Thesis of a Dead Man

By Emily Blanco

The air was cold and heavy with silence so complete it felt intentional, as though the world was holding its breath for him in anticipation. Their lessons carved deep and fading, the stones stood before him like Silent scholars who offered more patience and comfort than the living ever had. He’d written hundreds of pages on human virtue and morality as it seemed, yet none on forgiveness of the soul, convinced himself that morality could be measured in words. Now time itself seemed to hesitate, perhaps it had simply decided. He was no longer worth remembering. 

Vincent, a man of quiet convictions and fellow philosophy student, who failed to see carried composure and silence to be mistaken for peace. His studies led him to dissect the human itself as though it were a corpse that lay on his desk, frantically seeking answers. He built his work on the illusion that human kindness and generosity could be dissected and studied rather than felt, unable to recognise what had truly led him there, standing among the dead awaiting his own conclusion. 

Surrounding him the fog moved like breath, murmuring and whispering haunting tales he had so wished to forget. A voice with a familiar melancholic ring lingered, ‘you’re a good man Vincent.’ The words wove deep into his thoughts. As they trembled through the smog, Vincent noted their tone. Not an accusation, not comfort either. It was something gentler and cruel. He paused, he knew that voice, he knew it well. Heard it in every lecture hall, every conflict and apology never spoken aloud. It was his own, softened by regret. 

With furrowed brows and eyes clouded in grief, he froze. ‘A good man?’ He muttered to himself, pitying the man he’d become, ‘Good men don’t end up with blood on their hands!’ Vincent turns to the silent night that awaited him, the words left him like a confession, a truth he had yet to face. 

 ‘You talk as if guilt made you honest.’ Vincent’s eyes shift slightly, though a stillness in his expression, his face and posture slowly soften. As the words familiar and tenderly leave his lips, ‘Edmund?’ 

Vincent slowly falls to the floor, the earth now cradling him as he kneeled in disbelief. The haunting voice continued, ‘but honesty born of guilt is just desperation,’ Vincent cowered on the floor at the mere memory of Edmund and the words he spoke, ‘It only makes you more desperate to be forgiven.’ 

Vincent needed to face the truth, that men do not atone for their sins through guilt, but through remembrance and he had forgotten far too much. He’d learned that Edmund’s voice had not been silenced by death, only distance. The fog slowly shuddered around him, and in its wake drifted to the scent of ink, candle wax and the faint memory of their shared study. 

Walls of aged oak and shelves that loomed with heavy books, whose leather spines had been worn tired, stood before clear as day. The air thick and warm like the lamp light that sat across his desk mixed with the faint smell of bitter coffee left untouched. There he stood, across from a young college boy whose collar and tie were slightly undone, ink stains lingering on his palms and his hair unkempt. His desk sprawled with stray pages each covered in unfinished thoughts, some folded, some torn. Almost like a monument to sleepless nights and borrowed thoughts that were never complete. 

In a hurry the door slammed open, striking the wall with a hollow crack that startled the ongoing candle flames. Rain chased Edmund into the study, scattering the droplets across the floorboards, the wind violently tugging at his coat. Yet the fury measured and quiet, the kind of fury that burns cold. There stood Edmund at the doorway, breath shallow, eyes fixed on Vincent with incredible restraint that was far more dangerous than pure rage. 

‘You published it, didn’t you.’ His voice low and stern, somehow cutting through the brittle storm outside. Vincent didn’t flinch at the confrontation, he lifted his gaze, the quill still poised between his fingers. Edmund still stood by the door in disbelief, ‘you published my work!’ Edmund paused as if to hear clear confirmation. ‘Ours.’ Vincent replied in a calm manner, dipping the quill once more into the ink. ‘You were afraid to finish it; I only gave the thesis some form.’ 

‘Form?’ Edmunds laugh masked a deeper rage, ‘you gave it your name Vincent!’ The thunder, distant but heavy and the silence that followed felt merciful. Vincent sighed leaning back in his chair, ‘It’s just a name, Edmund. Besides, people will know you helped.’ 

‘Helped?’ Edmund’s voice cracked, ‘I practically wrote the whole thing!’ Edmund takes the pages from his coat pocket, grasping them tight at the verge of crumpling them. ‘And what have you done exactly?’ Vincent’s eyes met his, cold and detached, ‘Yes, and what have you done? Opportunities handed to you, accolades lined up for you without effort. I had to work harder just to be noticed, to be at your level!’  

Edmund’s chest tightened, his eyebrows raised to slight slant, a disheartened look in his eye, ‘This theft, this betrayal, was just survival to you?’ He looked down at the crumpled pages in his hand, ‘Why’d you go behind my back?’ 

Vincent shrugged gently, ‘Call it survival of the fittest, call it recognition.’ He puts his quill down and stares daggers through his brows, ‘Life does not wait for the timid Edmund. It devours them.’ Vincent’s eyes, once warm with shared ambition, had hardened into something merciless. Edmund gathered himself and turned to open the door, he paused, ‘I trusted you.’ His eyes lingering on Vincent, heartbreak etched into his being. Vincent had returned to writing his pages as if Edmund no longer existed. 

The morning after, the storm had passed, streets slick with rain and morning air fresh, the city still and quiet. Word had gone around that Edmund had fallen from the university bridge, the cause never fully explained, though whispered rumours found their way through campus. Vincent never asked the cause and didn’t need to. A carriage waited outside the faculty gates that same day, its curtains drawn and its crest glinting faintly. Two tall figures emerged from it, a man well-polished and grim at the face. Beside him a woman who walked with deliberate grace, her gloved hands clenched tightly around a neatly folded handkerchief. Their presence silenced anyone within their vicinity. Professors bowed their heads, students turned away. No one spoke to them, no one needed to.  

Vincent watched in stillness from the window above. Their presence silenced glass fogged with his breath. They had looked taller than he remembered, like marble figures carved to bear grief with dignity. He watched by the window till the carriage doors closed again, until the wheels rolled away and the sound was swallowed by rain. Vincent later found an old letter on his desk with heavy parchment sealed in black wax. The handwriting was neat and practiced, he read it a myriad of times, eyes tracing the space between the lines. There was no anger in it. No accusation either. He set it beside Edmund’s old notes. 

Somewhere in the distance the bell tolled the hour, low and deliberate. His thesis now credited solely to him and in the quiet study, Vincent had finally felt the first tendrils of something he had long denied. Guilt. It did not come with tears or prayers but in the form of regret. 

The lamp light flickered as a harsh breeze stirred, and the flames danced before the fog devoured them whole. The scent of ink and coffee, replaced by damp soil and decay. The graveyard faced him, unchanged. Vincent remained on the ground, the fog and night sky deeper than before, curling around him like hands that wanted to grab him. His knees pressed into the damp earth, hands trembling against the soil. The voice returned, ‘You wanted to be seen, but buried him for it.’ The voice almost ghastly echoed in his head. ‘His name, his work, his life. You told yourself it was for your family and your legacy, but it was for you.’  

The fog pressed closer and so did the voice, ‘he’d never forgive you now.’ Vincent pressed his hands against the soil until he started digging at the earth. His fingers dug deeper into the soil, clawing until the earth bled beneath his nails. He dug as if the truth could be unearthed, as if remorse could be reached by touch. The ground only gave him stones, cold, unfeeling and eternal. He froze, his breath caught as his splintered fingers traced the surface. A coffin. 

He leaned closer, the fog parting just enough to reveal the name etched into the lid. Vincent Ashford. Beneath the name a line he knew too well, their thesis quote. ‘Virtue exists only in the memory of those who choose to bear it.’ Vincent bowed his head to the coffin in acknowledgment, ‘Forgive me.’ Pleading he clawed at the earth until his fingers bled, trying to dig up his roots, but the ground showed no mercy. At last, his body still in silence, the earth cradled him, welcoming back what it had long been promised. 

By Emily Blanco