Occasionally he gathers the courage to share tidbits of what he has read with Mrs. Boydstun: ostrich hunting in ancient Libya, tomb painting in Tarquinia. “The Mycenaeans revered spirals,” he says one night. “They painted them on wine cups and masonry and gravestones, on the armored breastplates of their kings. But no one knows why.”
From Mrs. Boydstun’s nostrils gush twin columns of smoke. She sets down her glass of Old Forester and pokes through her puzzle pieces. “Why,” she says, “would anyone ever want to know about that?”
Out the kitchen window curtains of snow blow through the dusk.
21 December, 1970
Dear Zeno,
What an absolute miracle to receive three letters from you all at once. The bureau must have misfiled them for years. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you made it out. I searched for reports on the releases from the camp, but as you know, so much of that was buried, and I was working on reorienting myself to the living. I am elated that you found me.
I’m still mucking about with ancient texts—rummaging in the dusty bones of the dead languages like the old classics master I didn’t want to become. It’s even worse now, if you can believe it. I study lost books, books that no longer exist, examining papyri dug out of rubbish mounds at Oxyrhynchus. Even been to Egypt. Appalling sunburn.
Years pass in a blink now. Hillary and I will be hosting a bit of a function for my birthday in May. I know it’s a terribly long way, but you could pay a visit if you’re able? A holiday of sorts. We could scribble some Greek with paper and pen rather than stick and mud. Whatever you decide, I remain,
Your trusty friend,
Rex
LAKEPORT, IDAHO
2016–2018
Seymour
Eighth-grade world studies:
Write three things you learned about the Aztecs.
In the library I learned that every 52 years Aztec priests had to stop the world from ending. They put out every torch in town and locked all the pregnant women in stone grainerys so their babies didn’t turn into demons and kept all the kids awake so they wouldn’t turn into mice. Then they took a victim （had to be a victim with zero sins） to the top of a sacred mountain called Thorn Tree Place and when certain stars （one book, NonFiction F1219.73, guessed maybe Vega, fifth brightest in the sky） passed overhead, one priest split open the prisoner’s chest and ripped out her hot wet heart while another started a fire with a drill where her heart used to be. Then they carried the burning heart fire down to the city in a bowl and lit torches with it and people wanted to burn themselves with the torches because to get burnt by the heart fire was lucky. Soon thousands of torches were lit with that one fire and the city glowed again and the world was saved for another 52 years.
Ninth-grade U.S. history:
Not to hurt feelings but that chapter you assigned? That was all “Columbus is great,” “The Indians sure loved Thanksgiving,” “Let’s brainwash everyone.” I found way better stuff at the library, for example did you know before leaving England to pick up the tobacco the slaves grew, the Englishers filled their empty ships with mud so they didn’t tip in storms? When they got to the New World （which was not new or called America, the America name came from a pickle seller guy who got famous because he lied about doing sex with natives） the Englishers dumped their mud on shore to make room for the tobacco. Guess what was in that mud? Earthworms. But earthworms had been extinct in America since the ice ages, like 10,000 years at least, so the English worms went EVERYwhere and changed the soils and the Englishers also brought other things this place had NEVER known such as: silkworms pigs dandelions grapevines goats rats measles pox and the belief that all animals and plants were put here for humans to kill and eat. There weren’t honeybees in so-called America either, so the new bees had no competiters and spread fast. One book said when families in the native kingdoms saw honeybees they cried because they knew dying wasn’t far behind.
Tenth-grade English:
You said write something “fun” we did over summer to get our “grammer mussels flexing” again, so ok, Mrs Tweedy, this summer scientists announced that in the last 40 yrs humans have killed 60 percent of the wild mammals and fishes and birds on earth. Is that fun? Also in the past 30 yrs, we melted 95 percent of the oldest thickest ice in the arctic. When we have melted all the ice in Greenland, just the ice in Greenland, not the north pole, not Alaska, just Greenland, Mrs Tweedy, know what happens? The oceans rise 23 feet. That drowns Miami, New York, London, and Shanghai, that’s like hop on the boat with your grandkids, Mrs Tweedy, and you’re like, do you want some snacks, and they’re like, Grandma, look underwater, there’s the statute of liberty, there’s Big Ben, there’s the dead people. Is that fun, are my grammer mussels flexing?