Some good Old fashioned Fanfic

The tap-tap-tap of a typewriter. The cool summer breeze dancing along the linen drapes. The sour smell of the correction fluid. Kate looks up from the paper and surveys her small homey office. A small room filled with too many books and too few personal affects. Her children hated it here. The many hours they had to sit and wait for mommy to finish bathing a student's dissertation in red. That's probably the reason they never visited anymore. They were all gone now. Off to school or careers, married or drafted. Kate takes a bite of her scone. She's an avid baker. And jam maker. A jack-of-all-trades, but the students just call her: Turabian.

She stands, presently, pulling back the drapes and looking out onto the quad from her third story window. He's late, she thinks, But that's no surprise. She stays standing, looking outside at the trees on the lawn, swaying gently in the breeze and she remembers past summers. Summers that she would never return to. Summers she doesn't want to return to. Just like this city, she thinks, looking past the campus to the high-rises downtown. This city is what it is, not what it was. Like me. The past is known, but the present is a vast, polymorphic branching road of possibilities. I am not defined by the past, but by the decisions I make in the present. Those show who I really am.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Turabian?" comes a voice from the door, breaking her reverie. Turning, Kate sees a young man, dressed in his school browns and holding a book bag in on hand and the stitch in his side with the other.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Marshall, is it?" She asks, though there can be no doubt. She's seen him pass by many times and sometimes from the corner of her eye she sees him standing outside the partially closed door as if to knock and enter, but never bringing himself to stretch out his hand and accept the terrible eventuality that awaits him in this office.

"Yes, John Marshall, ma'am. I'm here about my dissertation."

"Of course. Sit down, Mr. Marshall. I happen to just have finished my revision." John sits. Gulps. Holds his hands in his lap. Kate moves to her desk and picks up the paper she had been working on. Glances it over. Hands it to Mr. Marshall. Hands shaking, John takes it from Mrs. Turabian. He begins to read the red. "It's a good paper, Mr. Marshall, there's no doubt about that, but your conventions are plain atrocious."

"Yes, ma'am." Quietly. Very quietly.

"You seem not to have received even the most basic lessons in punctuation and grammar. Your research and conclusions are revolutionary, I'm sure, but until you master the basics of writing, you will never be taken seriously."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now, Mr. Marshall, I have been working on a small pamphlet for people who need help with writing dissertations. It's called A Manual for Writers and I'd like you to have the first one."

"Yes, ma'am." Barely a whisper.

Good Heavens, he's scared out of his wits.

"I'm confident that if you revise your paper according to my notes and this pamphlet that this dissertation will live up to all those grand ideas that you have in your head."

"Yes, ma'am." A little stronger.

"Thank you, Mr. Marshall, you may go now."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." And with that, John stands up and hurries from the room, clutching his dissertation and A Manual for Writers.

That boy needs more help than I can give him, Kate thinks, turning back to her desk and picking up the top pamphlet in the stack of A Manual for Writers's first printing. But hopefully this can make up the difference. She turns again to the window just in time to see the small figure of Mr. Marshall round the bend around the library opposite and disappear. Clutching the pamphlet, she thinks, The present is a myriad of possibilities. Where will my choices take me? Where will this city take me? She loses herself in thought.

Later, She enjoys pizza Chicago Style!