Idiot savant

Despite the fact that chess is my one true love, I did actually enrol at my university to study. Mainly because a certain grandmaster once called another certain grandmaster an “idiot savant who knows nothing outside of chess,” and I wanted to have proof to the contrary if anyone ever said the same about me.

Of course, that guy was also a massive racist so what the fuck does he know?

Anyway, I was in my third and final year of university, doing the easiest subject known to mankind: creative writing. My eventual degree certificate will have as much value as a piece of used toilet paper, but so long as I can convince the other losers that I’m an academic it serves its purpose.

Most of the time I just skipped my lectures to play blitz games or flame IGMs on social media, but unfortunately we had one session a week where attendance was mandatory, because it was when our course work was handed back.

“I’ll be coming round and dropping off your poems at random. We’ll be spending the first half-hour grading, then I’ll collect them back up and hand them out to those who wrote them,” called the lecturer from the front desk.

Right, our course work over the week had been to write a poem about love. What a load of shite that was, people have been writing poems about love for centuries. Can’t we write about something more interesting, like the inevitable fall of late stage capitalism? Oh, whatever, it’s creative writing, it’s basically a free degree anyway.

The lecturer came round and passed out printed versions of the poems everyone had written, each person getting a random one to prevent bias. Because nothing says ‘true love’ like a hastily typed haiku graded by a stranger. Wonderful.

At least, most of them were typed. The one I was given was handwritten, and in really pretty cursive handwriting. Like it was written with quill and ink by some cunt four hundred years ago.

It was written like it, too.

“What great and mighty depth hath mine own heart?
What hold hath thou upon mine aching soul?
What love hath I for thee and all thou art?
Without thee, dear, my life could not be whole

Thy voice doth echo softly in my mind,
My skin doth yearn for thy most gentle touch,
In thy pure eyes the light of life I find,
That’s why my heart desires thee so much

Within thy gaze I find myself so lost,
Thy kindly look is one I can’t escape,
With my doting I mean not to accost,
But watch as gentle love doth taketh shape

I ask thee not to rend my heart in twain,
Nor let the flames of passion slowly wane.”

Despite the flowery handwriting and archaic words, it was really nothing special. The meter and rhyme scheme were mostly okay for a Shakespearean sonnet, but the attempt at a volta was pathetic, and there was no consistent symbolism or anything. Not even a real throughline other than “wow, look at how much of a romantic I am.” Tosser. Couldn’t even get the antiquated dialect right. What sort of Shakespearean poet would say “that’s why?” Pretty sure “doth taketh” is wrong too.

Clearly this was written by someone who thinks they’re far smarter than they are.

I thought back on what I had written myself, as an example of how to do it right.

“Each day, all I want is to rest
My head on your glorious breast
I’d give them a squeeze,
So my love, won’t you please
Let me watch while you’re getting undressed?”

…alright, maybe I’m the one who didn’t understand the assignment

Well, whatever. May as well get this rubbish over with. I took a red pen to the sonnet and took out all of my scholarly pretension on it. I made a note for each individual mistake in the meter and grammar, then wrote all the corrections at the bottom of the page.

I also wrote a short, perhaps slightly scathing note about symbolism and volta, since this imbecile seemed not to understand either.

We had to give it a score out of 100 based on metrics like flow and clarity. I decided to be very generous. 54/100. Chosen arbitrarily as a compromise between my magnanimity and my disdain for faux-intellectualism.

Once I was done with it, I flipped the page over to look at the name on the back. Which contemptuous cretin wrote this schlock?

J. Touka.

…come on, that’s ridiculous. Two and a half years in this class and I never even noticed her? As if. Clearly it’s someone else with the same name.

I looked around the room tentatively, though obviously there was no way she’d be there, right?

…oh god, she’s waving at me.

Three quarters of my degree done and I just now notice the most beautiful woman in the room. How incredibly plot convenient.

What a fun coaching session we were likely to have this week.