Six Metres of Pavement. Farzana Doctor

on February ninth, at 7:00 p.m., Ismail walked into University College 122, where twenty skittish-looking people of various ages sat around a large U-shaped table. He scanned the room anxiously for the absent Daphne, and then found a pair of vacant seats for them. As the minutes passed, his heart sped up and the sweats started. Luckily, Ismail was always prepared for his perspiration, and carried two white cotton handkerchiefs, one in his front pocket and one in his back.

      While dabbing his forehead, he closed his eyes and tried to recall the mental “calm place” the therapist, from many years ago, had taught him to imagine. Away he went to a beach in Goa, sunning himself in the sand. For extra measure, he commenced his panic-attack breathing. This helped somewhat, so Ismail opened his eyes again and looked around. He saw that a woman with grey hair and a frilly blouse sat a few seats to his left, a notebook, a pencil, and a pen sitting neatly in front of her. Near the front of the room, a man and a woman, perhaps in their thirties, and presumably together, simultaneously opened up matching pea-green laptops. Ismail watched as the woman whispered something to the man, cupping her palm around his ear. He nodded and whispered something back.

      The classroom itself was somewhat calming, reminding him of the courses he’d taken over thirty years ago at a campus across the world, in a similar Victorian building. He looked at the high windows, admired the arcs of the vaulted ceiling. He imagined that the long mahogany tables, slightly worn and scratched, had been witness to hundreds of courses and thousands of students.

      Facing the front of the room was a tweed-coated teacher waiting fretfully for his room to fill. James Busbridge, Ismail had read online, was in his mid-forties, had written a novel, a book of short stories, and had been working on a third book, a memoir, for the past six years. James lived in Toronto with his wife and three children and had a column in NOW Magazine.

      Ismail watched James glance at his watch and fidget with some papers in front of him, and then check his watch again. Ismail advised him, telepathically: inhale three, exhale six. Here, follow me. Inhale four, exhale eight. As though rejecting Ismail’s self-help suggestion, James abruptly stood and turned away from the class. The room grew silent as he scrawled his name messily on the chalkboard, his sleeve’s cuff attracting a smudge of pink chalk.

      “Uh, hello everyone,” he cleared his throat and continued, “let’s get started. My name is James Busbridge. Let me tell you a little about where I come from and how I teach this class. I believe that we are all, in some way, writers. And we can learn to write well. But writing well takes work and practice and you will have to write something of your own if you want to get something from this course.”

      Just then, Daphne strode into the room, her heels click-clacking across the hardwood. James smiled her way, perhaps relieved another chair was being filled, and gestured to a seat near his. Ismail tried to wave her over, but she didn’t seem to see him until she’d already sat down.

      “Uh, before we do anything else, we’ll start with some introductions. Turn to the person beside you and tell them your name and a little about why you decided to take this course.”

      Ismail groaned inwardly at the instructions. He’d been to too many government workshops that began with this introductory activity, which he judged to be inane and unoriginal. “This was supposed to be a creative writing class,” he muttered to himself. With little choice but to acquiesce, he turned to the woman with the frilly blouse to his left, but she was already immersed in conversation with the man beside her. To Ismail’s right was a vacant seat and next to that a girl who reached across the space to shake his hand. She appeared almost too young to be in a university-level course and had light brown skin, a shade similar to his own.

      “Hey, I’m Fatima,” she said, pronouncing her name in the Christian way: Fa-tee-mah. “I’m in my second year of pre-med, but I’m taking this class because I’ve always wanted to write and I’m kind of trying to figure out if I should stay in pre-med or switch over to Liberal Arts … and you?” She’d spoken so quickly, Ismail had to pause a moment to absorb her words. He looked at her face, studying her large brown eyes lined with blue makeup that matched the electric blue streaks in her hair. Both her question and her appearance confused him. He did not have time to inhale or exhale.

      “Um, well, I don’t know why I’m here, really. I guess I’m just looking for a new pastime. And my friend suggested it, the lady who just arrived, over there.” He turned in his seat, scanned the front of the classroom, and saw that Daphne was conversing with a woman sitting next to her. He swivelled around again, met Fatima’s eyes and said, “Oh, er, sorry. My name is Ismail. I forgot to say that. Ismail Boxwala.” He nervously patted his forehead with his handkerchief and then cursed himself for forgetting to withhold his surname. He watched for the familiar reaction that didn’t come, and was reassured that this girl was too young to know his name. He inhaled for one count and exhaled for two and inspected her silver nose ring.

      “Well, that’s good,” she said. “It’s good to try new things.” She played with a piece of her strange blue hair and Ismail wondered if she was being patronizing. “For me, though, I don’t know if it’s just a hobby or something I want to do, you know? Like for a living? Not that writers make much money from writing. But I’ve had a story idea for awhile and I hope this class will get me started.” Ismail heard Nabil’s voice in his head, his judgments about which interests should be hobbies instead of careers, but resisted sharing them with Fatima. Instead, he remained quiet, listening to the rhythm of Fatima’s staccato speech. He considered that perhaps he was making her uncomfortable with all his breathing.