Legacy of a Linguist

Dr. Victor Stewart, a man who had, at the age of seventeen, sold his soul to an entity resembling in some ways the devil, was universally acknowledged to be a man who tolerated no mention of spirits. Not only that; he found religious beings and other folk histories as nothing but fear-induced delusions of the masses bearing no ties to reality other than the inscription of their alleged traits in works of ancient literature. No, dr. Stewart was an educated man; he knew better than to partake in superstition and indulge in comforting rituals unless those rituals were conducted in the comfort of his own home and dedicated solely to appeasing he who had granted him a multilingual lexicon vast and organized enough to warrant admission into a top language school; he who had enabled his rise to the office of professor of linguistics; however, primely, he who did not exist.

And so it was apparent to all that dr. Stewart would not exhibit irrational behavior, at least until the strike of one or another age-induced mental impairment. And so it was a shock to all that dr. Stewart had in his late fifties taken to favoritism; and the subject of his admiration had become the undergraduate student and valedictorian Martha Anastasia Harrow. Few knew of this for certain, of course. To many an ear the notion had transpired from inconclusive observation and long-term exposure to campus gossip, not from cold, hard fact, the importance of which dr. Stewart had always stressed in his lectures on cultural anthropology. It was not spontaneity that governed the work of man but virtue, experience and mature emotion. So it was widely suspected that there was a cause for dr. Stewart's deviation from the path of an impartial teacher; and it was widely suspected that this cause provoked change, change only towards the worse.

Martha, being an intelligent woman in higher education, had, of course, her own deliberations on the topic. This, tragically, did not stop her from ringing the doorbell to dr. Stewart's apartment on a clear Saturday evening. Immediately, the door swung open, pulled by an invisible yet formidable force that could not have possibly been the muscle power of a poorly aging professor. Inexplicably to Martha and rather obviously to you, dr. Stewart's hand it was; though whether a hand attached to the torso of a man remained his if an external party controlled the limb remains an ambiguous dilemma.

"Ah!" Martha shrieked, rather comically, if I may say so. What must, however, be attributed to her credit is her impressive reaction time following being thrust onto the carpeted, cat-pee-smelling floor. Utilizing this clear-headedness, she rolled over and stood. In her line of sight landed the silhouette of dr. Stewart. The door slammed shut.

"Apologies," he said sheepishly.

"Excuse me?" Martha choked out incredulously.

"For this," he continued as if she hadn't spoken, sidestepping to reveal an open doorway and behind it - your standard Satanist's kit; a chalk-drawn pentagram, red candles already dripping molten wax, an array of obscene and gory photographs taped to the walls, and most importantly, iron shackles slung over the backrest of a sturdy wooden chair.

Martha blinked once and then, for good measure, once more.

You see, reader, this occurrence, in her view, satisfied all the necessary and sufficient conditions for being an absurd and borderline comical event, as it does for me and perhaps for you, if I'm doing my job right. However, to dr. Stewart it was neither absurd nor comical, because these qualities were substantially dimmed by the presence of deep existential dread and grim expectation as well as pure terror - call that funny! Absurd.

"Follow me," dr. Stewart said. Martha heard a voice at the back of her mind, and, dear reader, I am afraid I have been keeping a crucial piece of information from you. For with terror did Martha realize that to rid herself of the cruel progressive disease that was childhood dementia, she too, at the age of fourteen, had made a pact with the devil. Her mistake laid in assuming that her apathetic emotional constitution and diminished drive to maintain interpersonal relations were the only consequences of the lack of her soul. Oh, how the devil had fooled her! He whispered taunts in her ear, what an intelligent little girl you are!

"Please sit," instructed dr. Stewart, and Martha, staggered, complied.

I am afraid that some details of Satan's subsequent actions and his servant's procedure are, dear reader, strictly classified. For I too have made a deal with the devil, sold my fragile soul, which remains the only reason for my lighthearted tone as I share with you this last inkling: dr. Stewart, after years of teaching, has been deemed redundant by the dean, which spun him into a cycle of manic depression resulting in his seduction and murder of an upcoming student, Martha Anastasia Harrow, in his own apartment, one clear Saturday night. An investigation led to the discovery of a note written in a strange code to which there was no key or previous history. Dr. Stewart himself - tragically - appeared to have burned his throat with a candleflame, narrowly missing his esophagus and hitting the trachea dead-on, the cause of his untimely and disgraceful death.

All, both good and bad, I'm afraid, comes to an end.