Dr. Z watched as Kyle stumbled, half dazed, from the classroom. "I'm sorry Kyle," he said, face creased deeply in a concerned frown.
Turning again toward his teetering stack of papers, he sighs and flips through a few, each covered in his own meticulous scrawl, every loop and crest rivaling the accuracy of even the most recent typewriter. These are not hurried words, hastily scribbled in heated fervor, and yet each emits a deep urgency; characters are written past the boundaries, densely jammed into ordered rows, wasting no inch or shred of available space. It is a work of ultimate efficiency and purpose, pages veritably sagging, dripping a flood of determination and unrestrained vision.
It is Dr. Z's Magnum Opus. It is his life's work. It is the story of his death.
Though undeniably alive, he stares down at the manuscript with grim determination, a look altogether unlike the almost gleeful enthusiasm he displayed in class, and the truth is clear. Sighing in resignation, he flips back to the first page in the pile and resumes writing.
I fear I have just done Mr. Cemtes a great disservice. He has moved here from a city he won't reveal, and I refuse to peruse his files, but I know it is somehow relevant in all this. That he's here now, at the end of a cycle, is not mere coincidence. It would be cliche to declare Kyle a foil, sent from the fates to rescue us hapless townsfolk from our cataclysmic mire, yet that impression betrays a certain truth.
Have his dreams started? Was I being presumptuous in my confusing aside before he departed? I wish I could tell him more, hand him this tome borne from the mind of a doddering old fool, but I dare not. Like those very overused legends I deride, I must let the threads of fate guide his destiny, even should it end in his untimely death. I've set him on the path, as I promised Her, and so my task is done. God only knows what he'll discover in that forsaken wasteland, but I won't bear witness in any event.
This is my Swan Song, my End of Days. Long have I toiled to chronicle the history of this derelict reality, thwarted at every turn by time itself. I've lost track of every iota of duration; each span of minutes feels stretched into an epoch. Methuselah himself would quake in fear confronted with this unprecedented Hell of Perpetuity.
But it ends here. Now. This town is too small for such contrived department segregation, and Kyle leaving my room marks the last student I shall see until tomorrow. I'm sorry Kyle will have no recipient to hear his tales of woe undoubtedly experienced in Old Town, but I've had enough. Please, oh please, let this horror end.
Dr. Z put down his pen, thought better, picked it up again, and scribbled an artistic "The End" at the bottom of that final page. All told, the stack of papers easily eclipsed over a thousand sheets of tightly-ruled lines, black with his cramped and precise prose, front, and back. Summarized, hours upon hours would pass while the reader strove to comprehend the decades represented in the unbound diary. Dr. Z didn't care. He knew no living soul would read his words: they were far too numerous, daunting, critical, essential. He waltzed smoothly to the door and eased it closed, he had other work to finish that required utmost privacy.
With singular purpose, he returned to his desk and dug in another drawer, his hand emerged from the nothingness with a long, thick rope. The students knew little of his other hobbies, which included more than Greek theater practices. Elements of history swam like sparks in his mind, each representing a book he voraciously consumed in his youth, signifying the countless souls harshly judged in English courts. Whether they hapless vagabonds, or treasonous gentlemen, the end always came in a macabre jig beneath the gallows. Dr. Zibowitz accepted only hanging the ultimate punishment for his crime of failure. No, nothing else would do, at all.
His expert, delicate hands produced a handsome Collar noose; eight tightly bound loops lent strength to the prickly hemp. As with his writing, each stage bore his most stringent standards, even the arc the rope traveled, carrying a fist-sized knot over a ceiling beam. It was fastidious defined, practiced as if nothing were amiss, good ol' Dr. Z preparing a sandwich. He turned off the lights, satisfied with the makeshift gallows he'd constructed.
He groaned as he heaved himself onto his desk, cursing lightly that nothing came easy, not even Death. He placed the thick knot behind his left ear, looked up at the ceiling and pulled the slack, testing it for travel—just enough. Everything prepared, he sighed and delved deeply into his considerable memory, searching for just the right quote to mark his departure. "Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide," he orated to the empty room, imagining some ancient crowd of witnesses. "I know what Napoleon meant, and I mean to be free."
He jumped.
A resounding crack filled the room, and Dr. Z was free.
Somewhere in the encompassing dark, a faint hissing laugh, a clacking titter that could have been the building settling in its foundations, marred the silence.