A Timeless Place

Chapter 7

"Okay Jordan, grab the chloroform," Wes said, sliding his hands together and looking at us with an evil glint in his eyes. 

Jordan laughed as Eli and I shared an alarmed look. I knew there was a reason I didn't want to come here. And even though I knew they were joking, I wouldn't put it past Wes to actually do it.

"Relax," Jordan said. "We're just joking." 

"I worry about your definition of joking," I muttered. 

Wes laughed, grabbing my laptop from my hands and switching it on. 

"I think we should just start by annotating the passage first," Wes flexed his fingers in front of the screen as he waited for it to log in. "That way we can look into what we'll be performing." 

"Good idea," Eli said, pulling out a pen from her bag and a copy of the Medea play. I was surprised. I was expecting there to be many delays in doing the essay, especially after the events of last night. It was oddly comforting how not awkward it was.

"Visitations of love that come/ Raging and violent on a man," Wes read, then smirked. "If you know what I mean." 

I put my head in my hand. I spoke much too soon, "We're going to be here for a while with Wes making sexual innuendoes every second."

-

"Okay, so we can talk about stagecraft being a literary device. How the chorus acts as a mouthpiece for the audience," Wes pointed to the passage. His face was animated, like he was actually and surprisingly into this. "And how Aegeus' entrance creates a refreshing mood to the play. Their conversation is lighter, more brief compared the essay-long speeches they gave before."

"We can also talk about the importance of family ties and belonging," I said. "How they put so much emphasis into the need to have a son to take over or how they constantly sympathise with Medea being a refugee. Like when the chorus said "Oh my country, my home." Putting those two so close indicates they are one.." 

Eli jotted down all these points, "Great! If we focus on those two major points for the essay, we'll be good to go!" 

We wrote out a plan for the essay on what to write in the introduction, body and conclusion. Surprisingly, we were efficient working together. I thought Wes wouldn't take anything seriously and just laze around or complain the whole time, but he was surprisingly one-track minded. When he wanted to get something done, he'd get it done. It was a surprisingly attractive trait.

"What?" Wes asked, looking up at me and giving me a weird look. 

"Nothing," I muttered, looking away. I felt a little heat rise to my face. I hadn't noticed that I had zoned out, staring at him working hard on the essay. 

"See anything you're interested in?" he wiggled his eyebrows at me, glancing at me through eyes a soft shade of grey.

"Oh, yes," I said, smirking. I pointed at the vase on a shelf just above his head. 

He turned to look behind him, frowning. "That's the ugliest vase in the whole world of vases. My grandmother bought it for mom but mom couldn't bear to hurt her feelings." 

"Exactly. It's still more interesting than you," I pointed out.

"Ouch," he said, putting a hand over his chest in mock hurt. 

I laughed, "Your mom is really nice though." 

"You should see her when she's mad at us," Jordan said. Him and Eli were typing into the laptop on the couch. Wes and I were given the job of finding quotes and coming up with arguments while they typed it up. "Last word you'd think is 'nice'. But scary, intimidating and dangerous are high up there."