Chapter 4 — Education
And thus begins Chapter Four.
Now, children.
I pushed away from the wall.
Cigarette nearly done.
Mith still standing somewhere in the chaotic ecosystem of Dee Tee
looking like a man who had been given a complicated machine
without the manual.
I walked over.
“Come.”
Children.
No explanation.
No motivational speech.
Just
come.
Mith followed.
Because although this was his free trial,
I remained the instructor.
The council looks at my academic qualifications.
None.
Perfect.
We found seats.
Good seats?
Bad seats?
Children.
Irrelevant.
This was not a furniture review.
We sat.
Music around us.
Bodies everywhere.
Alcohol moving through bloodstreams at varying speeds.
Smoke occupying whatever air remained.
And I prepared to explain Dee Tee
using the finest educational system available to Nuo.
Analogy.
The council sighs.
Here we go.
Children.
I gestured around us.
Dee Tee.
The whole place.
The dance floor.
The crowds.
The drunken conversations.
The make out corners.
The people temporarily convinced they were excellent dancers.
All of it
the lake.
Mith looked at me.
The lake?
Yes.
Children.
A chaotic lake.
Made not of water
but of
bodies,
booze,
smoke,
bad decisions,
and enough hormones to power a small city.
The council looks concerned about the ecosystem.
Healthy?
Absolutely not.
But thriving.
And Mith?
Fisherman.
The council pauses.
Of course.
Your goal?
Cast.
Find someone you like.
Mutual interest appears?
Reel.
Children.
Simple.
Mith’s eyes narrowed slightly,
trying to convert my deeply questionable metaphor into operational knowledge.
And I continued.
What does a fisherman require?
Bait.
The council groans.
Appealing bait.
Something interesting.
Something that gives the other person a reason to remain in the conversation.
Could be humour.
Could be confidence.
Could be a story.
Could simply be vibe.
Children.
You cannot walk into the lake,
stand silently beside a fish,
and expect destiny to complete the paperwork.
The council refuses the fish human comparison on several grounds.
Metaphor.
Calm down.
Now.
Mith’s old framework?
Foundation.
That was his whole system.
Meet woman.
Talk.
See her again.
Build familiarity.
Flirt.
More familiarity.
More flirting.
Eventually
perhaps bonk.
Children.
He built bridges.
Dee Tee required
rafts.
Temporary.
Functional.
Nobody was asking whether this architecture could survive the monsoon.
The council looks at the metaphor pile accumulating.
Lake.
Fish.
Bridges.
Rafts.
This lecture lacks curricular consistency.
But it communicates.
The point?
Foundation not necessarily required.
Because the reality of a college pub was brutally temporary.
You might talk to somebody that night,
vibe,
go somewhere together if both of you wanted that,
and then
never see each other again.
Children.
Manipal was very good at producing people who existed in your life
for six hours.
Then vanished.
No tragedy.
No promise broken.
Just
night expired.
And for Story Nuo?
That was normal.
The council nods.
Classic Manipal operating system.
Exactly.
So I looked at Mith.
The lesson was simple.
Stop trying to imagine Week Two.
There may not be Week Two.
There may not even be tomorrow afternoon.
Children.
Work with now.
Does she seem interested?
Continue.
Does she not?
Move on.
Does conversation die?
The lake remains full.
The council looks at Nuo.
Very elegant philosophy.
Children.
This was not philosophy.
This was pub logistics.
Important distinction.
Mith absorbed the lecture.
Perhaps nodded.
Perhaps looked toward the dance floor with slightly renewed confidence.
And then
I sent him back.
Go.
The council looks surprised.
That’s all?
For now.
Children.
Lesson One:
The framework.
Now Lesson Two required
failure.
The council smiles knowingly.
Ah.
Yes.
Because I had not fully equipped him.
Deliberately.
Not cruelty.
Education.
He needed to discover the next problem himself.
There are lessons you can explain.
And lessons that only become useful once the student has suffered enough to ask the correct question.
The council reluctantly approves.
I returned to my observation lounge.
The wall.
Children.
Home.
Lean.
New cigarette.
Light.
Inhale.
And
Amateur Hour Two.
Mith entered the metaphorical lake.
Except now he knew he was a fisherman.
Did this improve matters?
Marginally.
The council watches.
He approached the environment with more purpose.
Good.
Less deer.
More
deer who had attended one fishing seminar.
The council laughs.
But still.
Problem.
Children.
Mith himself was interesting.
Very.
Brother.
Gymrat.
Dota addict.
Soft personality wrapped in large muscles.
Plenty of stories.
But his instinctive conversational material?
Wholesome.
Painfully wholesome.
The council looks at him.
How wholesome?
Bordering on sainthood
by Dee Tee standards.
Children.
This man could tell you about friendship.
Family.
Gym.
Games.
Normal human experiences.
All perfectly fine.
But Dee Tee was not a monastery.
You had maybe minutes to become memorable
inside a room where everybody was competing with loud music,
alcohol,
and twelve other distractions.
Mith’s instinct was to build slowly.
Ask normal questions.
Give normal answers.
Be respectable.
Children.
Respectable was not failing because respectable is bad.
It was failing because respectable takes time.
And tonight?
Time was compressed.
The council nods.
So I watched.
He would approach.
Conversation.
Maybe some success.
Then
fade.
Again.
Another.
Talk.
Nothing catching.
Children.
The Fisherman had entered the lake
with bait designed for an entirely different species.
The council looks horrified at the metaphor again.
Continue.
I smoked.
Enjoyed.
Not because I wanted him humiliated.
Though
children
it was extremely funny.
But because I knew the exact moment would arrive.
That point where confidence becomes frustration.
Frustration becomes analysis.
Analysis becomes
question.
The council waits.
Mith tried again.
And again.
He was not catastrophically rejected by the entire female population of Dee Tee.
Let’s not rewrite him into tragedy.
He simply wasn’t producing what he wanted.
Children.
His familiar methods were too slow.
The night kept moving faster than his framework.
And gradually
he understood.
Something missing.
The council watches Mith finally return.
Yes.
Eventually,
he came back.
Toward the wall.
Toward Professor Nuo.
Cigarette perhaps nearing its end.
My face probably carrying the deeply irritating expression of someone who already knows what you’re about to ask.
Children.
Because I had been waiting.
Mith stood before me.
Amateur Hour Two complete.
Lesson absorbed through repeated practical disappointment.
And then
the sacred question.
The question I had deliberately refused to answer before he understood why he needed the answer.
He asked.
And children
I smiled.
Because now?
Now he was ready.
The council opens the final lesson.
Do we reveal it?
Not yet.
Correct.
That belongs to what comes next.
For now,
Mith had gone from:
What the fuck do I do here?
to understanding the lake,
to realizing the bait he naturally carried was not suited to the speed of the room.
And Nuo?
Ready.
Cigarette.
Wall.
Smirk.
The final piece of Dee Tee education waiting behind his teeth.
Children.
The fisherman had learned the lake.
Now he needed bait.
Thus concludes Chapter Four.
The Return From Amateur Hour One.
The Seats Of No Importance.
The Lake.
The Fisherman.
The Objective.
The Bait.
The Complete Absence Of Long Term Architectural Requirements.
The Classic Manipal Way Of Life.
The First Lesson.
The Return To The Dance Floor.
The Deliberate Incomplete Education.
The Second Cigarette.
The Observation Lounge.
Amateur Hour Two.
The Hulking Monstrosity Attempting Respectable Conversation In A Room That Moved Faster Than Respectability.
The Repeated Almosts.
The Growing Frustration.
The Return.
And
The Sacred Question.
Children.
I could have given Mith the whole manual immediately.
But where is the education in that?
First,
he needed to understand why his normal methods were failing.
Then he needed to come back
and ask me himself.
He did.
And I was ready.
Professor Nuo’s final lesson
was about to begin.
