Leaving Francistown
Copyright© 2025 by Art Samms
Chapter 7
By mid-afternoon, the campus had emptied out under the heavy sun, the hum of life replaced by the lazy drone of cicadas outside my temporary office window.
I sat behind the borrowed desk, notes spread out, trying to map out tomorrow’s final lecture.
Wrap it up cleanly, I told myself. Professional. Focused.
A soft knock interrupted my thoughts.
“Come in,” I said, pushing the papers aside.
The door opened, and Bliss stepped in. My heart leaped into my throat, but I kept it together. Barely.
She wore jeans and a simple white blouse, her braids gathered into a loose bun. No makeup, no fuss—just herself. And somehow she looked even more beautiful like this, natural and effortless, a version of her I hadn’t quite seen before.
“Hey, Professor Ben,” she said, hesitating a little. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course.” I motioned to the chair across from me, trying to ignore the way my heart rate picked up just from seeing her standing there.
She stepped in, closing the door gently behind her, and perched on the edge of the chair.
In her hands, she held a neatly folded paper.
“I ... I was wondering if you might be willing to write me a recommendation letter,” she said, looking a little nervous. “It’s for a conservation program this summer—kind of competitive. It’s outside the university, but it would really help if I had a letter from someone with real field experience.”
I smiled, relieved in a way that it was something simple, straightforward. “I’d be happy to, Bliss. You’ve more than earned it.”
She let out a small breath, visibly relaxing. “Thank you. Seriously. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to ask.”
“I’m glad you did.” I leaned back a little. “Besides, I’d be proud to put my name behind you.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. There was a gentler kind of energy between us now—not the charged, cautious one from the lectures, but something ... easier.
Bliss shifted slightly, picking at the corner of her notebook.
“I also wanted to say sorry,” she added, a little awkwardly. “For putting you on the spot with all my questions in class. I know I kind of push sometimes.”
I shook my head, smiling genuinely.
“Don’t apologize. Your questions make me better at my job. And honestly ... your perspective is refreshing. It reminds me why I do this in the first place.”
She smiled, a little embarrassed but pleased.
After a moment, she said, “It’s just ... with the colonialism stuff, and conservation models—there’s a lot to untangle. I think about it all the time.”
I nodded. “It’s complicated. Conservation here is tangled with history, with injustice, with economics. It’s not just about saving elephants or forests—it’s about people. It always has been.”
Bliss sat forward, earnest. “I think sometimes, even the good programs still don’t listen enough. They bring ideas from the outside without understanding the whole story.”
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve probably been guilty of it myself, especially early on.”
She looked at me steadily.
“I don’t think you’re the type to stop listening, though.”
I felt something warm stir in my chest at that. “Not anymore,” I assured her.
The conversation drifted after that, the way real conversations sometimes do when the guardrails come down. She told me about growing up just outside Gaborone, about how her mother worked in education and her father in local government. How her aunt had taken her to the Delta once when she was eleven, and she’d fallen in love with the idea of protecting something bigger than herself.
I found myself talking, too—more than I expected.
Told her about Nashville.
About growing up with woods and creeks as my playground.
About how I stumbled into conservation after a stint as a high school biology teacher. Even about my divorce, though I mentioned it in passing, without detail.
Bliss didn’t press. She just listened, respectful and open.
It struck me, sitting there across from her, how easy it was. How natural. How risky.
Because she wasn’t just a beautiful student anymore, or a bright mind in my classroom. She was a real person, layered and complex and astonishingly alive. And the more I saw, the harder it was to make believe that a neat little boundary would hold all this inside.
When the clock on the wall chimed softly, she stood up, smoothing her jeans. “I should go,” she said, smiling gently. “Thanks again for the letter. And ... for talking with me.”
“Anytime,” I said, and meant it far too much.
She hesitated just a moment, as if she wanted to say more, then simply gave a little wave and slipped out the door.
I leaned back in the chair after she left, staring up at the cracked ceiling tiles, buoyed to a ridiculous extent from Bliss’s unexpected visit. At the same time, there was a deep, familiar sense of trepidation that was more intense than ever. How much longer could I skirt that forbidden boundary? I was having serious doubts about my willpower.
Tomorrow was the last day of lectures. And after that ... after that, God only knew.
The next morning, it hit me. The two weeks had flown by. I tried not to dwell on the fact that this was an end, a finality.
One minute I was sketching out lesson plans in a borrowed office, trying to ignore the tightening knot in my stomach every time I thought about her, and the next, I was standing in front of the class for the last time, feeling the heavy, bittersweet weight of goodbye already pressing at the edges of my thoughts.
I moved through the lecture with practiced ease, keeping my voice steady, my focus tight. Outside the windows, the afternoon light slanted low over the university’s dusty lawns, setting everything aglow. Inside, the students listened attentively, some taking notes, others just soaking it in.
Bliss sat near the middle again, her expression serious, the corner of her mouth twitching upward every time I caught her eye.
She looked beautiful again, but not in the way that demanded attention. It was subtler than that — the quiet confidence, the thoughtfulness, the way she leaned into ideas like she wanted to wrestle them into something tangible.
It occurred to me all over again how rare she was.
When I wrapped up the final discussion and dismissed the class, the students lingered, clapping politely and offering handshakes and thanks as they filtered out.
I kept it together, smiling, thanking them back, feeling oddly proud — and a little hollow. This group had been something special.
Bliss hung back, waiting until the others were mostly gone.
I busied myself packing up my notes, pretending not to notice the way she hovered near the desk.
When she finally stepped forward, I looked up — and she smiled, a little shy, a little steady.
“Thank you, Professor Ben,” she said, her voice soft but sure. “For everything. Your classes were ... different. In a good way.”
I swallowed against the lump rising in my throat.
“You made them different,” I said, keeping my voice light. “All of you.”
She tucked a braid behind her ear, the gesture almost bashful. “I learned a lot,” she said. “Not just facts. Perspective. It’s ... rare.”
There was a moment — an instant — where it felt like the whole room narrowed down to just the two of us. I felt the pull, sharp and dangerous, and immediately tamped it down.
“Keep pushing,” I said, managing a smile. “You’re going to do incredible things.” That’s when I handed her the recommendation letter – the one I’d stayed up crafting, into the wee hours, making sure it was worded perfectly.
“Thank you, Professor Ben. I appreciate it so much.” Her eyes softened, and for a second, I thought she might say something more — something that crossed the invisible line we were both still so carefully walking. But she just nodded, gave me another small smile, and slipped away, her bag slung over one shoulder.
I stood there long after she was gone, the late afternoon sun striping the floorboards, feeling like I had just finished a chapter I wasn’t quite ready to close.
Later that evening, I met up with Arthur again at the same café.
“You survive?” he asked with a grin as I sat down heavily across from him.
“More or less,” I said, signaling for a drink.
He studied me for a second.
“Something happen?”
I shook my head. “Nothing happened,” I said honestly. “It’s just ... over. And it feels like it matters more than it should.”
Arthur didn’t push. He just lifted his glass and clinked it against mine.
“To surviving,” he said.
“To surviving,” I echoed.
But even as I said it, I knew the real challenge hadn’t even started yet.
Surviving the classroom was one thing.
Surviving the way Bliss made me feel was something else entirely.
Back at camp, everything was moving at full speed. The latest student group had already been there for a few days — a lively, younger bunch, still wide-eyed with the wonder of it all. They’d gotten up and running without me.
Joseph met me at the airstrip, grinning, dusty, and sunburned.
“Good to have you back, boss,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Good to be back,” I said, meaning it. It was the kind of thing you said automatically, but today it rang true.
The days that followed were packed tight — sunrise fieldwork, midday lectures under the shade trees, evening debriefs around the fire. The new students were enthusiastic but inexperienced, full of smart questions but prone to rookie mistakes.
It kept me busy, kept my mind occupied.
Mostly.
Because no matter how deep I buried myself in the work, some part of my mind kept drifting back.
To a soft voice asking pointed questions.
To bright eyes and a smile that managed to be both steady and just a little bit shy.
To a simple goodbye that had felt heavier than it should have.
I caught myself once, standing at the edge of a marsh while the students sketched birdlife, staring out across the water with my hands shoved deep into my pockets, thinking about her without even realizing it.
Get it together, I told myself. Focus.
It wasn’t just foolishness — it was dangerous.
For her.
For me.
For everything I’d worked for to build credibility here.
The professional line wasn’t blurry — it was a hard, thick barrier, and I knew it had to stay that way.
Still, at night, lying in my tent listening to the low chorus of frogs and night birds, I found myself replaying the conversations we’d had. The easy way she spoke about ideas. The intense curiosity. The quiet fire that burned just beneath her calm surface. It wasn’t just attraction, and maybe that’s what made it worse.
It was the start of something deeper — something I hadn’t even realized I was capable of feeling again.
Arthur showed up a few days later, looking as if he’d stepped out of a dust storm. We sat around the fire that night, passing a bottle of local beer back and forth, swapping stories. He caught me staring into the flames more than once.
“You alright, mate?” he asked finally, nudging me with his boot.
“Yeah,” I said, then after a moment, “Just adjusting.”
He didn’t press, but his look said he didn’t buy it.
Maybe because he was right.
Because no matter how many papers I graded or how many species I logged in the field, a part of me stayed tangled up somewhere else — somewhere far south, in a bright university courtyard, where a young woman named Bliss had looked at me like she actually saw me.
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