Drawn

For the Creative Writing 102 final exam, my instructions to the class were straightforward: write a one-page original story, double-spaced. It must contain all the elements of narrative: setting, plot, character(s), conflict, resolution, and what I called “a mysterious riddle.”

         The instance when all the puzzle pieces fit, except for one missing piece. The reader must find it and make it fit.

I explained my assignment was like the disappearance of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, a distant relative. Just 22, Irvine served as the junior climbing partner of George Mallory, a world-renowned mountaineer/ explorer who had attempted to summit Mt. Everest on two previous expeditions. Irvine was embarking on his first attempt. No one had yet succeeded.

During the final push, mere meters from their goal, both men, roped together, vanished in a squall. Subsequent attempts to find them failed, until Mallory’s body, with personal effects, was found intact in 1999. The rope still around his waist, broken. Irvine remains missing to this day.

         “Did they summit?” I asked the class. “An unanswered question lays the groundwork for many a story. Yours is due the day after tomorrow.”

         After dismissing the class, I retreated to my tiny, windowless office. On the back wall hung a copy of Andrew Irvine’s last known photo portrait and my PHD diploma in literature from Merton College of Oxford University, the same one Irvine attended at the time of his disappearance.

During my teenage years, I had hoped to follow in Irvine’s footsteps. He was a skilled rower. So was I. When not on the crew, mountain climbing and alpine ascents satisfied my adventurous nature. Since Irvine’s passion drove him to take part in the third British Everest Expedition, I hoped to explore perilous heights with the same fervor, once graduated.  

Having a lighter schedule my senior year at Merton, I took an elective class in observational drawing. Since dabbling in high school, I thought a creative tick might emerge from my feeble scratchings. One day, while staring at fading rays of sunlight cast through a tower window, I felt dizzy, passed out, and fell down a flight of stairs in the art building. Revived by smelling salts, the attending physician said I had sustained a compound fracture of my left tibia, which, correctly set, would heal over time. There were also clear signs of bone deformation. It turned out to be a rare progressive disorder. With therapy and drugs, the condition could be slowed, but I would never row or climb again.

Reading about exploration in any realm has brought healing; literature, the route to recovery and transformation — from adventurer to adjunct writing instructor. I hoped to read some work that had more than polished grammar and forced artifice. A flicker of risk, an explorer’s aura, would be a boon. It was time to evaluate my student’s manuscripts. 

On top of the CW102 submissions pile sat the most enigmatic final paper I had ever received, a drawing. Though unsigned, I recognized the maker, Victor Marks. Curious, I turned it over, hoping to find a story, any story.

Marks’ previous submissions revealed a heavy-handed writer who filled his work with strange symbols and contrivances, all of which resulted in a predictable ending. His fondness for drawing, in the borders, between words, any blank area, as if exercising his artistic skills to support his writing would impress me to raise his grade, was tiresome. This latest presentation was over-the-top, not a single word, just a cold blank page. What was he thinking?

As I ran my fingers around the edges, considering how I could grade his pitiful and delinquent offering, a peculiar surface texture of the drawing coming through compelled me to turn the page over again.

         There was the sketch of a pencil, drawn in pencil, with all the familiar earmarks of student artwork, tightly rendered in one-point perspective. It was convincing enough to pick up. Marks reminded me in the past, you sometimes have to turn a work, study it from different viewpoints to understand the creator’s intent. Unamused, I conceded for the moment.

         As I turned the drawing upside down, the sharpened lead end of the pencil morphed into a conical wooden tower, receding into deep space. The meticulously shaded background evoked crystalline heights. I had seen similar optical illusions before. A suggestion of spectral rays emanating from outside the paper veiled the distant metal end cap and eraser head.

Rotated again, the drawing revealed a snow-capped peak: the jagged remnants of an oft used eraser piercing angular clouds. Giving substance to the sheer ascent, light flickered off specks of graphite. Under a magnifying glass, they sparkled and appeared to be moving, crawling up through the mist. By holding the paper closer, I could see humans climbing to the summit. The tip of my own frozen nose came into view, casting a shadow across the peak.

When I tilted the page, a blinding sun appeared. I squinted to see what the climbers would do next. One reached the summit and began pulling the others up, linked by a safety rope. Bracing himself, he raised a flag, which flapped fiercely in the wind. I could just make out something printed on its rippling span. Victory.

         Does a single word make a story? As the posting deadline neared, I struggled to answer the question. I published the grades for the class, except Victor Marks. The department chair gave me an extension to meet with the student and determine a suitable outcome.

         When I called the registrar’s office to get Victor’s address and phone number, the answer was unexpected. There was no registration of a student by that name in my class or the university. Ever. I had returned all of his previous work and had only a single sticky note, somehow saved from an assignment. It read: Follow directions and return. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what assignment of his it referred to. After contacting several other students from the class, it became clear no one knew Victor or had ever seen him in class.

Over the semester break, the other climbers made it to the top and merged into one dark mass, a smudge at the tip of a well-worn eraser. All except one.

         I’m still waiting for the treacherous winds to abate — for one shot at the summit. My tongue burns with each freezing breath. The footprints of the others have long since disappeared, and I still don’t know what happened to Victor. Who was he, anyway? Where did he go?