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A heavy silence draped the room as if the class had witnessed an execution. Upon its weight pressing down on the motley crew of participants, ranging from college-age kids to grizzled retirees, they fidgeted awkwardly, fiddling with pens, flipping through notebooks. The clock on the wall ticked louder. Isabel twirled her chainlike necklace between her fingers as if trying to come up with diplomatic words.

“Elena, I’m… I’m glad you shared your work. Bold piece, raw and visceral. I guess we’ve grown to take water, a warm meal, or even a sneaker that’s not coated in mud for granted, haven’t we, class? That said…”

“It’s not every day that someone eats a raw salamander,” Pink Hamster Face said.

One of the retirees, his hair a mop of white curls, a scarf always wrapped around his throat, folded his arms over his belly. As he brought up routinely, he used to be a professor, and now spent his evening years writing and traveling. I’m not shitting on the guy; I wish I could go on a retirement world tour.

“Sorry, but I have to say I didn’t like this.” His voice sounded as if his throat were lined with sandpaper. “What was the point? It’s just senseless. She gets lost in a swamp and eats a salamander and then disappears? That’s awful! I don’t want to hear about that. People suffer and die every day. I don’t need a story to remind me of the awful stuff in life.”

Elena lowered her face and shot him a stony glare through a blonde lock that fell across her forehead. Isabel rose slowly from her chair as she smoothed down her off-the-shoulder black top. Her smile had the stiffness of a rusted coat rack.

“Elena, I love that you’ve taken the time to present us with a well-crafted experience. Above and beyond, as usual. I can’t deny you have talent, I’m just not sure where you’re channeling it. As your instructor, I feel obligated to remind you that not every story needs to be so bleak. Aren’t you focused on piling on the misery? That’s not to say that dark themes or dire circumstances are out of bounds. The beauty of writing is that it allows us to examine darkness while also finding paths toward light. But, as we’ve discussed in class, a narrative devoid of hope can leave the reader feeling unmoored, adrift without a life vest.”

In the fluorescent light, Elena’s pale oval showed a hint of a smirk.

“I just felt like making a horrible place.”

“Well, in that case, mission accomplished.”

“I named this piece ‘Isabel Zubiri time-travels to the primeval epoch and accidentally prevents the evolution of mammals.'”

Isabel pushed up her off-white cat-eye glasses. The forced cheeriness in her voice had worn thin.

“Seriously though. You’ve subjected our poor protagonist to one of the most unpleasant scenarios we’ve ever come across in my classes. Thrown her into the wilderness and left her to rot. I have to ask: why? What inspired this particular… direction?”

Elena shrugged as if she couldn’t justify spending the energy to explain herself. She slid her gaze onto the white table, her almond-blonde hair falling on her brow. Isabel had started checking her notes when Elena lifted her gaze defiantly and took a deep breath like a beleaguered queen about to address her subjects.

“You asked the class what conflicts they recognized in my piece, but no one answered. So I will. The only conflict that truly matters is that of the protagonist against her own mind. She clings to her optimism even as reality contradicts her at every turn. So, what inspired this direction? The truth did. You wanted us to write a little time-travel adventure, Isabel, so I showed you what would happen if someone actually traveled through time. No meetings with Leonardo da Vinci, no fairy tale endings where you get to take selfies with the Medicis. Just the raw reality of finding yourself alone in an ugly, unforgiving world. There is no epiphany. No divine revelation. The protagonist must struggle to the end although not even words can save her. The fight is its own justification. I’ll leave up to you if that’s meaningful or not. A story needs to be honest or it will fail at being anything. And that ending? I got the feeling you’d still try to maintain your carefully curated social media presence even after you tore apart a living creature with your teeth to survive.”

Isabel’s face froze in a tight-lipped grimace. When she spoke, she adopted the tone one would use with a tantruming child.

“Elena, your stories have been the equivalent of smearing mud on the audience’s faces. When you start writing solely as a means to shock or unsettle for its own sake, that’s the sign of a writer who’s lost their way. You need to dig deeper and confront the underlying issues that drive you to these dark corners. And you spoke about writing the truth. It seems you’ve been perusing my Twitter feed, so how come there’s no mention of my daughter in your story? The moment I found myself stranded in such a hellish place, my main concern would be about figuring out how to return to my Natalia.”

Elena’s blues darted around as she shifted in the chair, her reddish lips parted in puzzlement.

“Your daughter? She didn’t cross my mind. I guess you’d worry about her.”

Isabel squared her shoulders. Her gaze lingered as if she suspected Elena’s pupils would narrow into slits.

“You guess…? You don’t have much empathy, do you?”

Elena winced as if a gust of ice-cold wind had hit her face. Her features hardened, her pale fingers curled tightly around her notebook. Those tired blues met Isabel’s eyes with an intensity that made a couple of students shift in their seats.

“Maybe I don’t.”

After a heavy silence, the instructor cleared her throat and tried to dig up her usual cheerfulness, but her voice faltered.

“Well, Elena, thanks again for taking the time to present. The world is a darker, damper, and more miserable place thanks to your protagonist’s journey, I think we can all agree on that.”

Three students were texting under the table, too cowardly to endure the carnage.

“You think that having a daughter somehow makes you more human?” Elena blurted out. “More understanding? If being a parent granted people some magical wisdom, we’d have lots of enlightened souls pushing baby strollers, wouldn’t we? But that’s not the case, is it? Most parents I’ve met are as selfish and self-absorbed as anyone else, just with an extra layer of entitlement. I’d rather keep my lack of empathy than be a hypocrite.”

The taut string of tension threatened to snap and send us all flying. Pink Hamster Face’s eyes darted between the two women, her mouth hanging open. The former professor, his face set in a frown, spoke up in a raspy voice.

“Well, that was pretty cynical and, frankly, immature.” He leaned an elbow on the table, turning to our instructor. “Isabel, don’t let her disrespect you in front of your students. If she doesn’t like you or this class, she can find another place to waste her time.”

Isabel stood up slowly, her hands pressed on the table. She gave the smile one would give to a barking dog before calling the animal shelter.

“I had been feeling that your work and comments were getting more aggressive and generally destructive. You know, I’m not a self-absorbed idiot. I’m a mother and a writer and a teacher, and I’ve worked hard to get where I am. Elena, I’ve given you plenty of chances to integrate yourself into the class. I’ve encouraged you to participate and share your work. I’ve provided constructive criticism. I’ve reached out to you on a personal level, trying to understand what’s going on inside that head of yours. But it seems you’re not interested in that. Now, your fixation on me has crossed several boundaries: not only have you monitored my social media presence, but you’ve also written an explicitly violent piece targeting me. It goes beyond creative expression into concerning behavior that needs to be addressed through proper channels.”

A tic flickered beneath Elena’s left eye: the monster rattling its cage. Our instructor honed in her focus on me.

“Jon, would you mind staying as a witness after class? I’m going to have a serious talk with Elena, and I’d appreciate your support.”

She had startled me while I chewed on a fingernail. As the biggest guy in a class full of college-age girls, housewives, and retirees, I was expected to work security detail. Shouldn’t I be compensated for that unpaid labor? Could I get someone to advocate for me? Anyway, bold of Isabel to address the narrator, but at least she offered me a chance to defend the pale queen.

I leaned back on my chair and held Isabel’s gaze calmly.

“You did tell us to write a story about you. Your Twitter profile is public. Elena doesn’t know much about you, so naturally she would look into it. You’re taking this out of proportion.”

Elena stared at Isabel as if our instructor’s skull were transparent, revealing a writhing mass of worms and maggots.

“Proper channels? Are you seriously threatening me with administrative action because I wrote a story that made you uncomfortable? You asked us to write about you traveling through time, and I delivered exactly what you asked for, just not wrapped in the sugary bullshit you prefer. And now you’re trying to paint me as a stalker because I looked at your public Twitter feed? The same feed you constantly reference in class when you’re busy preaching about ‘building your author platform’? You want to talk about crossing boundaries? How about making your students write fanfiction about you in the first place? But sure, go ahead, take it to the library director. Tell them that the scary girl wrote a mean story about her instructor. I’m sure they’ll be fascinated to hear how you’re using your position to feed your ego trip while punishing students who don’t play along with your fantasy.”

A tremble of rage twitched through Isabel’s lips, but she maintained a controlled posture, her hands gripping the edge of the table.

“I see how it is. You know what, Elena? I did ask for a story about time travel with me as the protagonist. That was my mistake, and I’ll own it. But let’s be crystal clear about something: this isn’t about your creative choices or your right to explore dark themes. This is about you deliberately crafting a violent fantasy targeting me. As for my Twitter feed… yes, it’s public. Yes, I encourage building an author platform. But there’s a world of difference between professional networking and using someone’s social media presence to fuel hostile fiction. Jon, I appreciate your perspective, but Elena has demonstrated a pattern of fixation that, combined with today’s violent imagery and aggressive behavior, creates a hostile learning environment for everyone.” She leaned forward, her glare fixed on Elena. “You don’t care about the world, just what you think of it. All your stories are you. They’re not written to connect, but to push people away.” Isabel straightened back. “I’ve been running this class for a few years, and you’re the only person who refuses to take my feedback in the spirit of helping you grow. If you want to continue writing, that’s up to you, but I can’t have you poisoning my classes with your bitterness and cruelty anymore.”

Pink Hamster Face sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. The cold fire that had smoldered behind Elena’s blue irises snuffed itself out, leaving her stare lifeless. She tipped her face upward, her eyeballs reflecting the fluorescents. She rose from the chair mechanically, then gathered her papers, notebook, pen, half-empty water bottle, and shoved them into her bag. After pushing the chair toward the table, she addressed the whole class in a flat tone.

“Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the discomfort of my presence. Have fun learning how to write meaningless fluff that’ll never matter to anyone.”

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Inflammatory Writ” by Joanna Newsom. Also this live version. Also this other live version.

The Deep Dive team produced an interesting little podcast about this part of the story: