The Whale Belly

A young man, who had read many books by many learned people, decided that he wanted to go to school to become a learned person as well. He applied and was accepted into a prestigious university in a prestigious city, where he joined fellow burgeoning young scholars. At first he would look around the room and think “I don’t think these people are as devoted as I am, nor are as well read. I should do well here.”

And he did, at first. His input in discussions and his initial class papers received commendations from his teachers and peers. But after a couple of semesters he realized he had nothing more to say or to add. He had to repeat himself, and so he began to look around at his fellow classmates to decide whether or not they had been in a class with him where he already said an idea of his. He also struggled to write, feeling as if he were retreading the same ground, digging a rut. To make matters worse, a professor wrote on his paper that he seemed to be “stuck on the edge of an original idea.”

A year passed and his advisor told him it was time to think about submitting articles to journals and presenting at conferences. The young man nodded in agreement, and indeed was excited about the prospect, but once he was alone he realized that he had nothing to write down or present. All he had read, once lustrous and alive, had become inert and dusty. It was like when he was a child and became bored of his once cherished toys.

The young man, who was not so very young, truth be told, watched as his colleagues grew and advanced in their studies as if from inside a tank filled with murky water. He became quiet and sullen in class. He avoided small talk before class and turned down invitations for drinks. People became surprised to see him around, as if they hadn’t seen him in a long time, not realizing they saw him more often than they remembered. Then one day he disappeared entirely, and no one said anything about it.

The failed scholar returned to his hometown, bewildered. He was full of erratic dreams of artistic fame and abysmal plummets into self-doubt. He watched the world continue with or without him, it’s gears slowly crushing him into something dense and hidden among its other layers of detritus. And within this tomb he began to write again, to paint and sing.