Something the Rest of the World Knows but that You Don't

writing exercise: Wed, July 17, 2013, SW Portland
prompt: An Encounter with a Famous Person/a Pilgrimmage/Something...

Monday morning, just before the stroke of nine. Under fluorescent lights I sit at the end of a polished wooden conference table in a small room with carpeting and a low paneled ceiling.The air of the central air system rushes through the ceiling vents of the cozy room like a faraway waterfall.

From my seat I look back towards the glass doors, above which an institutional clock with a red second hand measures out the remaining seconds to the top of the hour.

Around the table beside me, in padded armchairs, sit about a dozen people, men and women, mostly about my age, but also one young man of college age. We are quietly chatting, waiting for others. On the table in front of us rest sleek laptops, black moleskin notebooks, and pens suitable for writing.

The side walls of the room are lined with tall stately wooden bookcases with etched glass doors and brass handles, They hold a neatly organized, heterogeneous collection of volumes, modern and antique, individual and in matching sets, deep red, indigo, cream-colored, and earth tones with gold lettering on the spine, as many as can fit. All of the books on the shelves have identical-looking notated cards protruding from the top. On the far wall beside the door hang framed posters, portraits and vintage lithographic maps of varying size and design.

As I wait for the class to start, I gaze up at the the two large framed painted portraits hanging side by side next to the door. They are both of identical dimensions, in matching gold frames, obviously depicting two gentlemen from the early Nineteenth Century. Both men are distinctly American in their countenance.

I wonder who they are. Looking at the one of the dark-browed man on the right, I muse: is that James Knox Polk?

Then it hits me, who they must be, given where we are sitting.

Well, duh, I say to myself.

I look at the portrait again, now with a clearer mind. 

I've been where you died, I say silently, as if talking to him. I almost died there too.