Superannuated Man
For his swan-song, protagonist and narrator Professor Theodore Allenby Marsters takes on the hot button topic of bias - prejudice and unfairness in an array of forms, some overlooked in the mainstream. In particular, Marsters finds himself facing mandatory retirement. As a result, he crafts the course to emphasize elder bias, drawing examples from personal experience, while in counterpoint demonstrating his own societal value by befriending elders and establishing a program to buoy the spirits of children who have contracted leukemia.
The wildcard is Anacostia Monroe, a young woman and older sister of one of Marsters's students. Unbeknownst to him, she has orchestrated their meeting, mutual fascination, and subsequent physical entanglement in support of her own learning opportunity and as preparation for her future married (not to him) life. Her plans are upstaged when the professor exceeds the stuffy impression he typically reflects, and she realizes he has graduated from test subject to love interest. These events lead to her older brother beating him down, decrying their age difference. She nurses him back to health, but despite their increasing closeness ultimately decides she must leave him in favor of her fianc . After she departs, he wonders: was she real or a figment of a lonely old man's imagination? This question inhabits the denouement, which itself establishes the foundation for the remainder of his life.
One hundred and two thousand words.
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