˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊·̩̩̥͙

DRESS
(( — DEAD POETS SOCIETY — ))

—chapter iii: of instructions for poetry and ripped out pages

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, loraine had been able to dry her tears in the meantime, there was another knock at her door. she marked the page of her book and closed it, before she stood up and opened the door, revealing none other then charlie.

"hey" he smiled, following her into the room. "want to come with to the common room?"

the common room, down the hallway of the dorms, was the only room in which loraine was officially allowed to be. she would often spend her evenings either reading a book or doing homework, she hadn't been able to finish on her own.

she had a bit more time than the boys, who often had sports or soccer training at the end of their school day. loraine wasn't allowed at either. even though her father believed in the school system, he thought that sports were something girls should not participate in. not that she agreed with him, but loraine wasn't the most athletic person anyway, so she was glad about the two hours of free time she had every other day.

"ehh, i don't know" loraine resumed her position on the bed. "i'm not really in the mood" she picked up the book and turned the pages until she had reached the point where she had stopped reading

"have you been crying?" charlie asked leaning forward on her desk chair and inspecting the girls face

loraine closed her book loudly, scaring charlie, because of the sudden movement. "no?" she asked offended and rubbed her face, trying to get rid of anything that would prove otherwise

charlie looked like he didn't believe her, but he just dropped the matter. "come on, it'll be fun. knox will be back from his dinner at the danbury's"

"whoa that's interesting!" loraine played with obvious fake shock

"ray" charlie whined, dragging out the nickname he had called her since they were children. "please? for me?"

"ugh" loraine rolled her eyes, her hand reaching for the hair claw on her night table. she drew the front of her curls back, securing them on the back of her head, only leaving a few shorter strands to frame her face. "fine"

charlie beamed with happiness. "alright" he clasped his hands together "let's go then, you can watch me do math homework"

"great" loraine rolled her eyes, before she took the hand he was offering and followed him down the hall. they both took a seat at the table where neil was already sitting, getting help from cameron.

"just replace these numbers here with x — for x and y" cameron instructed

"of course" neil nodded

"of course, so, what's the problem?" cameron wondered. charlie looked at loraine in question, not understanding anything, until she leaned over the table and helped him.

the door opened and a mesmerized knox entered the room, leaning against the frame. "how was dinner?" charlie asked

"huh?" knox looked like he was far away with his thoughts.

"how was dinner?" charlie repeated

"terrible" knox answered, stepping away from the door and taking a seat next to loraine "awful"

"why, what happened?"

"tonight i met the most beautiful girl i have ever seen in my entire life"

"are you crazy? what's wrong with that?" neil wondered

"she's practically engaged" he paused for dramatic effect "to chet danburry" the friends groaned

"oh" surprise was evident on loraine's face "are you talking about chris noel?"

"you know her?" charlie asked

"yeah, we go to the same course at church, she's nice"

"you mean your 'how to be the perfect housewife' course?" charlie asked making a face

"yeah, that one"

"too bad" pitts muttered

"it's worse than too bad, pitts, it's a tragedy. a girl this beautiful in love with such a jerk" knox complained

"all the good ones go for jerks, you know that" pitts said sympathetically

"yeah" cameron agreed "like lori and harry bredston"

"i'm sorry?" loraine looked between her friends "who said i was in love with harry?" gladly said boy wasn't in the room with them

"well he said you were going to italy together next summer" cameron shrugged.

loraine's mouth was opened widely in disbelief, she looked at charlie, trying to see if he was as astonished as her, at harry's audacity.

charlie seemed to be even more shocked and angry than she was. "that's not true" he argued defensively "not true, do you hear me?" he looked around the room, all eyes on him. before he could say anything else, loraine had clasped a hand over his mouth, sending him a thankful nod.

"now that that's been discussed" cameron rolled his eyes, not really interested in doing anything else than homework "just forget her, open your trig book and try and figure out problem five"

"i can't just forget her, cameron. and i certainly can't think about trig"

meeks and pitts self build radio squealed loudly. "we got it!" pitts beamed, but was interrupted by mr hager coming into the room. "all right, gentlemen, ms nolan. five minutes. let's go"

"did you see her naked?" charlie asked knox in passing. loraine slapped charlie's arm disapprovingly. "very funny, dalton" the room cleared quickly. charlie walking loraine down to her room, before he tipped his invisible hat, turning around.

˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊·̩̩̥͙

LORAINE SAT IN HER USUAL seat next to charlie at the back of the class. "gentlemen, lady, open your texts to page twenty—one of the introduction. mr perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface, entitled 'understanding poetry'?"

"understanding poetry, by dr. j. evans pritchard, ph. d. to fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech. then ask two questions. one: how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered? and two: how important is that objective? question one rates the poem's perfection. question two rates it's importance. and once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter."

mr keating got up from his seat and started drawing on the board.

"if the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness."

keating drew, what seemed to be a corresponding graph, fitting the description of measurements neil was reading. the class copied his drawing, except of course for charlie, who, so noticed loraine, was drawing a rather bad picture of her.

neil looked up from the book for a second, before he continued reading. "a sonnet by byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. a shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. as you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. as your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry."

neil sat the book down and took off his glasses. keating turned back around to the class, smiling. "excrement. that's what i think of mr. j. evans pritchard. we're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry."

loraine had to smile at that, she knew that she would like mr keating. "i mean how can you describe poetry like american bandstand? i like byron, i give him a 42, but i can't dance to it"

charlie perked up at the joke and loraine send him a look. something along the lines of 'i told you so'. charlie nodded his head at the girl.

"now i want you to rip out that page" keating instructed all of a sudden. the classes laughter died down quickly and confusion settled in. "go on, rip out the entire page"

'what?' loraine mouthed to charlie, her eyes growing big. charlie just shrugged in return.

"you heard me. rip it. rip! it! out!" keating repeated loudly. charlie took one last look in loraine's direction, before he just did what was asked of him.

"thank you, mr dalton" keating said as charlie demonstratively raised the torn-out page. "tell you what, don't just tear out that page, tear out the entire introduction. i want it gone, history. leave nothing of it. rip it out! rip! be gone, j. evans pritchard, ph.d. rip, shred, tear, rip it out. i want to hear nothing but ripping of mr pritchard. we'll perforate it, put it on a roll. it's not the bible, you're not going to hell for this. go on, make a clean tear, i want nothing left of it."

at his words the class began to rip out the pages cautiously at first, but grew more and more confident in the action.

"what are you doing?" charlie asked loraine, who was staring at her opened book, which was still very much intact

"what?" she asked, not really listening

"ray!" charlie called to make the girl look up at him. she caught his eyes and he could see the indifference in them. "just rip it out, it'll be alright" he smiled

"i don't know, charlie" loraine's fingers slide across the page, as if she was trying to gather information, just by simply touching it.

"just like keating said: you won't go to hell if you rip it out" charlie stood up from his seat and kneeled beside the girl. "i'll even help you if you want"

loraine nodded hesitantly. charlie softly took her hand in his and guided it to the top of the page.

all of a sudden mr mcallister entered the room. charlie quickly sat back in his seat, putting a ball of paper into his mouth, as if to hide the evidence, that was so obviously visible in the rest of the room.

"what the hell is going on here?" mcallister asked, looking over the rows of boys, before his eyes finally landed on loraine, who seemed to shrink in her seat.

"i don't hear enough rips" mr keating entered the room with a waste paper basket in hand.

"mr keating" mcallister said surprised

"mr mcallister!" mr keating greeted

"i'm sorry, i didn't know you were here"

"i am" keating shrugged as if it was obvious.

"ah" mcallister nodded "so you are. excuse me." he quickly left the room.

keating didn't seem to be bothered by the situation in the slightest. "keep ripping, gentlemen. this is a battle, a war. and the casualties could be your hearts and souls." keating walked along the rows, collecting the ripped out pages "thank you mr dalton" he nodded, as charlie spit the ball of paper into the basket.

keating eyes fell upon loraine. "ms nolan, i see you have not ripped out a single page"

loraine looked down in shame. "i'm sorry, sir" she said and keating could feel his heart grow heavy at her saddened expression. "i just— i couldn't do it"

"it's alright" keating put a hand onto the girls shoulder. loraine looked up at him. "some day you hopefully do rip out a page" he smiled.

loraine felt herself calm down at his peaceful expression and she build up the courage to softly whisper. "yes, maybe i will"

charlie looked between them as if they had spoken in another language, not understanding why they had made such a big deal out of as little as an act of ripping out a page.

both keating and loraine knew that they indeed weren't talking about the little act of ripping out the introduction of an english book, no. both of them knew that it had been a metaphor.

"now in my class, you will learn to think for yourselves again. you will learn to savour words and language. no matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world" keating walked back to the front of the class.

before charlie could question anything of what had just happened, and why loraine put the book back into her bag, without ripping out a single page, keating continued his speech.

"now, i see that look in mr pitts' eye, like 19th—century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school, right? maybe. mr hopkins, you may agree with him, thinking 'yes, we should simply study our mr. pritchard and learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions' i have a little secret for ya. huddle up. huddle up!"

keating kneeled down in between the two rows of tables and gestured for the class to come closer to him. loraine followed after charlie, standing next to him.

"we don't read and write poetry because
it's cute. we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. and the human race is filled with passion. medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. but poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." he looked at his students expectingly, smiling about their interested faces.

"to quote from whitman: 'o me, o life of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities
filled with the foolish. What good amid
these, o me, o life? answer: that you are here. that life exists, and identity. that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse'" he paused, before he repeated the ending: "that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse."

he looked up and his eyes found todd "what will your verse be?"

—