When Charlie Loveless died, they cleaned out his office on the second floor of Wallace Hall and left a box of his old books in the hallway free for the taking. I grabbed all of the Hemingway and Faulkner I could carry and took them back to my dorm room. I placed them on the shelf and read the annotations when I felt lonely. Dr. Loveless was the first English professor I met when I moved to campus that summer. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in, but after a few weeks in his class I knew English was a possibility. His Introduction to Literature class was my second class of the day after getting done with Intermediate Algebra. Ol’ Charlie talked a lot about mortality in his lectures. When he was a kid growing up in the hills of Tennessee, he played a game with the other kids. The fainting game. Someone would wrap their arms around him from behind and squeeze until his breath was almost gone and the light grew dim. He told us about teaching at FSU when the Bundy murders happened. Between lectures on Twain and Bierce, he would talk about his golf game and drinking bourbon at the country club. When half the class skipped out on Friday mornings, he would give us “Elvis quizzes” and ask us questions about the King. It was ok if we didn’t know the answers; he’d fill in the blanks for us and we would write them down for full credit. 

Now I find myself teaching in the land of perpetual youth. The sun never sets here. Everyone stays eighteen to twenty-two years old and the party never stops. Desoto must’ve been onto something when he went searching for the fountain of youth near Tuscaloosa. Maybe he should’ve been nicer to the Black Warrior and he would have learned the secrets of the land. No one ever fails here. Straight As by the tens of thousands, even if no one makes it to class. Forget to turn that paper in? Forget to turn anything in? That’s ok, because youth is wasted on the young. Time is money and there’s plenty of both to go around. Our football team wins every game 100-0 and we still rabidly cheer. No one ever really wins – it is a game of constantly chasing your own tail. No one ever remembers. Memories are washed clean with each cycle so there is never so much as a stain on our whites. 

No one ever forgets. The ones that lose their way are forced to leave and remember the age of immortality with a sigh. No one matters. We are all interchangeable parts on a never-ending cog. No one is insignificant. We all have meaning and purpose, hopes and dreams. Unlimited protagonists chasing our own adventures in the great storybook. No one is ignorant. We all know the stakes. Leaving is never an option once your cup runs over. I may apply for a job at the school for the blind, Lord knows I have enough experience. When the lights grow dim for me, I hope someone will do me the honor of picking up my books from the hall and placing them on shelves of their own. 

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Travis Turner is a native of Alabama’s Black Belt. He teaches literature and writing at the University of Alabama. He spends his spare time with his cats and in his garden. He can be found on most social media at @travisturnerii.