Work Text:
Anthony first hears the song on his lunch break while sitting on his bench in the campus garden. The group of students, first semester by the look of them, blast it over and over and to his surprise he isn’t annoyed.1 The music is a far cry from his preferred taste of 80’s Queen and Bowie but it gets him bobbing his head alright. He surreptitiously Shazam’s the song, something his godson taught him how to do after he had to witness one too many of Anthony’s, apparently embarrassing, song inquiries.2 Lavender by Two Door Cinema Club. Seems nondescript. He pulls up the lyrics. Chuckles when he gets to the line on Cosmic Radiation. Figures he can sniff out the songs with only the slightest mention of space from a mile away.3 But there’s something… something more to it than the brief reference to his beloved space. Something that he can’t quite put his finger on.
Another planet,
I'll try to map it
No user interface
It won't escape me again
The song stays with him for the rest of the day. He hums it while he sprays his office plants with the shitty plastic plant mister that keeps leaking water all over his hands and the post-it notes full of research questions littering his desk.4 He taps the rhythm as he puts his sticker of an astrophysically accurate gold star on a perfect student assignment.5
Senses eluding me, he thinks while suffering through the godawful monthly student-faculty meeting that is for the third time discussing the student initiative for “silent lectures” that is somehow still going strong. Anthony loves the students, he really does, but he’ll never quite get the hang of them when they are like this. He won’t get the hang of Prof. B either, who is hellbent on shutting the initiative down, but he has learned to pick his battles.6 When he finally makes it out of the building, the air is still nice and soft, spring just warming into summer. This weekend he should go get some tomatoes for his garden. Ask Adam if he’s still up for some Shakespeare in the Squares. They’re playing one of the funny ones this year and Anthony’s been a bit concerned about that boy getting too far up in his magazines about supernatural entities. Might do him good to touch some actual grass.
There's no horizon to this open sea
Now that I'm giving it another chance
Without really thinking about it, he takes the long way home. Everyone seems to be out and about and he marvels at the activity bustling all around Soho. So different from the campus, so equally delightful. He really needs to get out more.
Giving luck a chance
I'll find something someday
He spots a little bookshop down the road that he never noticed before. The blue facade makes him think of the Lavender song7 and on a whim he decides to go in. He can always do with a new interesting read on astrophysics or maybe – the door jingles and he looks up at the man standing there in his cute little vest and with his neat little curls, utterly absorbed in his books like there’s nothing else to the world.
Oh, he thinks.
Don't wake up
I'll be here for centuries
Sweet magnetic energy
Nothing quite like this ever has existed
But God knows how I missed it
Gravity is losing its hold
1. He’s not actually surprised at that. His colleagues might not always get his ideas about good teaching but he loves taking his lunch among the student crowd. Soak up their student-ness. It makes connecting to them so much easier than just giving lectures the same old way it’s always been. return to text
2. “It’s the 21st century,” Adam had whined, “There’s no reason for you to pester the cashier about the shop’s radio station.” return to text
3. It’s not a mile really, the students are sitting right next to him. return to text
4. He won’t complain. The spraying has made his plants lush and beautiful and won him an office award last year. Anthony’s a bit superstitious in that regard; never change a running system and all that. return to text
5. He loves the sticker. The students think it’s cheesy but honestly that just means he gets even more of a kick out of it. return to text
6. Speaking of battles: The monthly student-faculty meeting had been his idea. He thought it would be great to give the students a platform for general questions and suggestions and learned a valuable lesson about roads paved with good intentions instead. return to text
7. This particular shade of blue is nowhere near lavender but Anthony can’t tell; His color vision is not exactly top notch. return to text