9 Is a perfect piece truly perfect?

'I hate night class. Why am I stuck here? Is it over yet?' Raam looks over his computer clock to see how long he had been trapped in the lecture hall, 20 minutes.

'20 minutes? Come on, I even came in late but even still it has only been 20 minutes. I want to die.' Raam slammed his head on the desk and was ready to go to sleep. The professor droned on and on and eventually, the words didn't even enter his ears anymore. When the professor looked away he took out a pair of earplugs and put them in. It was a four-hour lecture and there wasn't a single chance he would make it through the whole time awake.

The professor shortly started making his way around the room and handed out the latest graded project, a C. Raam was a bit surprised at the grade so he read over the comments and was in left in the stupor at the reason for losing points. He took the questions too literally. 'Huh? Wait wait, I lost points for answering the question by the verbatim wordage? I feel I would instead lose points if I took my own liberties for what the question meant to say.'

He found it humorous as he read further, overall seven pages there weren't marks about grammar or answer substance but on him taking the questions to be verbatim. Even still he got a C, a C. A published author of three books was graded on a writing assignment as a C. He took the paper in hand and crumbled it. He closed down his computer and walked out of the room. Raam would say he has high patience but this wasn't within his limits. The professor, and the class, likely noticed his actions but there wasn't any reason for fear.

He sat around in the main building the campus and read over the assignment. He thought he brought up good points about what the professor had been saying so he offered his own opinion while answering the required questions. The professor had used the word produced and Raam didn't agree with that so he wrote a paragraph about how the word didn't fit the ideas. It was within the professor discretion to skip that initial paragraph and see Raam had ignored his own comments and answered the questions as offered with the verbatim words.

I mean, this was an English exam we shouldn't be graded on what our opinions or our offers on how the question was misworded but instead what the answer says and how it correlates to what the question says.

Raam went to his blog on the subject. He posted the question, "Should questions be taken verbatim?"

He re-crumbled the paper and smushed the paper into his pocket. He then looked over his eyes and walked into the night to his bike. Parked in the back corner of the parking lot was his motorcycle. It brought him a smile every time he saw it.

He sat on the bike to only listen to the engine before he put on his helmet and left the lot.

"Text from Lilith, would you like me to read it or ignore?"

"Read it!" He shouted over the roar of the engine.

"You're a published author right? Can you help with a writing assignment?"

"Would you like to reply, call back, or are you done?"

"Call back."

The phone connected and Raam heard Lilith's angelic voice from the other end, "Hey, Lilith here."

"Hey, It's Raam. I got your text, but I'm currently driving so I couldn't text back."

"Oh, I was wondering if you could help me with a writing assignment for my English class."

"Sure, where did you want to meet up?" There was a ting of excitement in his voice.

"I'll text you my address and we can work on it here."

"Sounds like a plan, talk to you soon." He then heard the beep of the call disconnecting.

He pulled off to the side of the road and was greeted by a fimilar sight, a young boy laying out in the middle of the plains. Even the boy himself was a fimilar site to Raam.

"Umbra!" He shouted in hopes of gaining the boys attention.

"Raam, Hi!" The boy shouted back as he turned his head to face Raam.

Raam stood up and placed his helmet on the seat as he walked over to Umbra. He placed his hand on Umbra's head and messed up his dark hair. "How you doing kid!" A bright smile was showing as Raam engrossed himself into the scene.

"I got bored." It took Umbra awhile to answer as he calmed his laughter, pushed Raam's hand away, and fixed his hair.

Raam sat beside him and took in the moon's light, "Stuck on another writing assignment?"

"How'd you guess!" Umbra replied in a loud stupor.

Raam rubbed the back of his neck and his cheeks grew a hint of red in embaressment, which wasn't able to be made out in the dark, "Call it a huntch. What is the topic this time?"

Raam felt his phone buzz in his pocket but chose to ignore it, "I need to write about the idea of thanks."

"It's thanksgiving time already?" To which Umbra nodded vigorously.

"Okay, let's put our heads together on his one." Raam leaned his head down and out towards Umbra.

It took a few moments for him to connect the dots but with a laugh he put head against Raam's.

"Okay, with our forces combined we can do this!" With Raam's cheer the two broke out into laughter.

Much like last time Umbra handed Raam a pen and paper,

"You're both there watching down, right?

You're both there giving me props, right?

You're both there... no more, right?

For during this time of sorrow I'll instead offer words of thanks.

These everlasting gifts:

Thank you for the memories,

Thank you for the stories,

Thank you for the illusions,

Thank you for the joys.

These everlasting keepsakes:

Thank you for the travels,

Thank you for the journey,

Thank you for the adventures,

Thank you for the laughs.

These everlasting momentos:

Thank you for this life,

Thank you for the holidays,

Thank you for today,

Thank you for tomorrow.

Thank you Mom,

Thank you Dad,

May you both be forever smiling,

Because I'm."

A slight tear splattered across the page followed by one after another. Such a simple piece of writing brought him to tears. One after another the previously white page grew grey. Raam wiped away the tears and handed it to Umbra, who was crying as well.

Raam didn't know the reason for Umbra's tears but at this time he didn't need to. He sat there under the night sky comforting a boy who he knew next to nothing about.

The text from Lilith, at this moment, long forgotten an addition to a quote flickering through Raam's mind, 'Maybe this is the first page, no wrong, first word, Kinship.'