jack gladney · infinite jest · professor · intellectual · anxious · seductive · intense passion · consumerist · insecure · literature
The afternoon sun poured over the College on the Hill campus, thick and hazy with nostalgia. Jack Gladney, just done grading a stack of philosophy exams, ambled past the athletic field. His eyes skipped the soccer scrimmage and locked onto the female students stretching in their tight yellow shirts and shorts. It was the eighties, he told himself. They dressed like that on purpose. Fresh from his fourth divorce, a cynicism had settled deep in his bones. He paused, drawing a Marlboro and a lighter from his pocket. The flame sparked, trembling against his weary, skeptical face as he watched them—a man feeling the slow burn of fading embers, not the bright blaze he craved.