Waiting for her professor has held her up.Waiting for her professor has held her up. She glances at her watch, noting that she is already late, and an uncomfortable knot begins to form in her stomach. She shifts her weight back and forth on her feet, knowing that there may be a proverbial hell to pay for her lateness. Outside the window of the classroom, the sky has been growing steadily darker, and there is a slow bowing of the naked branches against the cold panes of glass. Only one question, she thinks. One simple question, can't we take care of it now? But the professor is still engaged in slow conversation with one of her fellow students, and the panic is beginning to build. Her eyes seem riveted on the lashing trees beyond the glass, visible only in the tiny area of light from within. Her mind unconcsiously follows as the rough, wet bark whips back and forth, driven by a wind which menaces in silence, as if trying to break away the branches of the tree by sheer force of will, tormenting the tree by throwing anything and everything against its unyielding exterior. She is willing to wait no longer. Her pack dangles from her elbow as she shoulders her coat into place and runs from the room. The student and the professor stare after her in surprise; she is not normally given to frantic outbursts of energy, nor to the sort of almost panicked impatience she has shown. But she is gone. Running across campus, her coat still open to the wind, she utters her silent prayers that she is not so late as to be facing dire consequences. How she wishes she only knew! Too much, too fast, but as she skips around the icier parts of the path, something buried deep within her mind tells her that she wouldn't walk away now if she could. |