Eyes of Wonder, Tongues of Praise – Joshua Grasso
Adam watched Mrs. Sherbourne click through various slides on the Hylo, another tiresome lecture about Classical Sitcoms and Halcyon-Age Advertisements which had to be crammed for the VCAT. He tried to pay attention (they had an exam on all of this next week) but Amanda was directly in his line of sight. And whenever he thought of her, he thought of the book he smuggled to class. Every page of the book reminded him of some aspect of her face, her movements, her voice, her laugh. He felt close to her whenever he touched the book; more so when he read it out loud, as he often did, in the darkest, coldest bathrooms in the dead of night.
He found it in the Instructors-Only section of the library. Technically, none of them were allowed there, but he had a forged pass from Gleb which allowed him the full run of the library. He had checked out a few old books before, but mostly about 1970’s game shows so he could pass a quiz on The Gong Show (no luck, he failed it). At first he didn’t even know what it was. Sonnets? By Shakespeare? He vaguely remembered some reference to him buried in one of the sitcoms they crammed last month, but Mrs. Sherbourne just waved it off (“oh, he was some politician”). If only he had more time to read it, and didn’t have to be sitting here, day after day, listening to the endless drone of the laugh track (“filmed before a live studio audience!”)
The current slide had a picture of some once-famous, long-dead actor gesticulating wildly, and under his face, Mrs. Sherbourne had written, all episodes have three distinct parts: a conflict, a crisis, and a resolution. Which part is Ross currently experiencing in this scene? He had no idea. Right now, he only had eyes for the book: the old, tattered edges of the cover just peering out at him, tempting him to seize it and drink in the words, words which were even older than television itself.
“Adam?” Mrs. Sherbourne said, breaking through his trance. “Can you answer the question?”
“Huh?”
“On the Hylo: which one is Ross currently experiencing in this scene?”
“Oh, right, that. Crisis?” he answered.
She raised her eyes, amazed that he was listening after all (or made a spectacularly lucky guess).
“Yes, that’s right; crisis occurs when the story undergoes a series of complications, usually involving mistakes and misunderstandings, particularly in a situation comedy, like this one,” she said, advancing the slide. “As you’ll recall from our discussion last time, Monica and Rachel wanted to hire a stripper for Phoebe’s birthday…does anyone remember what that is?”
A few hands went up, though Adam slouched in his chair. He had trouble seeing why any of this mattered. Sure, classic television was part of their culture, and people continued to pepper their speech with a reference to this and that show, but you didn’t need to know where it came from; the meaning was clear. With the book it was different. You really had to work hard, the meaning took time. But when it finally made sense, the words, even life itself, seemed to thrum at a higher voltage.
He particularly liked the word “vassalage,” and wanted to run up to Amanda and tell her, “Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage my duty is knit,” just to see her face, to see if she would understand him. He knew she read books too, in secret, but he didn’t know what kinds, or whether she liked the really old stuff like he did. Sometimes she wore those weird Three’s Company or Alf T-shirts like all the popular kids, but he once heard her say she only watched them for class, and never found them funny.
“Is it someone who used to take their clothes off for money? Like, for sex?” an Amanda responded.
“Well, they didn’t have sex, exactly, it was more the idea of sex, which is what makes this episode so funny,” Mrs. Sherbourne responded. “You see, Danny de Vito, who plays the stripper, is a subversion of expectation because someone his age and—er, size—isn’t the 90’s definition of sexy. Does everyone understand that term? Remember the song we listened to that went, I’m too sexy for my shirt? So sexy it hurts? Anyone? Well, when I was a kid everyone knew that song…”
Here Mrs. Sherbourne went into one of her digressions about her childhood, and how amazing it was and how they just had to be there, so Adam risked inching out the book. The sight of it gave him goosebumps. The Sonnets, with an Introduction by (this part was smudged off), The Pelican Shakespeare. He could read the cover alone with more enjoyment, more conflict than the entire tenth season of Friends. It’s not that he couldn’t appreciate the show, or why scholars said it had changed the landscape of “situation comedy.” Sure, he got that. But it just seemed like they were all…acting. Sure, they were actors, but even the characters seemed to be fake somehow, like they didn’t even believe what they were saying, or were just stalling until the (fake) audience laughed.
The poems were different. First of all, you didn’t know when to laugh or who the main character was. They were just words, arranged on the page like music, waiting to be given voice. And when you did, even if you didn’t know what “vassalage” or “ambassage” meant, it sounded right. Like a piano key that sounded beautiful no matter which one you pressed. Gleb’s unit still had one, not the kind for your phone or glasses, but the old kind, that was as big as a table, lined with steel strings beneath the cover. That’s why he loved these poems: it felt like they were teaching him to play music, and the more he read, the more he understood, the more he wanted to listen.
“Adam? Still here? Could you tell us why Ross and Monica have their own conflict in this episode?”
“Oh, right…Ross and Monica. Well, because…they wanted to get married?”
A few students laughed. One of them, Samantha, a real kiss-ass, glared at him and mouthed “loser.”
“You do know that Ross and Monica are siblings? Or you would have, if you had been paying attention,” Mrs. Sherbourne said, with mock exasperation. “I worry about you, Adam. When—or should I say, if—you get to Higher Vocational Training, they’re going to expect you to know all of this, be able to spit out references to Pre-Meltdown sitcoms and reality shows.”
“Why don’t they test on books, too?” he said, weakly.
“Books?” she repeated.
“Yeah…Gleb said they used to make you read books—that you had to know all the old literature on those tests. That they studied them in college.”
“Well, I’m not sure where Gleb went to school, but he wouldn’t get far with that curriculum. Books are outdated technology. They’re stuck telling the same boring story over and over again. Do you like to eat the same dinner every day? No change, with everything slightly overcooked?”
The class groaned with disapproval. Mrs. Sherbourne took a moment to gloat. Then she continued:
“Today, thank goodness, they know exactly how many people are watching, and when we yawn, or grimace, or go to the bathroom, changes are made on the spot. The best literature is collaborative—made by all of us, crafted by common consent. Books, especially something like this,” she said, gesturing disdainfully to his copy of Shakespeare, “is for the selfish elite. Trying to make people read only one way, see only one point of view. That’s the kind of thing that led to the tragedy of the Last War.”
He knew he should stop talking now. No one ever won an argument with a teacher, much less one who claimed to have seen every episode of Full House and watched the director and cast commentary (whatever that was). Yet something about her manner infuriated him, and something about the last poem he read emboldened him, especially the lines,
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
“Have you ever read it? Shakespeare?” he asked.
There was a collective gasp from the room. Amanda-16 looked daggers at him, and said more than “loser” under her breath.
“No, I haven’t read ‘Shakespeare.’ I also haven’t tried to kill someone with my bare hands, or masqueraded as a stripper at someone’s birthday party.”
Nervous laughter greeted her response, though Adam noticed a few people holding back. Well, not people: Amanda. She wasn’t laughing. She was looking right at him. Not smiling or anything, but looking…thinking something. If only he could figure out what.
“Well, maybe you should. It’s beautiful. The way he uses words. Not just as a punch line. He makes them sing.”
Someone laughed at this, but it wasn’t “you idiot” laughter, but more like, “she’s going to kill him for this!”
“Adam, I know this is your sad attempt to derail the class so we won’t finish the lecture and I’ll have to postpone the exam,” Mrs. Sherbourne said, flushing slightly. “But I promise you, the exam will continue whether or not we finish discussing the next seven episodes. And you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
“Can I just read one? Just a single one? To the class?”
Dead silence. Students were looking at each other with clueless, worried expressions. Why would anyone offer to read something from a book out loud? To the teacher? To the class? He would be facing a solid month of detention at best.
“Now why would I allow you to do that? You know we adhere to strict mortal standards: no smut or poetry.”
“It’s about love. They’re love poems. I found it in our school library,” he said, wincing with the admission. “Er, that is, I found it on the floor…way in the back.”
“Really? And I thought they had donated all those filthy things to the Homeless Shelter. Poor people can’t afford to be choosy,” she muttered, then cleared her throat. “Only the best get a chance to access the archive, to have this rich culture at their fingertips. That’s why your parents sent you here: to know where we came from, to inherit our collective wealth and spread it to others. You should be proud—you should thank me! Thank us for what we’re offering you…”
She suddenly caught herself, as if she had said too much or had gone too far. He almost thought she was embarrassed. With a guilty look, she backed away from him, clearly scrambling for something to say. In the end she merely gestured to the class and said, “what do you think? Should we let Adam read his Shakespeare poem?”
The students traded glances, knowing what the right answer was, but somehow unable to provide it. He noticed Amanda staring at him again. For a second, maybe even less, he almost thought she admired him. But she was too cool to think about him like that.
“You see? No one wants to hear it. You’re wasting the class’ time. If there are no more interruptions—”
“I do,” Amanda said, her voice strong, cutting her off. “Let him read it.”
Suddenly the floodgates were open. Maia nodded, said “I want to hear it,” followed by Dev, Alison, Lyuda, as well as Vu and Troy. Even Samantha seemed cowed into submission, faintly nodding her head.
“Fine. Read your poem. This should be delightful,” she said, crossing her arms.
Adam flipped open the book, letting the pages tick past his thumb as the Sonnets increased: 19…32…40…55…
“We’re waiting, Adam.”
“Just a minute, it’s toward the end,” he muttered.
“You’ve read the whole book?” she asked, incredulously.
“Twice,” he nodded.
He stopped at Sonnet 106. Truth be told, he had read some of the poems nine or ten times, puzzling over the strange words, the twisting speech. This one most of all. The one he wanted to slip to Amanda anonymously, and then watch (from a safe distance) her puzzled expression, her delight. He looked around him nervously, cleared his throat. It was now or never.
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights…
“What’s a wight?” Dev asked him.
“It’s like an old word for person,” he explained.
Mrs. Sherbourne rolled her eyes. Ridiculous twaddle, she seemed to say; but if she did, she kept her thoughts to herself for once. Adam continued,
Then, in the blazon (er, that means a coat of arms, or a list of royal descent) of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
Recklessly, he locked eyes with Amanda as he read this. She noticed, blushed, looked away. He lost his place and was about to continue when, naturally, Mrs. Sherbourne had to interrupt.
“Is this English?” she asked. “I mean, it’s using English words, but all in the wrong order. Now that you mention it, there is an episode of Frazier when he quotes Shakespeare, but it’s done for laughs; it makes him look stupid.”
“But this isn’t stupid,” Adam countered, sitting up. “And it makes perfect sense.”
“Then interpret it for us,” she said, with a self-satisfied grin. “I’m sure it’s no more difficult than discussing the conflict in Friends.”
“He’s saying...basically, that when he reads old descriptions of beautiful people, other poems talking about their eyes and lips and everything else, he thinks they’re just talking about her. The woman he’s in love with.”
“How could they be talking about her? Did they have a time machine?” she asked, to titters of laughter.
Adam wondered how a teacher of culture and script pedagogy could be so dense. Or maybe she was just being difficult. For whatever reason, he could see she wanted him to fail or simply embarrass himself. Not think or ask questions or make connections that would help them understand these shows better, or why people made them in the first place. It’s like she always told them, sometimes it’s better to just sit back and watch the show. Not everything requires deep thought.
“Mrs. Sherbourne?” Amanda said, raising her hand.
“Yes, Amanda? Are you as tired of this as I am?”
“No…I just wanted to answer your question.”
“My question? Oh…did I ask a question?”
“You asked how the old poets could be talking about her, if she wasn’t even born yet. I think I understand.”
Mrs. Sherbourne’s face tightened, grew even whiter.
“By all means, enlighten us.”
“It’s because he’s so in love with her…he sees her everywhere he looks. And when someone writes about being in love, he thinks about himself being in love. He thinks of her.”
“Really? Is that what he thinks, this—Shakespeare? And what’s so funny about that?”
“It’s not supposed to be funny, it’s supposed to be real,” Adam replied. “That’s what these sonnets are about; the poet’s relationships with the people he loves, who don’t love him back, who abandon him, whom he abandons. They show all the different ways we fall in love and try to stay in love.”
“How remarkable: you’ve just described every season of Friends, the show you’re supposed to be cramming for the VCAT, a show in plain English that actually makes sense,” she snapped.
“Doesn’t make sense to me,” Vu muttered.
“Yeah, I like the poem better,” Lyuda agreed.
“Do you?” she said, with a piercing laugh. “You think this parody of language, this invasion of speech is remotely entertaining? That it can hold a candle to Episode 11, Season 10 of Friends, “The One Where the Stripper Cries”? Or did I misquote you?”
Adam looked down at the book, feeling his strength ebb away, his conviction dissolve. He had been a fool to share his passion in public. There was a reason that kids like Adam didn’t read books in class, and that students like Amanda didn’t study Shakespeare for the VCAT. They had a single purpose in life, and everything they learned, memorized, and crammed was to further that pursuit. Shakespeare had no place in their curriculum. They were here to celebrate the ‘good old days’ and keep them ‘good’ for as long as possible. That way people wouldn’t have to remember how much they had lost.
“Now, if we can dispense with the interruptions, I would like to show you the resolution of this episode, which will be instructive to compare with Episode 12 of the last season—”
“Mrs. Sherbourne?” Adam-11 said.
“More interruptions? What is it?”
“What about the poem?”
“What about it?” she snapped.
“Well, he didn’t finish. Can we hear the rest?”
Mrs. Sherbourne’s expression melted from rage to confusion as she dropped the Hylo remote. It clattered against the floor and slid under Amanda’s chair. She didn’t retrieve it, eyes glued to the teacher and her next response. Mrs. Sherbourne didn’t seem to notice it, either, but gazed over the classroom in mute despair. Adam never asked questions, never interrupted a lecture. Nor did Amanda…ever obedient, ever respectful. How could a single book, a single poem, make them forget their purpose in life? They very reason she had been hired so many years ago, to teach them everything that had been lost in the flames, in the hope that one day, we could return to a peaceful, mindless existence. They were to be the new Rosses, Monicas, Phoebes, and Chandlers. Not Shakespeares!
The class waited patiently, but she never responded. So they instead turned to Adam and nodded for him to continue, none more so than Amanda, who inched her chair closer to his desk, eyes hungry for the rest of the poem. Mrs. Sherbourne would probably suspend him, or worse, take him in for a thorough diagnostic; but for now, her hands were tied. He cleared his throat and continued:
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not still enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
He finished, looking up, waiting to hear laughter or snorting or ridicule. No one said a thing. He could see their minds spinning, a few students repeating the words in their head, while others, like Amanda, were working out puzzles.
“Who did he write that for?” Dev asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t think anyone knows,” Adam responded. “But that’s just it, it can be for anyone. It’s for the person who reads it, and whoever he reads it to.”
“I don’t understand the ending. Can you read it again?”
He did, and Dev still frowned, trying to piece it together word by word.
“It means that the old people had the words, but not the woman,” Amanda said, even closer now. “Now we have the woman, but lack the words. We don’t know how to express our admiration—or love—of something beautiful. Of someone we love. I mean…that’s just how I read it, I could be wrong. What do you think?”
Adam just nodded, lost in the wonder of her voice. He wished he could ask her to read the entire poem, but that might be weird, even if he felt—and almost knew—she would accept.
“Is there more of that in the library? Lying around on the floor somewhere?” she asked, with a grin.
“I think so, I saw a lot…you know, on the floor. They’re pretty negligent down there. It was the least I could do to help them clean up.”
“Maybe I can help you sometime,” she said, tucking her hair behind an ear. “I like cleaning things up. Especially poetry.”
“Really? You…ah, read poetry?”
“I mean, I’ve never read Shakespeare or anything, but I like poems. I’ve read a few by Dickinson I found buried on the Feed. Maybe you could come over…you could help me interpret them.”
“Yes, I would love to—I mean, help you interpret,” he said, growing tongue-tied. “And I’ll bring the Sonnets. We can read them together—or just by yourself, whatever. If you want.”
Some of the students started snickering, but mostly because they were jealous. They never had anything to talk about, and all of them wanted to talk to each other after class, in their units, in the dark. Maybe they should start reading poetry, too?
“You know, class, this all reminds me of an episode of 7th Heaven, the show we discussed last week,” Mrs. Sherbourne interrupted, in an attempt to be conciliatory. “And since that could also be on the exam, perhaps we should review it…I believe it also talks about poetry. Maybe there is a place in the curriculum for outdated books, if it helps you understand who these people are, and why we can never stop watching these shows. There’s a reason they lasted this long.”
Grudgingly, the class adjusted to face her, mentally wiping away the scud of excitement to prepare for another lecture on lifeless TV shows. Mrs. Sherbourne retrieved the remote and cleared the screen of the Hylo, advancing to another set of images, faces of long-dead celebrities who knew nothing of the world-to-come. A world that bounced back from the brink of near-devastation, repopulated only with the help of all the Adams and Samanthas and Glebs and Lyudmillas. They all had their place, if they could only follow instructions and not go looking for a humanity that no longer existed. A humanity that was carefully denied them in the interest of human survival.
“Sometimes I just wish we could go back and start over again,” she thought to herself, staring at her cracked and wrinkled palms. “I remember when all we did was stare at the TV with a bowl of popcorn and our smartphones. Life was so simple then. We never had to worry about the future. We never had nightmares about the War.”
She clicked to the first slide.
Author Bio: Joshua Grasso is a professor of English at small university in Oklahoma where he teaches everything from Batman to Beowulf. He has a PhD in 18th c. British Literature from Miami University, which is not in the state you think it is. His stories have most recently appeared in Roi Faineant, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Allegory, and Metaphorosis.
Social Media Links: https://twitter.com/JoshuaGrasso