Professor Jacob by Sami Khalil
His last astounding lecture on “Closure.”
His skilled fingers gracefully strummed the ivory and
ebony keys, in unrestrained ways. With a command of the piano, his mind drifted
towards the lecture he is about to deliver tomorrow, in psychology class, about
“Closure.”
As professor Jacob inhaled and exhaled deeply, his eyes drifted
sadly to the starry heights, with impugned reveries and moonlit silhouettes. A
beloved professor, poet and musician, he taught English literature and Psychology
at two community colleges in Upper New York state.
After practicing his soliloquy for an hour, he sat
down at the piano to ease his mind a bit as he usually does, gently fading
beyond silence, affianced to bittersweet memories. Both parents diseased, many
failed relationships, the dumbfounding suicide of some favorite poets like
Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, he felt the need to talk about a subject close to
his heart; one that is filled with many lingering refrains and trodden mourning.
Morning came, filled with panache and peeks of
spiraled bellows, spirit soaking the students with great anticipation. Noon time
arrived and there was no sign of the professor. The college sent his fiancée to
see about him (he disliked modern phones). Unlocking the door of his house with
a gifted key, she felt the worst and was in for a sad reveal. His face was
resting on the keyboard facing down, lifeless. She knew he had a massive heart
attack after rushing him to the hospital. After the funeral, which was attended
by most students, she went back to her house now (he willed it to her),
trembling from head to toe. She found the lecture paper laid above the piano. She
was asked to read it to the whole class as an honor to him.
With percolating emotions and no shallow love, she
did, as students held their solemn silence. It stated: “My mind lingers over
lissome words, over raging fires and over robed sufferings, moaning to breathe
a sigh of relief, for man’s work or narratives are never finished. Closure is a
myth, a fallacy, fulfilling not the bullying of truth. There is a harsh
spillage of light to find a sense of closure, but, changes and moves are
indefinite where time refuses to end itself. Neither stories end nor reality,
either. We are trapped by questions of an implied pedantic reader within us, by
all mystery. There is that strangeness in many things, even perfect beauty.
Death may come, clinging to the eternal, clutching a sense of closure in wild
eagerness for oneness of the spirit. Every change we experience heightens the
beliefs or suspicions of others. There is no hesitation of judgment in perceptions,
for conclusions differ while questions simmer. We are only humans with
limitations, with no vantage points, with imponderable leaps of knowledge, some
with strong wills, others with feeble ones. Our worlds of dreams and reality
are equally horrifying to those unwitting prisoners of both. To have conclusions,
we have to grasp fully the vacillations of uncertainty. We must fill the gaps
of the story with our benighted limitations for winds a tussling in life-filled
drifters. We must enjoy the timeless journey. God bless you all.”
As applause
reverberated, his text was etched beneath his merited statue at the college. He
became a myth and a legend!
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
