Baguette Rhymes with Dead || ONC 2024 | ✔

Chapter 7: The Parkour Phase

Though Luc had said our tragic twelfth-century lovers had died in their sixties, Peter Abelard did not look like an old man.

The famous scholar strolling towards us had to be somewhere in his early thirties, fuelling my budding suspicion that the dead here didn't necessarily assume the appearance of their final year alive, but rather an image of themselves they held dear. Abelard's curly hair and short beard were a striking red colour and he wore the type of round glasses I was never too surprised to see perched on a teacher's nose. Though his gait never seemed as threatening as Friedrich's, his swagger taught me he was used to coasting on a wave of intellectual superiority, the four students flanking and following him only adding to his authoritative air.

"Shit, dude," Luc muttered. "Abelard's kind of hot."

I choked on my own spit. "He's wearing a tacky Hawaiian shirt of all things," I pointed out. Abelard had evidently done away with the habit of wearing monastic clothing and pursued a new fashion style. If it could be called style in the first place.

"Hey, I'm not here to be the fashion police." Luc shrugged with nonchalance. "So do you think he's castrated in the afterlife, too, or..."

"Luc."

"I'm just curious!"

"About the man's genitals!"

"Don't tell me you've never been curious about a man's genitals–"

Abelard cleared his throat as he came to a halt in front of us. "I can hear you, gentlemen. And I won't dignify your question with an answer."

Inbetween meeting the famous-and-quite-possibly-dangerous Peter Abelard and trying not to think about Luc's genitals, I wasn't sure what to say. "I'm sorry I called your shirt tacky, Mr. Abelard. The yellow palm trees actually complement the blue quite well," was what I finally came up with.

"That's Professor Abelard to you." Though my words wouldn't win any eloquency awards, Abelard seemed to approve of them, glancing lovingly at his shirt. "But apology accepted, young man. I find this style rather refreshing, though my wife has yet to see its charm. Heloise is still the most brilliant woman I've had the honour of meeting, but I fear her intelligence may not extend to knowledge on what's considered fashionable in this day and age."

I wouldn't debate him on the matter, though I had a feeling Heloise might not be above composing a strongly-worded letter in response to it. I didn't dare pull my gaze away from Abelard, but I could see his students spring into action from the corner of my eye: the ones who'd flanked their mentor moved between tables to the opposite side of the room, the ones lagging behind taking their places. They moved as if they knew what to do, even though Abelard hadn't produced any gesture or indication he'd given them an order.

Perhaps there wasn't even any need for that.

"So awesome to meet you, Professor," Luc greeted him with amicable ease. "We were hoping to see you, actually. Do you teach classes at the Sorbonne? Because Nick and I are still looking for activities that may give some meaning to the long afterlives ahead of us, and a bit of soul-searching in an interesting class could be good for our intellectual development."

Luc had learned from our encounter with the librarian; his effort to maintain the facade we weren't alive came out smooth as could be. Unfortunately, I was afraid we were past the point of fooling Peter Abelard, whose influence extended so far he had a little student militia at his beck and call. In a flash, my thoughts drifted to Béatrice and Friedrich. I hadn't bothered to consider where they took that class they met in or who taught it, but could it have been here at the Sorbonne, with Abelard or his wife for an instructor?