Mistress of Arts

In the rather inevitable way of it, Miss Marshall joined the ranks of graduate students who wake one day to find that endless procrastination has led them into a desperate situation. One of her key informants, a celebrated short story writer whose debut collection had garnered both high literary praise and a deal for a novel, disappeared entirely from the world literary scene--a fact which was revealed only gradually, as Miss Marshall searched for him in increasingly obscure and intrusive ways. By the time she had searched through international registries, been rebuffed by the privacy policies of Médecins Sans Frontières, and decoded the stony silence of his publishers enough to work out that this key informant was, in fact, bunking with Rushdie, never again to be heard from, the thesis was all but due. In addition, she had two other interviews--one warm and delightful, the other brilliant and slightly gitty--which lay on the page like mullets, begging with pleading, turgid eyes to be united in a stylistically insightful way, or at least hoping that their contents would be somehow alluded to in the final chapter.

Miss Marshall is able to glumly report that it was the work of a mere few weeks to whip the thesis into a shape that she hoped would be largely presentable. By charming the bindery and forking out wodges of cash she managed to get the thing stuck together, and in a scene reminiscent of the later of the Bourne thrillers she battled usurious parking buildings, deadly Albert Park steps, ill-informed information volunteers, flocks of first-years, warrens of corridors, yellow stickers, and self-important departmental secretaries to get the beast submitted, and, it may be pointed out, she also got back for work at 5.30.

There were certain somewhat unexpected repercussions that faced Miss Marshall in the ensuing days. The feeble post-delivery contractions of a latent work ethic left her occasionally twitchy when she considered the newly unnecessary urge to check for typos, and her devoted clients were inclined to redouble their efforts to find out what she planned to do with herself when she grew up, but all in all Miss Marshall enjoyed her life of comparative leisure. She began reading a fantasy novel of prodigious length--a sort of hippopotamus-sized tome combining the sidetracking prowess of Herman Melville, the footnote fetish of Oliver Sacks and the creative spelling of Bacon of Bisley--which, combined with the discovery of a rather good hazelnut soy hot chocolate at a coffeehouse near the studio, promised to keep her occupied for a good while. At this pleasant, yet uncertain, point, we draw a veil, a dissolve, an ellipsis, a pause to consider the practicalities of what appears on the surface to be a frankly luxurious life...