despite several seats surrounding the fire pit, he’d plopped himself right next to her. Her eyes drifted from the flames to his body beside her. With eyes sunken and hair wildly disheveled, in this moment he really did look pitiable. She took in his shoulders, thighs, calves—parts of him she’d never seen bare, paler than the rest of him, soft and coated in rugs of dark hair.

“There a mantis on me or something?”

“No,” Sofia said. “You just look really divorced in that outfit.”

The professor laughed through his nose. Sofia watched the flames light his face, shining in his smiling eyes. She swallowed dryly.

“Point taken,” he said, fingers scratching against his stubbled cheek, eyeing her outfit. “From Miss Fashion Week here.”

“The hell do you know? This is haute couture,” she fired back, gesturing to her drawstring linen shorts and massive, ancient cotton T-shirt with her high school’s name on it.

“With the way some of these kids dress now, I believe you.”

“It’s nice to be comfortable.”

“Decorum, Bezzina, decorum. Propriety. It’s a lost principle.”

“Some decorum, you sitting out here with a student in your…bra and panties.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well, this, right now,” he said, fingers flicking back and forth between the two of them, “doesn’t call for decorum. This is, y’know. Off the record.”

The butterflies inside Sofia flapped harder, restless to burst out and fly free into the night air.

“Off the record?”

“It’s late and we’re sitting in the middle of nowhere in our pajamas. That’s kind of absurd. And absurdity, I think, uh. Precludes decorum.”

Sofia’s arm brushed lightly against his. Her hand gripped the wooden log underneath.

“Sound logic.”

The two sat gazing into the fire. A silence settled between them—not uncomfortable, not entirely comfortable. Sofia snuck a glance at him, noting how worn he looked. How in need of care he looked.

“You know,” she began, “Good thing I made a fire.”

“Hm?” he replied softly. “Why? I mean I agree, but…”

“It’s warm, it’s comforting. Just the right amount of stimulus.”

“True.”

“It has an aura of safety. Of power. Maybe it’s ingrained in us biologically after who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years, I don’t know. But it’s protective.”

“Very.”

Expecting one of his usual retorts, Sofia once again caught sight of him from her peripheral vision. His shoulders had sagged; his eyes, always attentive and probing, were now lidded, locked to the tranquil pyre. She continued, further softening her voice.

“I guess when it’s late, and you’re miles and miles away from other people, it helps to just have something warm and comforting, something you can use as a nice, safe glow while your brain can…unburden itself, if just for a little while. Feel less alone. Kinda like nature’s TV.”

He hummed approvingly.

“So it’s good that I made a fire,” she said, placing a hand on his lower back. “Because you seem to be making good use of it.”

Silence. Professor Artom blinked, his gaze slowly panning to her as he registered her touch. Increasingly light of head, he felt a distinct twinge of affection? gnawing at him.

“Got a point,” he mumbled, rubbing his left eye under his glasses. “Thought I’d go for a walk, but…this is better, I think.”

“Mhm,” came her maternal hum. “After such a long and stressful day, you need something very relaxing.”

“Very,” he parroted—then cleared his throat. Though he tried to straighten up a bit, Sofia still noted his faraway mistiness, his uncharacteristic approval of her touch. She’d never seen him so vulnerable, despite how hard he was trying to hide it.

“Someone who’s overtired needs something like this,” she continued, gently rubbing his back in circles. His eyelids fluttered. “Something nice and predictable. Eye-catching but calming. There’s always something happening in a fire, little licks and flickers, shifts in color and light. A breeze blowing the warmth onto you. It’s all so different, but it starts to blend together into a sort of sameness. Your eyes just kind of glaze over. Your mind starts to wander. Very easy to just stare into it, space out. Don’t you think?”

A dense moment of silence passed.

“D’ja ask me somethin’?” he mumbled weakly.

She smiled. “Just whether you find fire relaxing.”

He swallowed for the first time in what felt like a good while and gave her a nod. Professor Artom did his best to listen to all of his students, but it was becoming harder and harder to focus on what this particular one was saying. That fire was consuming his vision, consuming his thoughts; her words were flowing in one ear and out the other, becoming syrup as his eyelids became lead.

He supposed she was right about the fire. It was very relaxing. So very relaxing.

“Can be very easy to release tension this way,” she went on, her voice a gentle whisper. “It’s easy to hold stress in different parts of your body, but it’s just as easy to focus on them and release that stress. Breathing deeply. Releasing all tension…”

No quips came from his mouth, merely smooth, shallow breaths. The professor, formidable and brimming with vigor in his work, now sat utterly sapped of it as he unwound before her, his posture wilting. Her smile grew, leaking into her voice.

“Back…shoulders…neck, jaw…eyes…forehead…that’s right, letting go of all that tension, all that stress…so relaxed and heavy.”

She knew this man well, knew how his mind always raced, yet now, for the very first time, he sat before her in repose. Fascinated, Sofia watched as the usual little lines etched into his face, carved by years of contemplation and emotion—the little creases between his brows, crow’s feet by his eyes, slight parentheses around his mouth—fell away, erased by the flame’s tender vigil. Those capable hands of his, often animated in conversation, typing up a storm, or clenched around a whiteboard marker, even fidgeting with a loose thread on his shirt earlier in the conversation, now rested still on his lap—palms open, fingers gently curled, utterly at ease.

His heavy eyelids drooped, lower this time, his vision blurring the dancing flames into a single, pulsating glow. Faintly, he realized something about it had made his judgment lapse. Or maybe it was the sheer absurdity of their situation, as he’d mentioned earlier. Maybe it was simply that he was sitting next to Sofia, who had a knack for making him do foolish things, who’d ebbed at his will over the course of many months, forcing him into positions where he had to fight hard to ignore himself.

He fought hard against closing his eyes, too; he hadn’t wanted to lose himself in front of her, or more importantly, lose sight of this warm, tranquil, absurd moment with her pressed into his side, her body blissfully soft. But with her hand firmly, repetitively rubbing his back, her words firmly, repetitively leading him to oblivion, every blink lingered just a fraction longer, eyes drifting closed for just a moment too long before tugging back open again.

Then, with a pulse of relief, falling closed. Tugging open, falling closed. Felt so good to close. Tugging open…what was the point? Surely it would be alright if he simply allowed them to close for a minute. Yes, just a minute—resting his eyes, as it were. Sofia was a capable woman, and her hand on his back felt so wonderfully secure, surely she wouldn’t mind if he didn’t try as hard to open his eyes again.

So he didn’t. And his eyes won, remaining peacefully closed. Naturally, he drifted, his mind floating inwards, coaxed and quieted by her words. His head nodded forward a bit, neck unable to bear the weight of his fatigue.

“You find my voice enjoyable to listen to?” she whispered, framing the phrase as a half-question, half-command.

“Mhm,” he breathed, barely.

“Do you find my words agreeable?”

“Sometimes,” he mumbled loosely.

She smirked.

“It always feels so good to listen to me.”

He hummed contentedly.

“Felt good to relax and let go when I told you to?”

He hummed again.

“Very good. Feel this relaxation, remember it. You see my necklace?”

His eyes cracked open and found the familiar blue sparkle of the pendant. He really had to admit, it was rather pretty. Strangely calming. It had calmed him in that elevator many months ago, much as he hesitated to admit it. And she was sort of playing with it now, tilting it so that its facets caught the fire’s light and dazzled.

He vocalized an affirmation.

“It’s easy to just stare at it. And the longer you stare, whenever you do, the more you’ll recall this feeling, and the more you recall it, relaxing, falling back into it, the more distant you’ll become, willing to listen to my words.”

No response. His brow furrowed a bit. Sofia’s cheeks puffed.

“When you focus on my necklace, you’ll remember the calm, the fire, my voice gently guiding you. Finding me easier to listen to. Finding yourself more willing, and…open for me. Yes?”

He nodded.

“Very good,” she cooed. “Just allow yourself to relax.”

The professor’s eyelids gratefully sank closed again, his awareness fading as she continued talking. He’d always found her voice cute—kind of nasal, but cute. But whatever register she was using now, low and breathy and husky, felt even better to listen to, hot to listen to. Tingles ran through his head and down his spine.

And in this moment merely sitting next to her, listening to her, felt strangely gratifying. He could make decisions, of course; in fact, he preferred to. But right then he felt so exhausted and overwhelmed and blank and confused that maybe, he thought, maybe it was better to let her guide him, just for a little while. Even leaders occasionally needed leading.

Sofia’s heart pounded, watching his lashes fan out against his flushed cheeks, the comfortable heat from the fire seeping into his skin, soothing him. His slow breaths gradually became faint snores. She leaned into him, careful not to disturb this rare moment of respite for her mentor.

Suddenly, he shifted his position, clumsily, unconsciously wrapping his arms around her. She smiled. He’d called this place a prime thinkscape earlier, but it hadn’t been one at all—just the opposite.

She sat perfectly still, relaxed but jitter-bellied at this degree of closeness. After thirty or forty minutes in such a position—it was getting hard to keep track—Sofia found herself fighting sleep as well. She shook him gently.

“Hey. Sleepyhead,” she whispered into his ear. Nothing. She jostled him gently. “You’re crushing me.”

He woke with a start. Struck by the position he was in, arms wrapped around her, he abruptly drew back, countenance fast cast in crimson.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she said with a cheeky grin. Undone, he took a second to catch his breath.

“Yeah,” Professor Artom breathed, heart racing, eyes blinking as he reeled from the mortifying awakening. “Sorry. I…uh…didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” she assured with a smile, tickled seeing him in drowsy fluster. Their gazes met again, cast in yellowed orange. “Absurdity precludes decorum.”

Fight, flight, freeze—the first two, he’d felt many a time. The latter had been foreign to him until this very moment, but as he sat dazed and unguarded, her massive, dark eyes gripping his, for the first time, he froze.

She closed her eyes and leaned in.

Professor Artom’s memories of that evening in December rehydrated with a vengeance. This time, however, he felt as though perhaps getting swept in the tide was not only not so bad, it was at this point inevitable. He’d been holding out for so long. There was only so much a man could do. It was becoming tiresome, farcical, abiding by such pesky things as decorum and propriety. They were so arbitrary, so needlessly restrictive. And May was so much closer to her freedom than December had been. She’d finished her coursework. Her research. She was plugging away at her thesis. There was light at the end of the tunnel…

No. He was getting carried away. He was still her advisor. Being close to the finish line did not constitute a finish. Boundaries had meanings. Meanings were important.

But as his lips gently met hers, soft and slow and long overdue, and his hand moved to cradle her head through black curls, it all felt so natural, so obviously right, that such thoughts became mist. The kiss grew in fervor, arms wrapping around the other, heads tilted, tongues shyly meeting for the first time.

Just as they were beginning to really get into it, Sofia broke with a pant.

“Get some sleep,” she whispered, patting his reddened cheek. He sat mouth open, staring blankly at her through crooked, smudged glasses.

“…You too,” he mumbled, for once finding it difficult to talk, his lungs and brain windsucked. “And, uh…thanks.”

“For what?”

“Helping me relax. It’s usually hard for me.”

“Oh, that was nothing.”

“No, you’re good at it,” he murmured, voice drained, eyes drawn to her pendant. “I don’t remember the last time I felt this…loose.”

“Really?” she said innocently.

“Normally I’d be tossing and turning. Here, I sat with you for a few minutes, and, uh…” he trailed off, eyes closing.

“And?”

“I dunno.”

“You know, you slept for half an hour.”

“Huh? No,” he muttered in disbelief, checking his watch.

“I encouraged you to release your stress,” Sofia said simply. “You responded well.”

He covered his mouth with a fist and yawned. “Guess so. Helps that you’re so soft,” he said, gently pinching a small roll of fat on her belly.

“Hey—!” she yelped.

“No, it’s good. Very good.”

He arose and stretched, staring down at her, his expression warm. He let his hand reach down and tousle her hair.

“Goodnight, Sofia.”

“Goodnight, Ben. Sleep well.”

“You, too.”