The Slip

Burns

Monday
At her birthday party in the staff-room in the psychoanalysis wing of the psychology
building of the arts campus of Borealis College University of Northern Australasia, Susan
Frankenstein, PhD, unwrapping her gift of the leather-bound volumes of the Collected
Transcripts of the Lectures of Carl Gustav Jung in Fordham University printed on
elephant-dung paper, made a note to herself that what she really wanted, more than
anything else in the world, was a divorce; now she only had to find herself a husband. Her
first reaction to this startling realization was to throw her eyes from side to side, hoping
to spot an unsuspecting man. But three of her male co-workers were married, and the
only single man was Dr. Alphonse Languedoc, a stupid, stuffy old Freudian with some
complexes of his own. She had tried to turn him into proverbial boyfriend material on
one disastrous date three years ago, but the untrimmed ends of Alphonses white
sideburns (now mutton-chops) were dipping into his soup, and the poor man was terrible
at carrying a conversation, which had compelled Susan to continue a conceited and
enduring monologue. At the end of the night, Alphonse revealed that hed been analysing
her! He informed her that she almost certainly had masochistic sexual fantasies and quite
likely a profound need for validation and some melancholic anal neuroses as well,
resulting from the death of a father-figure or a beloved pet.
That encounter had only confirmed Susans suspicions that all modern Freudians
were perverts, charlatans, and morons. It was clear to her that she would have to search
for love outside of her faculty. There were no good single men among the psychoanalysts;
all the cognitivists were too dismissive of her field, and everybody in-between was just
wrong. Frankenstein, after the party, took a walk across the campus and sat by a fountain
in front of the university hospital, flexing her feet in front of her from duckfoot to pigeontoe, and checking her makeup in the mirror that she had always carried with her but
until now had never used, all this in a vain attempt to seize the gaze of one of the doctors
who might be running about, but she found that things had changed since she was a girl.
Either men were too shy or she was too old or they were too busy or stupid or blind to
approach her. Now earnestly examining her nose in the mirror, looking for flaws, she
prepared to leave when she caught a glance from over her shoulder of a man not an
attractive or handsome man, but at least a man with a job striking eyes wide and dilated,
behind Frankenstein, looking up from his work.
The man, at least ten years older than her, if not twenty, thick Hubble spectacles
balanced precariously on the tip of his nose, a stack of shuffled and mismatched papers
in his hand, rose to his feet and, after dropping his pen, bending down to pick it up again,
dropping his notebook, picking that up, now on his knees, spilling his coffee on himself,
soaking up the spillage with a napkin, and dropping his pen again, started across the
hospital cafeteria. This being her only opportunity for the foreseeable future to catch a
man in her hook, Susan leapt to her teetering heels and careened across the white-tiled
floor, hoping to head-off the bespectacled man whod bewitched her so. But as she finally

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stood in front of him, Frankensteins heart began to beat really very fast, and quite a lot
of adrenaline rushed out of her kidneys, and instead of stopping to block his way and
introduce herself and be a general nuisance, she continued onward until hed passed and
she was out of his way. When hed passed, she finally doubled back to berate herself for
her cowardice and stupidity.
On her return to her perch, she wrote, in her little light-blue notebook, that what
had really stopped her was that she was looking to lose a man, not gain one. After all, a
divorce was really just a return to where she was now: without a husband. But, her
analysts mind theorized, there was something profound and tempting in loss. That was,
after all, the allure of madness itself: the loss of reason. It was the fundamental desire of
Marie Antoinette, in her bizarre longing for the life of a peasant milkmaid, for an idyllic
life herding sheep around a field: that what she really wanted was to be stripped of her
wealth and royalty (jouissance), realized in her decapitation (castration). Yes, there was
something perverted in Susans need for a divorce.
When Dr. Frankenstein was an undergrad, and during her first year of graduate
studies overseas, she, blossoming with empowerment at the crest of the second wave of
radical feminism, wore her intention to never take her future-husbands name sewn
proudly on her proverbial sleeve. When she finally arrived in Paris to study under Lacan
(who had died a month before), she found herself under the tutelage of a former protg
of his, a male-chauvinist pig who in every way managed to give way on his desire. After
the sixth or seventh time hed tried to lure her into his boudoir, she gave him an
ultimatum: if he ever wanted to have sex with her, hed have to marry her. When he said
with great hemming and hawing and extensive deliberation that such an arrangement
was not out of the question, she introduced the caveat that she wouldnt take his
patronym. When he asked why, she replied with great incredulity that she, as a woman,
was equal to man, not subordinate to him; that Eve came from the rib of Adam, not his
heel; that her identity was not for sale. His response? In broken English, So you not
would take the name of your husband, mais you believe that you not are what is the
word?
Below, she said.
Mais you believe that you not are below a man, yes?
Yes, she said.
Is Frankenstein your mothers name, then?
Of course it was not. This episode rung clearly in her head as she considered aloud
the possibility that what she really wanted was to steal a mans identity. She was sitting
in her office, waiting for the time when, six hours a week, the department forced her to sit
in her office and do nothing, in case some undergrads wanted to stop by to complain about
the low grades theyd earned. Across from her was the graduate-student she was
supervising, a PhD candidate named Philippa Phlegm, over whom Susan shared
supervisory duties with Dr. Languedoc, due to an administrative error occurring during
Languedocs annual pilgrimage to Trent. The resulting conflict of ideas was infuriating to
both Alphonse and Susan, and extraordinarily confusing for Philippa.
What do you think, Philippa? asked Susan.
Im sorry? said the sleepy-eyed student, befuddled as usual.
What do you think drives my need for a divorce? Susan asked once again.
Well, ventured Philippa, According to Slavoj iek, the

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Oh, enough about that snivelling old clown. If I wanted to hear Hegelian dialectics
explained through racist jokes, or what different kinds of anal sex can tell us about Marx,
then Id read the latest plagiarism from that Slovene pervert. I dont need you to
summarize his latest YouTube video. Now I asked for your opinion; Id like your opinion.
Not ieks.
Philippa quickly corrected herself, I think its probably foolish for you to play both
analyst and analysand.
Yes, thats why Ive come to you, Philippa.
But, she said, Im not even a proper psychoanalyst yet.
No, admitted Susan, But who else am I supposed to go to?
Alphonse is very good,
Nuts to Alphonse! Id sooner ask an advice columnist. Id sooner ask Jeeves. Id
sooner ask iek!
Well then, said Philippa, tapping the side of her head with a pencil, as though
trying to drain her brain through her ears, I dont think identity is really in question
here.
What then?
I dont think youll know until you at least try to get it. Maybe you need to go on
a date before you sort this out.
Philippa, youre so useless that you actually make sense some times. Anyway,
what did you want to ask me?
I wanted to ask if I could teach a class. Even half of one. Im almost a doctor, and
I dont have any teaching experience. Besides, I think that teaching is a great way to learn.
I promise Ill stick to the curriculum and be an excellent teacher. I could teach your
afternoon class, and that would give you a great opportunity to go and find a man.
Susan promised Philippa that she could teach the class, so long as Susan herself
could stay to supervise the first ten minutes of instruction. Philippa contained her joy
underneath a veneer of stoicism and studiousness. Ten minutes later, the class started,
and two freshman lesbians in the front row sniggered and sneered at the shy, mousy, ugly
grad-student, looking lost and alone.
This was Psych 104: Introduction to
Psychoanalysis, a course commonly taken by engineers and biologists for its fabled
easiness, and commonly derided by those same engineers and biologists as hokum.
Philippa, coming from a European arts school, was wholly unprepared for the skepticism
that she was about to encounter. It took her all of thirty seconds before she was defending
Freud from accusations of being not science, and therefore wrong.
Lets all remember that science used to be and in some ways still is
synonymous with natural philosophy that is the philosophical study of nature. What
distinguishes Freud from modern science is that the norm in science these days is
falsifiability. This is a distinction raised by the philosopher Karl Popper, but Im getting
ahead of myself. Remember that there are plenty of scientific studies, many of which you
believe in and look upon in wonder that are entirely unfalsifiable a big example being
string theory. Lets also remember that science can be wrong. Phrenology, the erroneous
study of skull shapes and how they affect personality and intelligence, was considered
cutting-edge science in its day, as was Nazi racial science, global cooling, geocentricism,
and plenty of other now-fringe beliefs.
But what for other disciplines is a weakness, unfalsibiability, is for psychoanalysis
a strength. What was truly revolutionary and remarkable about Freud was that he asked
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his patients questions, and allowed them to answer those questions for themselves. If a
patient comes to understand that her hysteria is the result of an Elektra-complex, or that
his melancholia is the result of an ego-death, and that realization leads to a cure, then that
diagnosis is exactly correct, regardless of the empirical data. In this way, psychoanalysis
is not a proper science, no, but it does give us endless insight into the patients psyche,
and into how the mind is organized, and sometimes disorganized.
The class was unconvinced, and Susan Frankenstein left Philippa to deal with the
coming onslaught of suspicion and rigorous questioning. She would pick up the shambles
tomorrow, when Philippa Phlegm had been thoroughly convinced of the futility of
teaching and academia in general, and when the class fervour for exposing
psychoanalysis as pseudoscience and magic-tricks once and for all was raging. For now,
she had to find a date.
Perhaps if usurping identity was important to her desire, then she should try to
usurp everything: material objects of fetishization, capital, identity: it would all have to
be taken in by her. She wrote in her blue book that she was originally wrong about divorce.
Divorce was not a return to a null-state, but another, separate state of being single. The
idea of being never-married had a virginal quality, but the idea of being divorced carried
with it simultaneous baggage of being used-up, but also of experience. Perhaps then, if
divorce forced a material change, then she should materially consume her future fiance,
husband, divorce. No wonder that honeymoon sex was called a consummation. Of
course, she would not resort to cannibalism (she wasnt a psychotic), but she would have
to deprive the man of something substantial. In most divorce cases, she knew, that would
be wealth.
She wandered the hallways of the university, taking every third left turn and every
second right. After five minutes of wandering, she had lost herself in the basement of the
chemistry department. Around the nearest corner, two men, one young and one old, sat
at a table eating their lunch, and she asked them for directions to the education building
a convenient lie.
The older man, mustachioed and grey, looked up and began to umm and ahh as he
rattled off a series of directions which were ignored by Susan, finally asking her why she
had to go to the education building, and what she was doing in the chemistry wing. She
replied that she was headed there for some pointless bureaucratic fluff, and had gotten
turned around, but thank you very much Mr . . . ?
Doctor Crick, no relation to the geneticist of the same name, though all my closest
friends call me Cricket, he introduced himself before letting her do the same. He was the
chair of this department, though hed only been since May, and he was really more
interested in research and teaching, with no penchant for paperwork, politics, and pennypinching, though hed done an excellent job of ensuring a sizeable surplus for the faculty
budget and had become more or less the golden boy of the university dean. Hed earned
his reputation in a series of papers on the synthesis of molecular Borromeate and had
earned his retirement working for Dow Chemical creating new lubricants and solvents
and turning parts of India into a wasteland. When he grew tired of the corporate lifestyle,
he retired into a comfortable routine of SCUBA diving, mountaineering, photography,
and travel, with a third of his fortune in real-estate, a third in Venezuelan oil futures (he
was a devout socialist), and a third in the hands of a Chicago investment banker named
Bernie Madoff, but fluctuations in the economy ten years ago, the realization that Madoff
was leading a Pyramid-scheme nine years ago, and the final abject failure of the
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Venezuelan economy three years ago had reduced him to ruin, and he was forced to return
to academia, where he was making his name again, and would Dr. Frankenstein (odd
name that) be so kind and adventurous as to meet him for dinner followed by a visit to
the ballet, or a walk through the park?
Yes. Of course. And the date was set for tomorrow; numbers and email addresses
were exchanged, and both Crick and Frankenstein made mental notes to conduct a brief
review of the others recent research and academic accomplishments. In the mean-time,
Crick had a class in fifteen minutes, and was such a wreck that he required at least twenty
minutes to prepare, so he asked Susan to excuse him and he was excited to see her
tomorrow.
Crick had spent a whole half-an-hour talking about himself, which Susan found
promising, as, should he continue the trend tomorrow, she would have plenty of material
with which to judge him, of course, on a purely professional basis. Naturally though, she
would have to contribute at least a little bit to the conversation. There was a certain risk
in allowing him to think that he was an analysand. He may even try to withhold
information on that basis.
When she arrived back in her classroom, just on the hour as the class was letting
out, she was shocked to find a classroom full of eager students diligently reviewing notes,
discussing the lecture, and at least half-a-dozen asking poor Philippa Phlegm a variety of
questions, both insightful and introductory. She waited for half-an-hour, and still
students were asking questions, discussing, taking a real interest in her field. It was
infuriating. When the room was finally empty at twenty-minutes to the hour, she called
Philippa aside and asked her, Why are they learning? Theyre not supposed to be
learning.
Philippa beamed. I suppose Im just a natural for teaching, she proclaimed.
No, that cant be it, said Susan. What did you tell them?
Well, we talked about Freud, as per the curriculum, and then moved on to Jung,
she began to trail off.
Why is the projector running? Why is the computer on?
I may have briefly mentioned a couple of modern psychoanalysts.
Such as?
Well, I did bring up Alain Badiou, and Miller too, probably.
Who else?
I may have mentioned Slavoj i
No! screamed Susan, startling some students still skylarking in the halls, This is
unacceptable. Youve ruined them. They could have been anything. They could have
been engineers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, even lumberjacks or janitors. They could
have been TV-psychics, chiropractors, or magicians, but you had to introduce them to that
fat old coke-addict. Now do you know what will happen? Theyll think that
psychoanalysis is fun. Theyll think that its Hollywood and rape jokes and Marxism and
fidgety perverts with ten speech-disorders and six nervous ticks. Theyll go into the world
ready to get a job where they can tell you about the ideology that makes you buy Pepsi or
Coca-Cola, instead of knowing how to sell Pepsi or Coke, or theyll leap into academia and
find out that you cant write a serious paper on the different kinds of toilets in different
kinds of countries and what that means about German or French philosophy and expect
such drivel to be considered for peer review. It takes two-and-a-half months to even get

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them to take this discipline seriously, and youve introduced them to the philosopherfool.
Philippa was about to cry. Will this impact my candidacy?
Pray that it doesnt.
Around the corner came Alphonse. In the name of humility, Philippa! he roared,
and the girl looked up. He pulled at the fronts of his suspenders and waggled his jowls
and the ever-longer mutton-chops that hung from them, and said in his usual clichs, A
little birdy told me that Dr. Frankenstein had given you the opportunity to teach her
freshman course. I wish Id been so thoughtful, but then again, neurotics like her are
quick-on-the-draw. And what a class it was! Ive never seen such a sullen gang of
teenagers turn into such eager-beavers in all my years on Gods Green Earth. Now Ive
already told the department heads about how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed you are, and
Im sure therell be a lot of talk around the water cooler about you tomorrow. Say, how
would you care to teach my 134 class on Friday? Theyre a stubborn bunch of sour grapes,
and half of them are still mired in behaviourism. I havent been so rabid since they
kyboshed the Trinitine Mass. Good old bit of Catholic Liturgy, that. They could do with
a lecture on that Slavodge Zizzeck, controversial, fox-in-the-henhouse type that he is.
Philippa quietly thanked him for his kind words, promised to teach on Friday
with a searing sideways glare from Susan and ran off to continue her research, and
prepare for her second-ever lecture. When she was gone, Languedoc turned to Susan and
said, cheerfully, Doctor Frankenstein, dont think I havent cottoned on to your type. I
know how bored you are of Jung. As a Freudian myself, I can understand.
Yes. Im sure you find him very tiresome.
Yes indeed-ily. And so I was very much disappointed with how little thought the
rest of the department put into your gift, and so I took a little trip down to the shops and,
from a quaint little rare bookstore, I found this. I even managed to save a buck or two. I
dont think the owner even realized they were signed, or by whom. He turned around to
reveal a bundle of papers tucked into the back straps of his suspenders. Youll have to
pull them out yourself, he advised. I had a right old time putting them in there, and its
been an abject nightmare keeping the hatches battened down, if you know what I mean.
Careful not to tear the time-yellowed pages, Susan slid the sheets out from behind
Alphonses back. When they were free of his suspender straps, he turned around, and she
began to leaf through.
Theyre handwritten letters from Jacques Lacan. Some of them are rather full of
personal touches. Theyre genuine as well. I compared and contrasted them with samples
from the library. And, he continued, One of them is addressed to you. Seems to be an
early draft.
Susan was nearly speechless. Thank you, she managed, but by the time shed
said it, Alphonse had already left.
Tuesday
Susan spent her morning reviewing her curriculum, marking down important dates from
her syllabi on her personal calendar, picking out clothes for her date with Dr. Crick, typing
up a proposal for a case-study on autistic savants (which would doubtlessly be rejected),
meeting with a student from Psych 366 who wanted to transfer to a 400-level course for

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which he met none of the prerequisites, fixing her hair, reading a few articles on Badiou,
and another on Foucault, and preparing her notes for Psych 366.
After lunch, she sat down for her regular office hours. For the full hour she saw
visits by a dozen students, each occupying five minutes of her time, each with a variety of
inane, pointless, and unoriginal questions, which she of course endeavoured to answer,
in her own monotone drone, as boringly as possible. When the last question had been
answered and the last hint of curiosity had been crushed, Susan opened the front door of
her office and informed the next ten students that another class was starting and that she
would be available afterwards for further questions.
The students all sighed and moaned, but her announcement didnt stop two of
them from using the walk to the classroom to ask their own questions, which she promised
to answer during her lecture tomorrow. At last, and even on time, she made it to her
lecture, seven students in the room, and began her course on Lacan.
When her class finished, she went back to her apartment and changed her clothes,
fixed her hair, retouched her mascara, and reviewed exactly where it was that Dr. Crick
wanted to meet her. She arrived at the restaurant five minutes early. Crick was already
there.
He was dressed in a loose and bright short-sleeves button-up shirt, a fountain pen
leaking dark blue ink in his breast pocket. His khakis were cut two inches too long, and
he stepped on the hems when he walked. He smiled widely when he saw her, Oh thank
you so much for taking the time. Youll absolutely love this place. Have you ever eaten
Ethiopian food?
I dont believe I have.
He laughed. Oh dont worry, neither have they. But youll like it. Theres no
cutlery and no chairs. You sit on the floor and scoop everything with chips. He led her
into the restaurant and they sat down. So youre a psychologist? he asked.
Yes, she said. A psychoanalyst, to be precise.
Like Freud? he ventured.
Yes, like Freud.
So I took a look at your work. It seems rather interesting. Oh dear. Interesting
was another way of saying tedious, dull, disagreeable, or wrong. I understand you do
most of your research on this Lay-can fellow.
Lacan, yes.
Oh, excuse my pronunciation. He was French, correct?
Correct.
So what drew you to him then?
I was interested in psychoanalysis all through my undergrad. When I received an
invitation to study under him, I couldnt pass up the opportunity.
Oh, it must have been heaven to study under your hero. I dont know what I
wouldnt give to have learned from Seaborg.
I couldnt say, she said, He passed away less than a month before I arrived in
Paris.
Im sorry, he said.
She laughed and dismissed his half-hearted condolences with a sweep of her
fingers, Dont be. I got to study in Paris. The food is a rip-off, and the Seine smells like
an Indian slaughterhouse in June, but I couldnt have asked for a better place to learn.

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The food arrived quickly, and Susan took her time learning to eat in the bizarre
way that Ethiopians supposedly do (for all she knew Ethiopians ate just like her), and
asked Crick about his day hed had to expel some students for stealing sodium pentothal
from the labs. What was sodium pentothal? Oh, just a lovely little chemical that made
people highly agreeable. Nicknamed truth-serum, but you could get lies out of it if you
wanted. And how was his career, tell her about his accomplishments, and what exactly
was molecular Borromeate?
Oh, he said. Its not really very useful. Its a personal pet project of mine. It
looks like this, and he asked a passing staff-member for a napkin and drew this:

Of course, he said. Borromeate is supramolecular. Three rings get locked together,

like this:

After dinner, and after a never-ending but at least technically impressive ballet,
Crick walked Frankenstein back to her apartment, where she invited him in to stay the
night, but he refused, on account of him having an early-morning class to attend to. She
told him, Good bye, Cricket, and he pecked her on the cheek, and left, whistling an offkey version of Danny Boy. Frustrated and tired, Susan fell down on her bed, still fullydressed, and fell asleep. An hour later, she woke up with her hair in her mouth and went
to the bathroom to strip and bathe and get ready again for bed. When she returned naked
to her bedroom, she saw the letters that Alphonse had given her, and decided to open
them. They were mostly addressed to students, some to obscure personal friends, one to
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Althusser, one an open letter to Parisian students on revolt, one to Charles de Gaul. The
lack of postage and the immaculate condition of the paper (despite the aging) told her
that these letters had never been sent. Perhaps they were early drafts. Perhaps they were
re-considered. One thing she noticed was how terrible the handwriting was, the spelling
and grammar even worse. She came across one addressed to her, which she pondered for
a moment, before resealing the letter in an envelope and hiding it under her pillow. When
she was finished leafing through the correspondence, she wrapped up the letters in a bath
towel and slid them under her mattress.
The letters from Lacan safely stored away, she opened her little blue book and
scribbled:
Four-Eyes:

Crick:

Che Vuoi?

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Wednesday
That morning, Susan Frankenstein woke up at two in the morning, again at three, once
more at four-thirty, and finally at quarter-to-six, she decided she would never get some
sleep, and she might as well go to work and make some progress on the monograph she
hoped to publish one day. So she gathered her notes, her laptop, and her little blue book,
and left for campus, slipping off her heels before she left the front door in favour of her
favourite pink slippers.
On campus, she stopped for coffee in a fair-trade organic hipster-haunt and looked
for a place to sit down with her coffee and her pastry. The caf was full, and there was
only one open seat, opposite a woman ten years younger, drinking green tea and reading
a science fiction novel. Is this seat taken? asked Susan. The woman shook her head
side-to-side. Is that a, No, its not taken, or is it a No, dont sit here? The woman held
up her index finger, and Susan took her seat. Is your book any good?
No, its terrible, replied the woman.
Oh, said Susan. Ill be sure to never read it then. Whats it called?
Its a collection. A few novellas called Bleak Horizon, The Solar Indeterminacy,
An Assembly of Crows, and a couple of short stories.
Thank you for the heads up. You saved me some time. She hadnt. Susan rarely
read fiction, and restricted herself to the classics and the belles lettres. The woman still
hadnt looked up from her book. Im Susan Frankenstein.
Thats an unfortunate name.
How so?
Being named after a monster and all.
Victor Frankenstein was the scientist who created the Monster. The Monster in
Shelleys book was just called the Monster.
Yes, but the real monster was Frankenstein.
I suppose youre right, Susan admitted. She took a sip of her coffee and a bite
out of her pastry. The woman across from her still hadnt looked up. Im a doctor here
at the university.
Congratulations. You must be very proud.
I suppose. But then again, its really just a career. Whats your name?
Justine Sapyrrho.
Susan looked down at Justines feet, covered in pink slippers. Ah, were wearing
the same slippers.
Yes.
The two women said nothing for the rest of breakfast, but Justine continued to read
her book, and Susan finished her pastry, and just as Susan was getting up to leave, Justine
asked, What do you want, anyway?
I dont know, said Susan, before fleeing to her faculty. When she arrived at her
office, her door was open, and the light was on inside. She knocked on her own door and
peered inside. Philippa Phlegm was sitting in her chair, reading the leather-bound
volumes of Jung. The girl stood up and sucked in her little pot belly to allow Susan room
to enter her tiny office. You shouldnt waste your time with those, Philippa, though I
suppose its better than what Alphonse stuffs down your neck.
Then what should I waste my time with?
Have you ever read de Bouvuoir?
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Youre saying I should waste my time with feminism? Or ethics? Philippa

shuffled sideways to the chair reserved for inquiring students and other visitors.
Dont sit down, dear. This isnt tea-time, and youre not old like me, Susan rudely
snapped. Philippa let go of her chair and leant against the doorframe. Susan continued,
The great conqueror Pyrrhus went from battle to battle, and conquered many lands. One
of his generals was perplexed at his king, asking him, once youve conquered Tarentum,
what will you do? Pyrrhus had a ready reply, saying, I will conquer Sicily. And once
Sicily is conquered, asked his general, what do you have planned then? I will conquer
Carthage, said Pyrrhus, without hesitation. The general grew concerned for the long
years of conflict ahead. And when youve conquered Carthage, to what does your majesty
aspire? I shall conquer Rome, and since I know youll ask, after Rome I shall conquer
the Peloponnese, then Thrace, then Crete, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Levant. And then
I shall march east across the Tigris and Euphrates, across the Indus into Sind, and
conquer what the great Alexander never could. The general, mortified at a lifetime of war
ahead of him, asked, And what will you do when you have no more lands to conquer?
Pyrrhus was confused, perplexed. He hadnt given thought to that. After mumbling
indeterminately about such nonsense such as stabilizing the realm and spreading the
great culture, art, and philosophy of Epirus, he meekly replied, I suppose I shall rest.
Now Philippa, was Pyrrhus wise?
Not at all, said Philippa.
Wrong! shouted Frankenstein, smashing her fist against the desk, making the
volumes of Jung jump and making pens roll off the table. Pyrrhus was wise, and his
general was a weak and stupid fool. Pyrrhus had purpose. He could either rest then, or
rest after conquering, but conquest was its own reward. The general, had he held Pyrrhus
sword, worn his crown, and sat upon his throne, would have rested and done nothing, but
Pyrrhus, in the sense after Nietzsche, was the Overman. Do you understand now,
Philippa?
You want me to conquer Rome?
I want you to stop resting. Your preoccupations outside of your direct field of
study cloud your view. Three months ago, you told me you wanted to study Lacan. Will
you, or wont you, or will you continue to rot your mind with Hegelian navel-gazing and
Freudian slips?
In the hall, the loud laugh of Alphonse Languedoc slipped and curled around the
limestone corridors. He was in the door with his hands on Philippas shoulders before
she had a chance to turn around. Dear girl, Ive prepared a copy of the course syllabus
for you. Youll have to prepare your lecture notes for tomorrow. I hope thats not too
short of notice, but I hear tell your lecture on Monday was rather impromptu as well.
Thank you, sir, said Philippa. Ive already started compiling notes for my topic.
I hope not on Jung, said Languedoc, looking at the open volumes on Susans desk
I cant stand that Alan Watts Zen crap that kids these days tend to get all caught up in.
Thats at least one point we can agree on, Alphonse, interjected Susan.
With a wild and wary harrumph, he said, Im not entirely sure why youve been
so hostile these last days, if youll allow me to be so forward and frank. Sharing
supervisory duties over a grad student can be stressful, but I frankly dont see what else
can have you so worked up.
I have other things going on in my life that dont concern you, Alphonse, she said,
bitter and annoyed.
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Fair enough, he said meekly. I apologize for my intrusion.

Despite the formally mended fences, the three walked to Susans class in silence,
the equine clacking of Philippas heels on the linoleum floor the only sound in the hall.
Philippa and Alphonse left for lunch as they rounded the final corner, and just before she
opened her classroom door, she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a woman say, I
know. Susan screamed and dropped her coffee. The woman from the caf jumped back.
I know, she repeated.
What do you know?
I know what you want.
No you dont.
You want him.
Who?
That Alfred guy.
Alphonse?
Yeah, him.
Lady, Im a psychoanalyst. I think Im a little more versed in this area than you.
I may not be a psychopath, but I know women, and I know when women are in
love. Look at any little girl in love with a little boy, or vice versa. Name-calling, hairpulling, animosity, anger, careful observation behind a veil of Im-ignoring-you. Youre
a psychotic, right? So you read lots of philosophy? You ever read Schopenhauer, Plato,
Aristotle, Rousseau? Woman is an incomplete man, which makes her a child. Sexist,
yeah, but if anyone ever proved it, it was you.
Its far more complicated, Justine. Im not in love with him.
Dont lie. And if you ever need help getting him into your bed, heres my number.
She pushed a slip of paper into Frankensteins palm. People can be so fickle when theyre
in love.
Im not! she screamed, pushed Justine out of the way, and slammed her
classroom door behind her. Her lecture was energetic, but slurred and erratic, and her
occasional swearing and nervous twitching both frightened and intrigued her students.
She finished her lecture ten minutes early, and went straight home. She turned in
to bed hours before the sun set, and as reading material, she pulled the letters out from
under her mattress, used the bath towel to prop up her pillow, and read the letter from
Lacan. It was a page and a half long, with a few lazy lines run through that intended either
to underline or cross-out it was impossible to tell. The page and its opposing side were
rife with spelling errors and missing punctuation obviously a first draft. Susan read the
letter three times, and when she finished she half-sleep-walked to her kitchen, found a
lighter, and burned the letter over her stove. She slept well, and with a smile on her face.
Thursday
Susan called in to cancel all classes, appointments, and office hours for Thursday, the next
day, the weekend, and the following Monday. Philippa could teach her classes, she
supposed. Quick emails with zero information were sent out to her undergrads. She
explained to the rest of the faculty that she had to take a short break for her health,
although she knew that she would be on campus for much of the day.
After sending out her official emails, she sent a private email to Professor Crick:

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Cricket,
I have some questions I need to ask you, and some favours I need to owe
you. This is all rather urgent. I need to meet you in your office at one
Oclock this afternoon.
Love,
Dr. Susan Frankenstein, PhD
She knocked on the door of his office at fifteen to one. Dr. Crick was still eating
lunch. Youre early, he remarked. But I suppose thats a virtue.
Thank you for agreeing to meet me, she said. I have a question regarding
chemistry.
Being?
A few students were suspended for stealing sodium pentothal from the labs, yes?
Expelled. Its very serious and a major black mark on this department and this
school.
Yes, well, sodium pentothal is truth-serum, yes?
Well, thats its nickname, and you can use it for that purpose, given the right
circumstances, but people will tell you anything. Theyll do anything. And its not just a
sort of truth serum, it can be used for ansthesia, inducing comas, quelling phobias and
trauma, even euthanasia in high doses.
Were the boys planning to ease their traumatic sufferings?
I wish. They claimed they were going to use it for pranks, but knowing their
attitudes and existing criminal records, they were most likely going to use it for rape.
Why?
Ive recently gotten approval to perform experiments, and I believe that sodium
pentothal may aid in these experiments. However, while the experiments themselves are
funded, my department has been subjected to extreme austerity measures. I understand
that your faculty is in the black.
Quite far.
Yes, well, for accounting reasons, I was wondering if I could borrow a few doses
of sodium pentothal. Not enough to put someone to sleep or kill them, just enough to
alter their mood and attitudes. Only one or two doses would do. It would be a tremendous
favour.
Crick was taken aback. He looked back in his chair and blinked. Im sorry, he
said. Youre suggesting that I misuse department resources, lets be up front.
I prefer the term, re-appropriate.
Whichever word, Susan,
Please, Cricket,
Call me Dr. Crick, Dr. Frankenstein.
Dr. Crick, Ill owe you more favours than you can count.
Youll owe me no such favours. Ill do it, but on the condition that you keep this
quiet. I can explain this away as chemicals found stolen, but understand that I dont
approve.
Susan, thanking Crick at the beginning and end of every sentence, followed the
chemist to a lab one floor below his office and watched while he unlocked a steel cabinet
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and rummaged through various glass vials with white and yellow labels. Heres one, he
said. And make sure you dont tell anybody. Administer the drug orally; wait thirty
minutes for it to take effect; it should last anywhere from six to twenty-four hours; heres
a chart for dosages, he handed her a sheet of paper.
With two orange bottles full of pentothal hidden in her purse, she left campus for
a liquor store, and bought two bottles of wine and one bottle of Crown Royale. She
reached campus an hour before sunset, hoping to catch Alphonse before his evening class
was over. When she arrived at the lecture hall, the room was empty, save for two students,
studying in the corner. Wheres Dr. Languedoc? she asked them.
The two students looked up, He went to his office with one of his grad students.
Susan thanked them and ran to the elevator, hoping to catch her colleague. When she
arrived at the top floor and the elevator doors opened, she began calling into the halls,
knowing nobody else was there: Alphonse! Alphonse! She turned on the hall lights and
continued to call his name. When she finally arrived at his room, Philippa met her.
Hell! Hello, Dr. Frankenstein, she said. Alphonse and I were going over my
notes for the lecture tomorrow.
Thats great, Philippa, said Susan. Just remember not to fall behind on your
research for your dissertation. She reached for his door ripping his tie off the handle
and throwing it away and threw herself into the sticky hinges. She heard a scream, a
tumbling crumbling flop, and a panicked struggle, like a bag of rocks and sleeping rabbits
thrown down a flight of wooden stairs. Alphonse groaned from within. Susan pulled the
door back and slipped inside. Alphonse was leant back against his bookshelf, barefoot,
covered in books. She picked a beaten copy of Foucault off his forehead and helped him
up. Oh dear, youll stain your shirt, she said, reaching her index finger out to stop the
stream of blood that crookedly snaked down his face from his forehead, down the left side
of his nose, to his upper lip.
Philippa peered around the corner. Doctor, she said, looking upon Alphonse on
the ground.
Oh, its no trouble at all. Just had a little spill. Why dont you and Dr.
Frankenstein help me up, and then you can get going, right Philippa?
Yes, Doctor, she said.
The women helped Languedoc to his chair, and after Philippa made certain he
hadnt suffered a concussion, Susan sent her home. Susan cleared some of the disturbed
books from Alphonses desk, and took a seat. Alphonse, she said, I wanted to thank
you for those letters from Lacan. I would have done so on the spot, but I was at a loss for
words. Its really quite rare for anyone to be so thoughtful.
Oh, its no trouble, said Alphonse, deflecting with a bullwhip snap of his hand.
He continued, Anything for a friend, really, and you dont make a secret about such
things. Every piece youve ever published has made reference to him. Besides, there was
the letter addressed to you. I can assure you, I didnt take a lookie-loo into your private
correspondence, although I must confess, I wasnt so courteous with the letter to
Althusser. Can you believe what he wrote?
Its a good thing he never sent it, laughed Dr. Frankenstein. Thered have been
a libel case. Anyway, as thanks, I bought some white wine. Its German, I think. Would
you care to share a glass?
Oh, Im afraid I dont have any wine-glasses, just my tumblers. Theyre not a red
carpet, but do you think theyll do?
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Theyll do fine.
Alright-y then. Theres a step-ladder in the staff-room closet. If you dont mind,
I need some higher education to reach it. Id stand on my chair, but Im a little lightheaded
as it is. When Susan returned with the step-ladder, she offered to climb up to his topshelf for him, and she poured the glasses, and the two of them gossiped through three
glasses each. When Alphonse shook the last drops from the bottle, and when Susan
offered him a second bottle, he didnt even question where it came from. He did, however,
say he didnt go to grad school not for nothing, and he could put any Russki, Mick, or
Pollack under the table, so-help-him-God, and yes he would like another.
Friday
When Susan Languedoc woke up the next morning, she pulled Alphonses thumb
out of her mouth, rolled out from under his arm, and tucked him back under the sheets
which had been kicked to her footboard. She remembered fine shed only had three
glasses of wine but she wanted to be sure, and it took her nearly five minutes to find the
sheet of paper. When shed finally found it, she danced quietly, careful not to wake up her
sleeping colleague, put on her underwear, and went downstairs to make breakfast for her
new husband. Alphonse came down fifteen minutes later, confused, tired, hungry, and
hungover. Hello, dear, she chirped, smiling.
Whats this, now? he asked, holding up a sheet of paper.
Thats our marriage license, she said.
What? Who signed as witness?
A lovely young friend of mine named Justine.
Thats not right, I dont remember signing this.
Well, you did have a lot to drink, as did I.
Oh, said Alphonse. This is no good. Ill have to go out and get an annulment.
Wait, said Susan. Dont go just yet.
I have a morning class, he said.
Philippa is teaching it, remember? Stay a while. Howd you like to read the Lacan
letters?
I suppose it cant hurt, he said. He nibbled at a few strips of bacon while she
gathered the letters from her bedroom. When she returned, they spent the morning
reading the letters, laughing at her idols wit. After a while, Alphonse asked, What about
the letter he wrote for you? Wheres that?
Susan flipped through the letters. Im not sure, she said, lying now that she
remembered. It was the last one I read. I must have left it upstairs somewhere.
Alphonse followed her to her bedroom, and sat on her bed patiently as she went through
her closet. She continued to stall for time: Im sure I left it somewhere. Maybe here?
No. Perhaps? No, thats not it. Not there.
Ive got it, said Alphonse, jumping off the bed and falling to his hands and knees.
You probably dropped it under your bed. Its always in the last place you look you know.
Susan tried to stop him when he reached under her bed, throwing out a pen, a paperclip,
a rubber band, a dustbunny that rolled across the room like a tumbleweed, and emerged
with a bottle of pills.
Whats this? he said.
Thats nothing you need to know about, she said defensively.
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Oh, theres no need to hide anything from your husband now is there? He winked
and held the bottle out of her reach. Besides, I wont judge. I see patients who eat their
own semen, you think Ill make fun of you for some anti-wort cream? Now lets see, whats
this? He held the label up to the ceiling light. Sodium pentothal is that?
Alphonse, give it back, she said.
Truth serum, Susan? Is that what this is?
Well.
And what did you find out, then, hmm? What were you digging for?
Its not quite truth serum, she admitted. It just makes you suggestable. I used
it to get you into bed. To get you to marry me.
Alphonse was taken aback. Im going to the courthouse right now to get an
annulment. Youre a very troubled woman, Susan.
Sensing an opportunity, Susan Languedoc said, Alphonse, if you get an
annulment, Ill reveal what you told me under the pentothal.
Alphonse stopped at the door, considered her threat, and said, This goes far
beyond what Ive done. Sure, I may have stepped beyond the bounds of technical ethics,
but nobody got hurt, and everybody had fun. Im getting this marriage annulled whatever
you, in your purblind rage, choose to do. But I wont make a statement to the faculty on
the pentothal and the marriage. However, I have two conditions: first, you will seek help
for your melancholic anal neuroses and your need for validation. This is not healthy, and
you should have taken my offer of professional help when that offer was open. After last
night and this morning, I fear that I can no longer work comfortably and objectively with
your case. Second, you will stay silent. You can never tell anybody about me and Philippa.
She will get her doctorate; you will recommend that she complete her post-doctorate here,
and you will put your best foot forward in getting her a professorship at the university.
You will tell nobody about the affair between us. I know you dont think the best of me,
but I know that you respect her. I hope I can at least trust your urge for self-preservation,
if not your empathy for your students. Goodbye, Susan. Alphonse Languedoc left her
apartment. Sitting by her window, Susan Languedoc watched the old professor catch the
bus downtown.

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