The Rap Devil Went Up to Ohio

Gifted

Colson cautiously lifted the prize from the hands of his nemesis. Feeling it through the cloth, he could tell it was a spiral notebook. He gently unwrapped it, envisioning a ghostly hand reaching from the pages and pulling him in. The black cover was etched with a spiderweb of thin white cracks. It was ratty and badly dog-eared. The metal spirals were bent out of shape at both ends, with the back cover hanging on by only a few perforations. "This supposed to be your book of rhymes?"

There was an awkward silence before Marshall spoke. "Yeah, something like that."

"I lose one battle to you, and you think I need your lyrics and shit?"

"Open it."

"How 'bout this." Colson pulled out his lighter, flicked it on, and placed it under one edge of the notebook. The yellow flame licked the brittle paper before engulfing it. The heat forced Colson to immediately throw it toward the stump. He laughed loudly as the flame burned. Why is it so green? No smoke rose from it as the fire burned itself out. Not a single page of the notebook was burned.

"Feel better?" Marshall inquired. "Open it."

Colson picked up the notebook, accidentally touching the hot metal wire. "Oww!" He dropped the notebook on the ground.

"Well, you did just set the whole damn thing on fire."

Colson sucked on a finger while picking the book up with the other hand. He opened it and flipped through the pages. Page after page contained nothing but empty blue lines. An angry scowl is all he could offer Marshall. "You think you're funny, huh?"

"There's nothing funny about it. I'm about to tell you something that I wished the person who gave this to me had told me." Marshall sat down on the cypress stump.

"Is this a long story? I actually have shit to do."

"You can bounce right now if you'd like."

Colson sighed and sat down on the ground in front of his would-be teacher.