All characters are 18 or older. This is a commissioned work for a patron.
***
An ignorant online fling ends in hot, incestuous breeding.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 2023
I sat trapped in the amphitheater-like lecture hall with my peers, a young man with too much to live for surrounded on all sides by a scholastic prison of wood, glass, and steel. Asymmetrical seating filled with shifting freshmen and sophomores curved down in rows that encircled the central presentation area, a sunken, circular dais of a stage and smartboard at the heart of the room. The air stank faintly of academia, of aged books and coffee; polished linoleum. It was the mental graveyard of youth like me, where high school dreams of greatness and freedom were dragged down into the reality of rooms like this one; that a $50,000 dollar-a-year education didn't teach you jack shit.
English 102: The Hubristic Chronicles in Literary Discourse was packed with a sea of students, probably because it was a requirement for way more exciting majors like Business, Pre-Law, Education, Journalism, and Social Sciences. I was one of the captive audience, sitting up in the nosebleed seats and bracing myself for another dreadful-ass 90 minutes of literary waterboarding. We'd covered Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakespeare's
Macbeth
, Melville's
Moby-Dick
, and parts of Dante's
Divine Comedy
. Today would introduce the last module of the course, along with the renewed promise of all the painstaking, old-school analysis that Professor Thompson continually demanded of us. At least it was the last one I'd have to slog through before the end of the semester and my freshman year.
My mind was on anything but English 102 as I checked my iPhone. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I pushed my face into my screen, hunched forward on my elbows, thumbs flashing over the keyboard as I navigated my latest breakup. Emily Fischer.
Emily started out as a rebound after I ended a 3-week thing with Becky Lee last November. What was attractive at first with its ease and stability soon slumped into a boring and immature relationship -- Em's first -- where I had to patiently coach her through all her many insecurities. She wasn't particularly good-looking, but we shared a lot of interests and I liked spending time with her. Being perpetually stuck at second base for months made it all feel like a waste of time though, and I was sick of it -- especially sick of her immature bullshit as she became increasingly clingy and cringey to be around. I'd been ghosting her for the past few days and the texts were getting incessant.
[Zach: Please stop.]
[Emily: Why, because I'm just some inexperienced burden to you?]
[Zach: No. I need space. Can we please stop doing this and just move on?]
[Emily: You act like you're so perfect, Zach. Maybe if you were more understanding or patient, things would be different.]
[Zach: I've been patient tho. 5 months, Em. 5. And I've tried to understand. You don't want to put any effort into this.]
[Emily: Srsly you're so superficial.. You just care about sex.]
[Zach: No. I think you're an awesome person. But like I said it's not fair to either of us to keep going with this.]
[Zach: Sorry, I got class. g2g]
[Emily: Fine. Whatever. Fuck you🖕]
I sighed and put my phone down, then dropped my face into my hands. I was so fed up with college girls. After Sarah, Becky, and now Emily, I was starting to despair about the shallowness of the pool of women available to me on campus. None of them knew what they wanted out of a relationship and expected the world for nothing in return. I felt like either I'd have to give up and get married to my fucking left hand for the next 3 years or take the chase elsewhere and expand my hunting grounds.
I was pissed. Apathetic angst turned vengeful as I frowned deep and began deleting all the pictures of us on my phone. Yep. Emily wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination. Her body started out okay, but she began to really let herself go after we began dating. Whenever I tried to bring it up or take her to the gym with me, she'd get so fucking defensive and wail about me not liking her for how she was.
I felt a stab of anger and shame as I remembered all the nights Emily had refused to have sex or try anything new. She was fascinated by my big cock but in an infantile and unappreciative way. There was always some new excuse to keep us from taking things to the next level. First, she didn't trust me not to brag about taking her virginity (like that was a prize or something). Then she wanted to save herself. Then she wanted to make sure we were on a deep enough emotional level to take that next step -- like we were soulmates.
We'd dated for 5 months. 5 fucking months. What a waste.
I was so
stupid
.
As our pictures cycled into the trash, I looked at myself. The earlier the timestamp, the happier I seemed. I was a handsome white male with a friendly smile, 5'11, all lean, well-defined muscle that I'd developed since coming to college and working out 3-4 days a week. I'd been slightly overweight out of high school and I was determined to make a fresh start. My eyes were olive green and expressive, my jaw angular and my nose vaguely aquiline. My hair had started out as an unkempt, dark brown grungy mane but I'd gotten the sides buzzed down and left the top longer and styled.
When the last photo disappeared into the trash icon where it belonged, I felt a sense of relative, bittersweet closure. I was ready to prostrate myself at Professor Thompson's altar of literary masochism.
Speak of the devil. Thompson entered the lecture hall, a dusty old academic in every sense of the term. His disheveled salt-and-pepper hair fell haphazardly over his receding hairline, while a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. Not to be outdone as a stereotype, the professor wore one of those tweed jackets, its elbows thin from years of scholarly toil and doling out notoriously poor grades. A mismatched assortment of stickied lecture notes peeked out from the pockets of his jacket.
Professor Thompson's eyes peered over the rim of his glasses, scanning the colorful mob of shifting, murmuring GenZs. He cleared his throat, and the room fell silent, save for the occasional stifled yawn and phone ping.
"Yes, yes, settle down. Good morning, everyone," Professor Thompson began in his mesmerizing drone, hand gripping a yellowed copy of Sophocles'
Oedipus Rex
. "Here at the final leg of our course, we come to the origin of hubris -- a concept, judging by last week's quiz, half of you still don't seem to grasp. Do pay attention. We see the concept throughout history, in various cultures and belief systems, but it is first and best expressed in the literary work of the Greeks. The hubris of Prometheus, of Icarus, of the Trojans, and most notably, the Oedipus tragedies -- which I all hope you brought with you to class today. At its core, this masterwork explores the inescapable grip of fate and the dire consequences of unchecked pride."
Thompson paused, his voice taking on a hint of dramatic flair as he recited a quote from the play: "For whom the gods love dies young, he's their best: All's well with him..."
The professor's words flowed methodically, hypnotically, with no intention of reaching their destination anytime soon, if ever. He put down the book and started writing key points on the whiteboard in his flowing, near-indecipherable script. I sighed again and started taking notes, drifting in and out of focus. Professor Thompson went on and on about the finer details and implications of classic works of the time, about Greek hubris plays and the masks and the chorus, all shit I didn't care about and would never apply to me outside this goddamn requirement. I just wanted to study Journalism, for fuck's sake.
It felt like hours had passed before Thompson started to wind down.
"...The heart of the tragedy lies in Oedipus's relentless pursuit of truth and his gradual realization of what has transpired. Bucking the prophecy of Delphi in his hubris, marries Jocasta, the queen of Thebes, only to discover that she is not only his wife but his own mother, and they have unknowingly begat four children in incest: two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene -- who are also his brothers and sisters."
There were some uncomfortable noises that rippled through the lecture hall, along with a few snickers. Thompson had either expected the reaction or ignored it.
"So too did Oedipus kill his own father Laius on the road to Thebes, unaware of his identity."
Damn, those Greeks were
fucked up
. I scribbled a few more notes, my attention returning. Thompson continued.
"Shattered by the revelation of his terrible deeds and true identity, Oedipus takes drastic action. 'I called her 'Mother.' Jocasta, come down. 'O God, you were right, it was true, all the prophecies. Now, 'O Light, may I look my last on you. I stand revealed at last -- cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands.'"
With a hint of morose satisfaction, Professor Thompson added, "Oedipus, in his anguish and despair, unable to handle the truth of his actions, blinds himself with the pins from Jocasta's gown, plunging himself into darkness, both literal and metaphorical."
I grimaced along with half of the student audience.
"The irony is that the man who set out to solve the riddle of his parentage and the plague that afflicted Thebes ends up being the cause of it," the professor went on. "In the end, Oedipus becomes an embodiment of the tragic flaw of pride and its consequences. Hubris."
