The inquisitor

We learned to write first in kindergarten, carefully printing block letters in between wide, triple-spaced lines, the one in the middle dotted. In awe we couldn't wait to learn the arcane talents of cursive lettering, the ability to write with what appeared lightning speed and to curl our T's and L's. In college I perfected my cursive Q, an act of hubris that my most humbling instructor of three agonizing semesters in English literature, the Inquisitor of my training, could not master (he always wrote his Q's in block letter form, no matter what). The sin cost me something of his favor.
My sins are many, the least of which are likely having stayed in the Inquisitor's classes. It's well known what the wages of sin are, but salvation is offered to the writer who can endure the slings and arrows of outrageous education and live through them to face rejection slips and sometime glory. Enduring the Inquisitor's classes meant suffering verbal batterment, snide remarks, insults and slights in abundance, but he was the best the local college had to offer and I was determined to have the Glory of the Degree. But it was long and it was tough.
"This is the wordiest mess of nonsense I've ever read. What is meant by the phrase 'it seemed to him?' Things either are or are not or they appear otherwise. I will strike the word 'seem' from your consciousness. Do people usually only 'begin to stand' and never actually get there? Clean this up!"
All those bloody red marks. My murdered baby, hacked to death by the Man of the MFA cloth, that most Holy and Arcane Order of Literary Pursuit (he was a lawyer as well).
"But," I defended myself unwisely. "This is from my heart. This is my soul!"
"What utter nonsense! I'm the best teacher you'll ever have because I'm telling you your writing is the worse thing since the plague. It lacks depth. It lacks clarity. I think you mean this to be frightening but the scariest thing about it is the way it's written! Revise this mess and pay attention to diction and economy. Say what you mean to say and don't try to impress us. And keep the expletives and gore to a bare minimum, this is as bad as pornography!"
Stubbornness more than anything kept me in the Inquisitor's classes. I became obsessed with proving him wrong about me, to show him that my stories weren't garbage, that they were the masterpieces I thought they were. I analyzed him into having been abused as a child and one who took particular pleasure in sadistic torture.
In the midst of my second semester with him, it hit me with the same vector force as a ton of bricks being dumped over my head while standing on concrete; somehow, the bastard was right! Those youthful and beloved tales were not just insipid, they were badly written as well. I agreed to be hung, naked and bleeding before my classmates not to prove that the Inquisitor had beaten me (surely I'd made it clear that he never could), but in an earnest submission to proper diction, style and unpretentiousness.
And even then, after awarding me my third C ("You're an A student but you've earned this C again because of your refusal to follow my instruction!"), the last few of us still in his class by the end, our egos carefully bandaged and licking our wounds, he tells us, "I expect all of you to return and share with me your first successes. Because if they happen, you will have me to thank." Even then, after proving my error, he could show no humility.
I don't think I'm ready to give him that pleasure, not yet. I prefer to let him think he vanquished me. Let him gloat a little longer before sharing with him my first successes, and that they are dark fiction. I won't ever say aloud in his presence that I am a better writer because of him. He already knows it.

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