The Attic Scholar

The Attic Scholar

A Short Story

There is a scholar in my attic who throws down classic literature and IQ tests at me while I'm trying to write. And at night, while I'm asleep, he descends to gather them up like an overnight cleaning service, tidying a mess he created. I forgot exactly when he got there—he moved in without my knowledge—but he has stayed so long he’s gained a silent, unsettling permission to remain. Writing this all out now, it sounds terrifying, but here, it’s simply life.

He has favorites, like the Iliad, which he drops so often that the floorboards seem to groan in anticipation. Once, he hurled a massive leatherbound edition that hit the floor with a crack so loud it nearly stopped my heart, sending a small cloud of dust into the air. Oddly, he has never thrown down the Odyssey.

On my floor right now, hardcover copies of The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost sit side-by-side, like he's teaching a class called "Religion & Poetry" or something. Just a moment ago, a Mensa IQ test fluttered down from the hatch, joining the pile. It drifted like a dry leaf, landing face-up with a prompt demanding I solve a sequence of geometric shapes.

I have already read everything he throws down; I have mastered his IQ tests. I have a library of my own that contains everything in his collection and more. The guy's just an annoyance, or perhaps a rival. I think that's more like it. The scholar wants intellectual dominance. He wants to be the master and me the student, bound to his attic curriculum. He wants me to look up at the dark hatch in the ceiling and beg for his intellectual guidance.

Well, Scholar, that's not happening.

As a form of intellectual warfare, I recently went to the local bookstore and bought the complete opposite of his formal intellectualism: a bright square hardcover called Dad Jokes. After reading, "Why did the scarecrow get promoted? Because he was outstanding in his field!" I knew I had found my ammunition.

Back in my third-floor writing room, I stood directly beneath the trapdoor, aimed carefully, and hurled the book straight up through the dark opening of the attic hatch. A second of silence followed. Then the scholar started shrieking, a visceral sound, as if I crushed his entire worldview. “SKREEE-EEEE-AAAGGH!” I laughed.

That day, he retaliated by throwing down more books than ever before. It was an outright bombardment. For three straight hours, heavy volumes rained from the ceiling. I sat at my desk with my hands over my head as the room shook. When he was finished, I counted 108, including Dad Jokes.

The books were all gone the next morning, collected during his silent midnight cleaning shift. The floor was completely bare, except for Dad Jokes, which laid on the floor, partially burned with pages torn out. A thin swirl of gray smoke rose from the charred spine. I laughed. But as I watched the small hardcover smoke rise into the ceiling hatch, I realized that the room was quieter than I have ever heard it before.