microbiologist – telephone – hidden – bystander – trench
inside – international – shoe – heights – persuade
And so he sat and he thought, his emotion and his insecurity hidden behind a far-off gaze. He thought of what could have been instead; to have not been a microbiologist nor an academic at all. What if he had gone to flight school? He’d be in the skies or even a simulator of the skies. He’d not have Darla, he thought, for a moment, but then changed it so she’d be there with him. He’d not be bystander to other’s determination of his success. What success — but to get from one place to the other with the least amount of turbulence? To reach such heights —well to be at the gate of such heights, awaiting entry or dismissal at a ring of the telephone— but to still be in the tenches, fighting, digging, waiting for each iota of advance. Worst was the waiting; most’d have gone back to to work, but this was the work, the only work, it seemed now, to matter to Jack. He’d gotten himself this far all on his own, but now he had to persuade the critics of his claim. Of course they’d say the work would do the persuading, but Jack knew the games, the preferences at work, that allowed some inside the international scholarly holy-place, and sent others home in the rain. And it was raining. Going to be a miserable line at the store, Jack thought. The droplets splashed against his forth-story lab window. He stood looking down at the street, at the cars pushing past one another, making torrents on the sidewalk shores, seeming themselves to be trying to get out of the downpour. Jack’s shoe tapped and his mind went to dreams of a warm shower. He grabbed his jacket; he would try to beat Darla home, he thought. Then one foot out the door — the phone rang.
