The Institution

Chapter 8: Disharmony With Gravity

After that night, Arthur and I reached an unspoken mutual understanding.

He respected me and my quirky personality and general oddities, and I respected him and his homosexuality and surliness. We tolerated each other's presence; not friends, exactly... but cordial acquaintances. Conversation was polite and formal, and for the most part we were able to put up with each other's annoying habits without too much complaint.

The weather turned colder and wetter; fall was rapidly nearing. We were forced to spend more time indoors than ever before. Arthur's schedule was still fairly hectic; he had football practices almost every afternoon and games every weekend, but on the days when he wasn't out on the field he was shut in our room behind his desk, studying. In the past I used to flee to the library whenever he decided to hang around the dorm, but nowadays I found it to be quite pleasant to study at my own desk when he was around. His mere presence made the hollow feeling in my chest lessen slightly. It was almost like being friends.

Tuesday night was one of those nights. I was sitting on my bed working on an essay for my Introduction to European History class. Arthur was lounging in his desk chair, halfway through the completion of a chart for one of his psych classes. He was tipping the chair onto its back legs, his feet propped up on top of the desk. There was a pencil clenched in between his teeth and his forehead was wrinkled.

The room was silent but for the scratching of pencil lead and the slight rustling of paper. The night beyond the window beside me was heavy and deep, and tugged at my alertness. Kneading my forehead with my fist in a feeble effort to stay conscious, I glanced back down at my near-empty paper to reread the words I'd just written, barely managing to suppress a wide yawn.

The Renaissance was

As you can see, I haven't made much progress so far.

Arthur's chair creaked loudly as he tipped it back onto its hind legs again. I pursed my lips and glowered at my paper, willing my mind to kick into gear. But for some reason the words just wouldn't come to me tonight. Keeping a firm grasp on an idea was like trying to hold hot tea in a donut.

You're probably thinking that that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. My point exactly.

Anyway, back to the Renaissance. The Renaissance was....

There were a lot of things I could say about the Renaissance. It was... revolutionary? A time of scientific revolution? Of great revolution.

The Renaissance was.... "The Renaissance was...."

Humming idly, I flipped open one of my history textbooks and paged through it until I found the chapter on the Renaissance. I tapped the page thoughtfully with my fingernail, staring at the pictures. One image portrayed an ancient sketch of a naked man in the center a circle... Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.

The second picture was a statue of another naked man: David by Michelangelo.

"The Renaissance was...." A revolutionary time when people liked to create art featuring naked people.

While it was certainly true, I didn't think it was what my professor had in mind for the essay. I imagined myself turning in a paper discussing the movement's fascination with the bare human body, and my cheeks instantly flooded with heat.

I know what you're thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter.

I flipped the page.

The next image was a painting by Titian: Venus of Urbino.

On second thought, perhaps I was onto something here....

BANG!

Something large hit the window and violently broke through my train of thought.

I emitted a shout of surprise and accidentally crumpled my nonexistent essay. There was a second loud bang as Arthur's chair went crashing backwards onto the floor. Cursing vehemently and scrambling to regain his bearings, he was on his feet in an instant, dashing over to look out the window. I followed him curiously, straining to see what all the commotion was about.

There were four boys below our room, crouching in the shadows of the trees and roaring with laughter. They were all sopping wet. The exploded remains of a coke bottle were lying in the grass a few feet away.

"Street youths," I grumbled under my breath.

Arthur started making this odd choking sound- I turned, worried that he was suffocating on his pencil or something- and after a moment of confusion I recognized it as laughter. I was shocked- Arthur was actually laughing at something I said?- and the second he saw me looking at him he coughed, glared, and hastily went back to his desk.

My heart as light as a feather, I returned to my books.