“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

What does this mean to you?

One of the key points of the class, and cause for interest among the students, was the fact that there were no textbooks. There were no tests. “The test,” he would say, “is life. Pass or fail, your ultimate demise is inevitable.” While most might consider this as a fairly grim statement, it appealed to the student demographic and their generally undeveloped perspective on life and the world in which they lived.

Montgomery would open one class each week with a quote regarding its primary focus: death. The curriculum of his class ranged from factual to absurd. After all, death was discussed in every possible aspect. Faith, psychology, science, sociology, philosophy, and the highlight of the curriculum for most, theory, were all covered. More than anything, he really enjoyed invoking thought and conversation. The classroom was less of a place for tedious studies, and more so a place for inspired conversation among curious peers. The atmosphere was very similar to the back booth of a twenty-four hour cafe. Reasonably intelligent people passing ideas between one another across the table at two in the morning over free coffee refills and quickly vacating packs of cigarettes.

Montgomery liked looking out of the classroom window. He could stare at the sky for hours. It wasn’t that there was anything of any particular interest in and in between the clouds. He actually preferred clear skies. For him, the open sky acted as his own personal chalkboard on which he could visualize his thoughts. Everything that was currently on his mind would be scattered across the sky for him to see all at once. He could work out almost anything by looking up to the heavens. Not because he was searching for any sort of divine resolution, but because he was searching himself. That, and he was too much of a neat freak to have this thoughts written down on random scraps of paper to be scattered about his desk. So there he would sit, staring out the window while his students worked on their responses to the quote on the board.

The site design has changed drastically and is now linked to directly from LetterboxTen. That’s exciting. The last design was just hideous. This one is clean, and simple. No functions have changed, they all just look better.

Well, that’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of your day.

- BPT

“Well, so much for your eight-thirty class. I drove as fast as I could.”

“Haha. I did make you stop for coffee.”

“Right… you made me stop. Haha.”

Montgomery rounds the flag pole at the corner of Dickson and Portola and slows to a stop to let Justine out right in front of Haines Hall where her fictitious, early-morning study session is allegedly located. Justine opens the door, but before stepping out, gives her father a kiss on the cheek. He tastes like shaving cream. Justine always loved the way her dad smelled. It was comforting to her knowing that if that smell was present, so was her father, and she was safe.

“I love the crap out of you, little girl.”

“Haha. I love the crap out of you! Bye!”

Montgomery pulls away and heads down Charles E. Young Drive to the parking structure behind Larkretz Hall where he instructs a class simply and aptly named “Death”.

{ phone ringing }

“Hello?”

“Hey Kim. What are you up to?”

“Justine? What the hell? It’s like four in the morning!”

“What?! You’re on drugs, it’s seven fifteen.”

“Ugh. Regardless. Why are you calling me so early?”

“I thought you’d be up getting ready and I have to tell you what my mother did to my car this morning.”

“I don’t have class until three today. Uh oh. What happened? I thought your mom is super cool or something.”

“No. My mom is cool, she just broke my car so I couldn’t drive it to school today.”

“She broke your car… so you couldn’t go to school…”

“Yeah because of my dad’s birthday tonight.”

“I am so effing confused right now. Haha. What the hell are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter. Haha. It’s a long story. So anyway, she wakes me up this morning and basically tells me she broke my car. I couldn’t go back to sleep with that on my mind, so I went downstairs to look at it. It looked fine from the outside. No flats or anything.”

“So what was it?”

“I unlock it, get in and everything looks fine still. I go to turn it on, and nothing.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah. I pop the hood, not that I know what I’m looking for anyway. Then I find it. She broke my Synergy Drive.”

“Haha! What the fuck? Back To The Future, much?”

“What?! No. Shut up. There’s seriously this box on the right side of the engine space that says ‘Hybrid Synergy Drive’ on it. She unplugged its cable thing.”

“Just put it back in, then.”

“Well I tried that, but it won’t stay in for some reason. Whatever clips it in place is gone.”

“That’s messed.”

“I know. I’m pissed, but it was for a good cause, I guess.”

“She’s giving your Synergy Clip to your dad for his birthday?”

“No! Ugh. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Peace, girl.”

“Bye.”

Justine hangs up the phone right as her father walks into the kitchen where she is putting cream cheese on a plain bagel. The Teller kitchen is absolutely beautiful. A remodeling project about a year ago had provided it with light grey, granite counter tops, a soft white paint, much more cupboard space, an island in the center, a new range, and one large window above the sink. Mrs. Teller had pushed for it , but it took Montgomery three years to give in and finally have it done. He was reluctant to say anything to her when it was done, but just like his wife, Montgomery fell in love with the kitchen all over again.

“Hey dad. I’m going to have to ride with you today. My car’s not working for some reason.”

“Oh no. What’s wrong with it?”

“The Synergy Dr… thing.”

“The what?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It just won’t start and I have class at eight thirty, so I need to ride with you.”

“But that means you have to adhere to my schedule. I’m not going to leave until around seven…”

“Oh, I”m aware.”

“Alright, well I’m leaving the house in fifteen.”

“Also aware.”

Riding to the campus at this hour is always an endeavor. The easiest route is to take Beverly to Santa Monica, but traffic on Santa Monica is always terrible, especially where it meets Wilshire and then that’s terrible all the way to Westwood Blvd. because of all the cars lined up to get onto the 405, which anyone who knows anything about Los Angeles will tell you is an absolute nightmare pretty much any time of the day. Montgomery drives a 2010 Jaguar XK that he is madly in love with. It’s not the latest and greatest, but then again, the Tellers never really had any trouble keeping up with the Joneses. Their home entertainment system alone cost three million. It wasn’t the most expensive on the block, but certainly not the cheapest.

Montgomery told his wife he chose this car with a slight resemblance to it’s much more expensive cousin, the Aston Martin Vanquish, because of its safety features. He really just likes to feel like he’s driving La Mons. He averages at about thirty miles per hour on surface streets, and sixty-five on freeways, but he’s sure he is the fastest sub-limit driver he knows. Justine and Sheryl think it’s hilarious, but they’d rather him be too safe than too reckless. The best part of it all is that Montgomery really does think he’s driving extremely fast.

“Ugh I hate this traffic. We’re going to be late.”

“No, we’ll make it. I’m surprised to see you up this early.”

“Yeah I have an early study session for a test tomorrow. We’re all busy in the evening, and have class all day, so this is the only time we can cram.

“It’s kind of last minute, but I suppose it’s better than you staying up all night right before you have to go in.”

Justine can’t help but muse a little over her dad’s subtle lecturing especially because it’s totally unfounded. Her study habits have never been poor, and the only reason she’s stuck at school all day is because of him.

“Can we stop at Starbucks, please?

“A second ago, you were concerned with being late…”

Justine looks at her father with a completely serious face

“Caffeine!!”

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“Welcome back to First Shift with John and Francis. The topic of the day is this freaking heat. It’s January and at no point during the day or night do I feel the need to wear so much as a freaking sweater.”

“I feel ya, John. This is just gett…”

Montgomery Teller finally rouses from his sleep and hits the snooze button on his clock radio. He rolls onto his back, slides his hands down his face and rubs the crust from his eyes. He stretches his legs, pointing his toes until they hit the end of a bed he always thought was too short for him. His arms stretch up the head board above. After a nice long yawn, a barely conscious search for the blankets, and a re-adjustment, he falls back asleep.

“…st think this is going to get worse, you know? Maybe that vice president guy a few years back had it straight with all this global warmi…”

Montgomery hits the snooze button again and yells at the inanimate alarm clock radio.

“Fine! I’ll get out of bed, Jesus Christ.”

He can barely open his eyes as even the soft morning light is slightly more than tolerable in his state. Montgomery leans up and drops his legs over he edge of the bed. He sits there slouched over, his face up towards the window, and his eyes closed. He just sits there.

“Ohhhh look who’s up.”

Montgomery groans as his wife walks from their master bathroom to her dresser and looks through her jewelry box.

“I honestly don’t know how you do it, Monty. You’re a sixty-three year old man for Christ sake. However trivial a detail that may be while you’re out all night with Dave and Geoffrey doing god knows what, god knows where, you’d think how you feel in the morning would convince you to take it easy. Stay in with your wife more often.”

Montgomery groans and then forms a sinister little smile.

“Sweetie, you know if I stay in with you, I will certainly not be taking it easy.”

“Monty! You’re terrible! Haha.”

“You know, I could get my assistant to start class for me…”

“Ooo, as tempting as that is, I do have to be at the office early this morning. I’ve got so much to do in preparation for this meeting we have at eight. We’re trying to figure out ways to stretch our current budget so that we might be able to stay in business through the next quarter. You know, Cindy went to go get Post-its from the supply closet the other day and it was locked. She inquired with our boss and he said all office supplies are now being rationed and anyone who needs something will have to go through him first. What if he’s not there?! Are we to wait indefinitely to refill our Swinglines? I mean, honestly.”

Montgomery looks at his wife with a barely coherent expression. She picks up quickly on his disinterest, lets out an annoyed sigh, not because of him, but because of the financial hardship that’s trickling down from the government and like molten copper and silver, burns its way right through the bottoms of her pockets and everyone else’s.

She finally finds her earrings, puts them on, and leaves the room.

Montgomery and his wife, Sheryl have been married for thirty-seven years. They own a house in a small Los Angeles neighborhood called Hancock Park. Their mortgage is upside down at the moment, but it’s of little concern as they’ve lived there for fifteen years, they’re both in their sixties, and have little motivation to sell. Despite economic crisis, the Tellers are relatively happy with their life together. Montgomery is a professor at UCLA where he teaches a course based on death and all of the religion, theory, and psychology surrounding it. His wife, Sheryl, is a senior financial advisor for a large law firm downtown. Although she is not particularly satisfied with her job, she is proud of the progress she has made in her time there.

Twenty-four years ago and some odd days, they brought a beautiful baby girl into the world. Her name is…

“Justine? Justiiiinnne? Justine?!”

Justine Teller rolls around in her bed. Her room is dark, but in the minimal dawn light filtering in through her closed panel curtains, we can see that it is immaculate. White walls with beautiful crown moulding. One of which displays her BA from UCLA in anthropology. She’s currently into her first year of earning her master. On the opposite wall hangs a cork board displaying photos of friends, random notes, and a necklace her father bought her in Italy. The floor is an intentionally aged hard-wood with a medium stain. In the middle of which is her bed. A four post with a sheer white canopy that drapes over the corners. She lies on top of a white duvet cover, in a t-shirt and gym shorts.

“Justine?”

Her mother opens the door slowly as if trying to be quiet, but enters with every intention of waking her. Justine is awake and thinks about how ridiculous this behavior is. Sheryl whispers her daughters name again as she approaches her bed. Justine hears it and is well aware of her mother, but pretends to be asleep.

“Justine. Wake up. I need to talk to you just for a moment.”

Justine lays there perfectly still with her eyes closed and thinks about the futility of speaking in full sentences with someone who is not conscious. She knows though that if she doesn’t just get this over with, her mother will escalate to the point of annoyance and she’ll have to be awake for that much longer. She rolls over and pretends to wake up. In a cracked voice, she responds.

“Mmm. What?”

Justine lets out a fake yawn.

“You know, I can always tell when you’re faking.”

Justine tries to hide a smile, but fails miserably.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do you know what today is?”

“It’s Wednesday, mom…”

“This is true, but more importantly it is also your father’s birthday. I’ve made no mention of it to him thus far. I want to give him the impression that I’ve forgotten all about it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“So the party will be a surprise. We’ll be having it here at the house at five o’clock this evening. Your role in this is to keep him occupied until then. I’m going to send you a text when when we are all ready. You will send me a text when you two are on your way home from the school, and another when you pull into the drive.”

“Mom, we don’t have the same schedule. He could decide to leave at any time. And what do you mean when we are on our way home? We drive separate cars, and leave at different times.”

“Well that’s why I’m waking you up right now. You need to carpool with your father to the campus, today. He’ll be your ride home, and won’t be able to leave without you, unless of course, in my forty years of knowing your father, I have somehow misjudged his courtesy, but if that were the case, I doubt we would have been married for thirty-seven.”

“No way, mom. I am not going to be at UCLA all day long. I don’t even have a full schedule today! Oh! And I haven’t gotten him a gift yet. So how do you propose I do that if I have to be stuck on campus with him?”

“Bring a book or something. You bought your gift three days ago while you were out with Kim. It’s wrapped and hidden under your bed.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I’m your mother, Justine. I know everything. I’m also the one who cleans this place.”

“Okay, so answer me this. If I have my own car and it runs perfectly, why should he feel inclined to give me a lift?”

Sheryl Teller doesn’t respond, but changes her focus from her daughter to another random point in the room.

“Mom. I want you to be completely honest with me, right now. What did you do?”

“I’ve no idea what you are talking about.”

Justine’s mother shoots her a clever little smirk

“You should be getting ready. You’re father is up and getting ready for work.”

Justine looks at her mother as she smiles back at her, blows her a kiss, and walks out of the room closing the door behind her. She falls back into her bed nervous and frustrated. She couldn’t go back to sleep now if she wanted to. The curiosity and anxiety is killing her. She has to find out what’s wrong with her car. Justine gets out of bed in a hurry, finds a hoodie that she throws on, grabs her keys, walks down the stairs, out the front door, and into the drive way to inspect her car.

“I’m in my grandmother’s apartment. I’m sitting in the living room on her couch. It’s not a particularly uncomfortable couch but it’s got this terrible, brown, paisley print and it’s covered in hair from that fucking dog of hers. It’s a shelty and looks about as old as she does. It’s laying on the floor, staring at me with its glazed over and crusty eyes. I don’t know what the fuck it wants. I hate that bitch. The dog, I mean.

I remember it being dark outside. No. It was dusk. I don’t know. It could have been morning, I guess, but it didn’t seem cold enough. I heard people laughing from my grandmother’s bedroom. I get up from the couch and realize the dog isn’t there anymore. I leave the living room and head for the bedroom. The only light in the entire apartment that was left on was the one on the end table next to the couch. She was on this whole conservation kick. Good for the environment or not, it didn’t seem safe for some senile old lady to be walking around a cluttered apartment in the dark. At least the only steps are the ones on the small ladder she uses to reach the sink when she does the dishes.

I approach the door, but now I don’t hear anything. If she has some old geezer over, I’m going to shit a brick. I open the door to a room that of course is completely dark. Maybe she’s just blind at this point and lighting wouldn’t make any difference. Maybe she’s been cooped up in this dark apartment so long that she has super advanced night vision like that little cave dweller boy I saw once in an episode of Bones. Fuck, the Deschanels are hot. Did you see ‘Yes Man’?”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Well get on that shit. It’s great, but you see Zooey’s tits in ‘Gigantic’. Weird ass movie, but it has tits. Deschanel tits.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind. What’s it called again?”

“’Gigantic’, man. Fuck! you know for someone who gets paid to listen, you do kind of a shitty job. You know what, fuck it. Don’t see the movie. It was probably a body double anyway.”

“Tell me more about your dream.”

“So I walk into the bedroom and I turn on the light. Her bed was perfectly made as it always was. Old people never have anything better to do than to mop and make beds, I swear to god. There’s no one on the bed. Imagine my relief. There is an attached bathroom that doesn’t have a door. It’s just a big entry way-type thing. It really opens up the room. The bathroom walls were flickering amber like it was lit up by candles. There’s a woman in the tub completely naked and she’s giving this little boy a sponge bath. Great tits. Completely wasted on this little bastard. I see a scar on the woman’s right shoulder. It’s one of those vaccine scars that immigrants get, but it was really bad. Then I start to freak out. When my grandmother came to this country, she got vaccinated but the wound got infected. Pretty ironic if you ask me, but either way it got infected and when it finally healed it left a nasty scar just like the one this woman had. The woman in the bathtub had to be a younger version of my grandmother. I felt kind of awkward all of a sudden for checking her out.

If that was my grandmother, then it was my dad that she was bathing. I have no idea what he looked liked because he died before I was born, but here he was in this fucking tub. This was really freaking me out. The one time I actually get to see my real dad, he’s a little kid being washed by the fucking mammary queen.”

“Have you seen photographs taken of your father when he was a child?”

“Yeah, of course. I don’t care about that, though.”

“Then what was your concern?”

“I think I’m in love with my grandmother. I mean, that rack! My god. I just want to walk up to her, and put my face right in there and mot…”

{ Ding. }

“Well, I’m afraid our time is up for today. We’ll have to pick up where we left off next week. In the mean time… I’d say forget about this dream. I don’t really see any relevance to your life. Consider it a an opportunity to have seen your father at some point while he was still alive. As for your grandmother…”

“Oh she’s dead. I don’t need to worry about that.”

David, the psychiatrist just stares at his client, mildly annoyed.

“Have a good day, Mr. Gooden.”

David stands up along with his client and walks towards the door.

“You don’t think this is a problem, this dream of mine? I mean, that’s kind of disturbing isn’t it?”

“Like I said Mr. Gooden. We’ll pick back up on this next week.”

David’s client is basically forced out the door which David promptly closes behind him. David lets out an exhausted sigh as he leans his back against the door. The phone rings.

“Ugh. What?!”

“Damn, Dave. Who shit in your bedsheets?”

“Monty? Oh man. I am not in the mood.”

“Well get in the mood. We’re going out tonight, and you’re buying the first round.”

“What? Why me?”

“You remember Ashle…”

“I’ll meet you in twenty at Grand.”