Walking across campus my shirt starts to stick to my back and I can feel my armpits start to leak thick sweat. It’s not far past twelve and if I can get to Sven’s room before he decides to shower for the hundredth time today, I’m gonna get him to lend me his car for the night so I can be a man of my word for once in my life. I jog up the stairs to the second floor and try not to get too flustered. I don’t want to start smelling myself whenever I move my arms around.

Sven’s door is open and I walk in and step over the towels and clothes to his 80’s desk chair. When I moved out of Grant and over to Bentley I felt like I was leaving home again but then I remembered the cold brick walls and the hard carpet and the same stale smell in every too-small closet. I closed the door and took my shirt off while reaching for his deodorant. He was definitely in the shower again; I couldn’t have missed him by more than a minute. He wasn’t a hypochondriac or a germ-freak, but maybe he had OCD. Whatever it was, he only got weirder every time I learned something more about him. I opened his desk drawers and started rummaging around to see if I could get lucky and find his pill stash. He said he’d stopped selling oxy around campus, but there was no way he could afford all those new pairs of New Balance shoes and designer jeans. For a drug dealer he was the most vain person I knew. I looked out the window at the people walking around and thought I saw Monica on the far side of footpath. She said she was gonna be in Vermont for a week to see her dad marry his second wife. Maybe something went down and she came back early.

“Hello Andy, how’s the view?”

Sven walked in with a t-shirt on and clutching the towel around his waist.

“Shitty. Can I borrow your car tonight?”

“What ever for?”

“I have to pick up Loren, we talked about this, she’s coming to check out the colleges for a tour to see if she wants to go here.”

“Oh yeah, your cousin or something right? Sweet seventeen?”

“She’s eighteen, and she’s far from your type.”

“Hey, I’ve changed I swear.”

He threw me the keys and jumped around getting into his jeans.

“I’ll call you later.”

“Keep me in the loop. And call Tori too, she’s confused about your feelings for her since you last drunk-fucked.”

“Shut up.”

I walked out of his room annoyed and feeling like he’d ended up getting more from me than I did from him. There’d better be gas in the car too and if it was on empty I’d have a mind to park it in the faculty lot and wait for it to get towed.

It was the hottest damn day and was more or less freak weather for Maine, or at least for the quiet little corner of the world known as Lincoln College. Maybe some ridiculous weather event had happened. A meteorological occurrence where some spot in Maine swaps its weather with some part of Texas for a day. Imagine all the people down south running around with scarves on and dusting off old jackets cursing the sky in a thick southern drawl.

I backed out of the parking lot in Sven’s old Toyota and lurched out onto the street. I tried for the radio but forgot that he’d broken it once trying to jam a CD into it. I thought about Tori since Sven had put it in my head, or pretty much waved it in front of my face. He was right, I had been avoiding her and being a jerk, but he didn’t have to be such an asshole about it. I didn’t want to date anyone. That was what I kept telling myself. It was as good of an excuse as any right? It was honest and simple and not attacking in any way. We slept together for the second time a few days ago after stumbling back into college at two in the morning. She really was beautiful and I felt like an animal when I was drunk with her. She was right to feel used and neglected. Maybe I should stop drinking altogether and beat the problem at its source. Or was I the source? Was I hiding from that fact? I definitely couldn’t go back to popping adderall and smoking pot like I did in high school.

When mom moved I flushed the pills down the toilet and then I drove out of town on the highway hoping someone would swerve over and clean me up and roll me into a tree. That was probably the worst it’s ever been. I got into college here and started hanging out with Sven because he was the only person who could make me laugh. His car smelt like the same stale air freshener that had been hanging for years and there were candy wrappers everywhere because he always liked to be chewing on something. I don’t know how he had such perfect white teeth.

In town I got a coffee and walked towards the bus stop where Loren would be coming in. I was ten minutes early so I sat down on a bench and thought about calling Monica or even Tori. Maybe not Tori though. I got anxious and flustered in the outside heat so I went back to the coffee shop and slumped down inside against the wall. A woman was talking with the guy behind the counter about cancer research. He brought her attention to the donation box near the cash register and she was going on about how “cancer will be a thing of the past in a few years” and “we have to do our part”.

It’s too bad I was feeling weirdly empty. I felt a touch of false guilt coming on. But I knew I didn’t give a shit about people in labs somewhere holding off on big breakthroughs to get even bigger checks from pharmaceutical companies. I didn’t care about the people I didn’t know lying in hospital beds with bald heads. Was I really that empty? Sometimes I was so distant I was laughing at myself, like a serial killer would or something. Money made the world go around. Not good intentions and kindness. Jesus has been dead for quite some time and people still go on like they just saw him at Wal-Mart.

I thought about dad back home in that house on his own, and I felt angry at mom for leaving and at myself for leaving. I was always angry at myself for something. Imagine what I looked like to other people?

Going back out into the heat wave I ditched the coffee and saw the bus down on the corner turning. I started walking and trying to stay in the shade and out of the razorblade sun. What I really wanted was a beer, and not a coffee. It was a stupid choice and I only made it out of habit. When I moved the hot bitter liquid around in my mouth I felt my head throb and I knew I just wanted some cold beer to slide down my throat. I made a pleasing choice to get back to college and start indulging in a six pack with Sven. Did I want a beer because everything external just felt right or because somewhere in by brain, there were serious seeds of addiction? And why was I questioning myself so much lately? I should probably just go with it as it comes. Not every thought needed careful analysis. Maybe I could get to some kind of awakening soon. A personal reinvention where everything is lit up in front of me and I know myself completely.

But someone so empty should never believe in anything so strongly, I thought. It was just stupid and foolish to do so. I was smart, analytical and too aware to be caught up in some self righteous honey-trap. As an artist, my work is very important to me and I’m going insane trying to figure out why I can’t paint anymore. Anyone can get writer’s or artist’s block, but I had something else, I had a kind of soul block. I felt like my talent and ability was locked behind bars and waving like some crazy monkey at a zoo. I had to find the key to that cage and let the monkeys out and then maybe give them guns and drugs and see what they’d do.

Loren came over me and pulled her earphones out. She didn’t look at me right away, just past me and at the cars going by.

“Your trip okay?” I asked.

“Eh, was pretty shit. Why is it so hot here?”

“I dunno, but I hate it.”

“I hope my room’s alright.”

“It should be.”

We got to the car and she put her little travel bag in the back. The drive back was painful in the oven-like car. I was glad the sun was going down slowly. I thought about getting those beers on the way back, but it’d be best to get there and get Loren out of the way. She could be a handful, or at least she was when she was younger, from what I can remember, which isn’t much at all really. It’s kind of sad. She’d aged so much since I saw her last but there was still something so precious and youthful to her. She reminded me of my ex-girlfriend in the worst way. But they were worlds apart. My ex was timid and naïve in a cute way, but she also vain and apathetic. Even when she was talking about you she was still talking about herself in a way. After a while it felt like I was dating a big-headed teenager and not a college student of twenty.

They were putting Loren up in a room overnight and tomorrow she was going to get the full tour. Every corner and impressive fact was going to be shared and put on display. It was strange, almost laughable, that a university was advertising itself and selling all its drawing points. I had barely gotten in and was making plans to move across the country when they mailed me a bland letter saying I had been accepted. Then again, I didn’t do anywhere near as well as Loren in high school. She could probably be the new face of the college in a year, who knows.

When I dropped off Loren at the front office I checked the time and then looped around to the student parking lot. Sven would be in his room pretending to be a writer or deciding on whether or not to sell drugs to high school kids later in the evening. He had a way with words and he could probably sell you the idea of suicide if you listened to him long enough. You’d walk away thinking you got a bargain.

When I got back into his maze of clothes and paper he was there in his chair, naked, typing away like he’d been doing it his whole life. He probably had been too.

“You’re disgusting.” I say.

“Oh c’mon, it’s not the weirdest thing you’ve seen me do. And besides, it’s good to write naked. The mind feels freer.”

He spins around in the chair giving me a glimpse of his not-so-privates.

“Are we going to do some drinking soon or what?”

“You read my mind. It only feels right in this heat.”

“Yeah, now put your dirty robe on and let’s go get some beers.”

“Yes sir!”

He jumps up and salutes me but I’m already out the door waiting in the hall. The door is wide open during all of this but no one ends up walking by. Just his maniac’s luck too.

Out in the car he lights a cigarette and let’s me do the driving. He’s feeling relaxed and probably pampered. Being driven around in a bath robe he probably feels like some problem child of the royal family, the one who’s mot known but by far the least bit royal.

“Let’s start with say; a six pack or two, each of course. And then by the time we’re over at Eli’s we’ll take a little something I got in the mail this morning.”

“Bullshit, they came?”

“Yep, and in three days. Express delivery. What a world we live in.”

He exhales and smiles like an idiot. We’d been buying drugs online for about three weeks. First we got some pot from Boston. You know, we didn’t want to buy big for our first time and we thought since it was kinda close it’d come quickly and avoid any unwanted federal examinations. We were right and it came a week later in a manila envelope. They put the fucking thing right in Sven’s little mailbox. They’d hand delivered the drugs we’d bought off the internet. I was amazed. More than amazed. We smoked it all in one night we were so excited and proud. When we heard Eli Grant was having his little going away party on Saturday we got online and ordered some ecstasy pills. Supposed to be real quality stuff so we ended up forking out a fair bit of cash. And now lo and behold they were here. I felt we were a part of something big, something monumental and something only ever dreamed about by old crackpot science fiction writers. An online drug marketplace. Select product. Quantity. Place order. Wait. Then get it right out of your own mailbox. I couldn’t tell if it was fundamentally good or bad for society. But who cares, leave that to the experts. Tonight I’m getting fucked up.

I was so thirsty for it I made Sven drive back to college. I cracked one in the passenger seat and took slow savouring gulps. I might as well have been advertising it.

“Jesus you look like some old wino.”

“Wino forever.” I say, and smile at how witty I think I am.

People are going over the grounds walking back and forth, getting in cars and calling other friends on phones. It’s a little after three and a big chunk of classes just got out. They’re probably chemistry or medicine judging by all the Asian guys smoking cigarettes by the dumpsters. I don’t know why they like to hang out there and smoke in their little circle. Maybe they’re eco-conscious and they put their cigarettes right into the dumpster or maybe they hang out there because no on else would ever think to. They own that spot. It’s territorial. What are they triads? Yakuza? Maybe the smell reminds them of their home cities in china or Japan. That thick smell of garbage that won’t go away no matter how efficient the city’s waste management is.

In Sven’s room I make him clean up some of the crap on the floor before I sit down on the bed with my back against the brick wall. I ask him if he has any weed stashed away somewhere and he says no. I go back to downing the beer in my hand. He leans back in his chair like some careless businessman and starts humming a melody he barely knows.

“Let me see the pills.” I say.

“Why? Don’t trust me when I say they exist?”

“C’mon I wanna see em’. I’m keen for tonight.”

That changes his mind quick. A little drug enthusiasm. A little energy always gets him going and completely agreeable. He digs around in his draw, but carefully, like he’s disarming a bomb.

“I’ve got them under a textbook but I don’t wanna crush em’ getting them out.”

He cuts the right wire and throws the baggie over to me. I try to catch it before it lands in my lap and I almost spill beer everywhere. I hold the baggie up to my eye and look at two little pills, kind of pink in colour and smaller than I expected. They have some engraving on them but I can’t make out the pattern.

“Those little things pack a punch. I read all of the reviews on them. We’re in for a good night.” His eyes widen and I could swear a burst of saliva hit the inside of his mouth in anticipation.

“User reviews, express shipping. Why hasn’t eBay bought them out yet?”

“I’m sure they’ll put a bid in soon.”

I laugh honesty at that one. It was funny and I never usually laugh at Sven’s wisecracks. I was feeling high already. Everything was moving forward with a good energy. We were half way through our degrees. I’d only just moved to a better college room and we were ordering pills and getting them in our mail. I felt like I was climbing and climbing and running into good luck around every corner. Maybe if Tori was at the party later I could crush up the pill and get her to snort it with me. It’d be like the first date we never had. She’d be buzzing and I would be too. We could probably have some incredible sex. I secretly crossed my fingers and hoped for it. She really was very beautiful and I really was a shallow son of a bitch. But I have a moral compass at least; it’s just too bad I was always lost.

We take the beers outside and find a free bench near the old band gazebo. People are studying nearby and on the other bench some girl is getting angry at her phone, probably because she couldn’t beat her high score. In the shade there is a nice familiar breeze coming from what feels like the east. But I could be wrong. It feels right, to have the freak heat done and dusted. Sven points behind me and I look over to see Nadine walking by with her earphones in. She glances over and Sven waves sarcastically like how some cute girl from Iowa might wave at you. Nadine is nice, but probably too nice. That Midwestern spirit can’t charm everyone. It’s worse when she brings up her boyfriend in every conversation. She says the same thing every time; she barely tries to spice up the story. Her boyfriend is a country music singer who after sending his achy breaky demo tape to every label this side of Nashville finally got a lucky break and is in Toronto, Canada right now recording his debut album, which is sure to be the game changer for country music.

After what had to have been an hour and maybe four beers each it was dark all around. The lights were on in rooms up above and voices could be heard spilling out of open windows. It was cool, but not freezing by any means. I felt pretty energised and I’d just have to go back to my room and grab a shower before heading out. I told Sven I’d call him in a bit or come over again. I felt like I’d been up all night somehow, like I was drained of some crucial energy I needed. That’s going to change soon anyway when I pop a little pick me up, I thought.

I showered and tried to tidy up a little bit. My room stayed in the same state of disorder and mess all of the time. Never more or less. I never did a total clean up, I

wasn’t determined enough. I put some books back upright on the shelf and then, getting dressed I tried to hear Henry next door talking to himself like he does. Everyone thinks he has schizophrenia but no one has the guts to ask him. They’re all afraid he’ll sneak into their rooms and cut their throats or something. Nobody really understands Henry or even tries to, myself included, but for different reasons. While I’m self absorbed and unconcerned with making any new friends everyone else is just simply ignorant and close-minded. Everyone has to fear the same thing, one by one. It only seems right, right?

I’m out of my room and on the first floor when Tori calls me. I stare at the name and try to think up an excuse.

“Hey Tori.”

“Hey, Andrew. What are you doing?”

“Umm about to go to Sven’s room for a little while. Are you coming out tonight?”

“Oh Yeah, Eli’s right? Yeah, I might see you there.”

“Okay cool, see you later.”

I kept it short and started picking my pace up for some reason walking. It was obvious she was coming tonight and that she knew I was too. I couldn’t keep her off me.

Outside it was dark but I could just make out the clouds in the sky up above, heavy and gloomy, full of weight. It kind of took my excitement down a bit, but I brought myself back up to speed. I opened the door trying to surprise him and there he was, in his tight blue jeans and white singlet, cutting the pills into fine lines with his American express card.

“I thought we were popping them. We can’t carry powder to a party.”

“Relax.” He said, still chopping in rhythm. “We’ll do a line here then top up later when we need to with the leftovers.”

“We’re gonna be buzzing pretty quick.” I said.

“Fuck, you know what, I never thought of that, I just thought the powder was pretty”

He made me sound like an idiot, so I just shut my mouth and waited for the chef to prepare the entrée.

He went first and took one calm breath and one last glimpse at reality, then hoovered one of the lines in a second. I could feel the hit he took just by hearing it. The rush of air speeding up to tickle all his synapses. He held his breath and hopped around the room for about a second before exhaling and handing me the rolled up bill. I stare at the line and I’m uneasy for one second before I’m pushed by some unknown force and before I know it I’m tingling with brief pain and cold-air pleasure. We’re in no mood for small talk or plans about tonight. We both know exactly what we’re going

to do. The motions are already underway. I’m confident and completely ready for what’s to come.

I am in Eli Grant’s bathroom and Tori is kissing my neck and breathing hot and heavy. I’ve had three bourbon and cokes and I don’t know if the caffeine has helped the buzz but I feel powerful and out of touch in a strange way, like I’m only watching myself. The music is louder and better than I can believe and it’s only when Tori finds me and drags me away that I realise that I’m sweating and almost deaf from dancing for so long. I kiss her straight away in the hallway when we haven’t said a word yet. Not that I could hear a word anyway. She laughs and holds my head back, then looks at me, deciding. She kisses me back and I lead her into the bathroom which shocks me by being empty. Nothing can go wrong. She must have a feeling I’m on something. But she doesn’t care. She is more than wasted, but she’s at that perfect level that she always gets to and that I always fall in love with. Her bare legs shoot out of her tight black skirt and a wave of pleasure jolts through me when I run my hand over her thigh. She loves the way I touch her and I look at her face to make sure. This is when we are soul mates. When we are lost in each other for only a night. We talk and laugh and act like we grew up together. She undoes my belt and pulls my jeans down and I reach over behind me and lock the door.

I feel like I’m on Everest breathing mountain air. When she comes up and kisses me again she draws back and waits for me to acknowledge the favour or at least be grateful for it. I lunge into her and take her by the waist. Someone knocks on the door, but I barely hear it. Maybe I could just feel it. I whisper in her ear that we should take the other exit. And I open the window and help her get out first.

“Wait for me okay, I’m gonna get something more to drink.”

“Okay, I’ll be here.”

She leans forward and kisses me as I lean out the window. I go over and unlock the door for some angry looking frat boy with a goatee who just shoulders by me. He probably couldn’t find the guitar in the house or the beer he likes so he decided to go caveman. I walk around looking for Sven who I lost ages ago. We need to reconnect. We’re bonded in this experience. Plus he has the rest of the stuff and I wouldn’t mind refuelling, or maybe even giving a little line to Tori and finding a room upstairs for her to thank me in.

I go outside into the backyard and try to bum a cigarette off someone. Smoke drifts up into the air and is magnified by the outside lighting. I’m lost in the weird beauty of it for I don’t know how long before Sven almost tackles me from the side. I cry out in success and joy and it feels like I’m just seeing him again after seven years.

“Cig?”

He hands me one and lights it for me as it dangled from my mouth.

“Man, what a night.” He says, looking to the sky, up at the gods maybe.

“Unbelievable.” I say.

Zach Weiss walks past us and smiles knowingly at us both, or maybe it was mockingly? Or maybe I’m paranoid? Zach is second year too and he lives in Trenton College on the far side of the grounds. We’ve spoken a bunch of times but never one on one. He’s kind of shy and likes being on his own. I always see him walking around carrying a book everywhere he goes. I always imagined girls would be all over him, since he’s pretty much the star of the arts department. He put Sven in his place once and gave him a lecture on feminism. It was both funny and interesting. Someone told me he was into codeine or Vicodin or one of those weird pharmaceuticals that you rarely hear of in circles.

I start to smoke with Sven and the smoke and the cool air get into my lungs and sting me a little. I don’t smoke much but I’ll use it to get a bump if I’m high. There are a few people outside with us and then out of nowhere a guy falls off the roof about five feet from us. The roof isn’t very high and he must have tripped drunk on the other side up there. No one notices him tumble down and land on his side. His head smacks the grassed ground and he’s out cold. Sven and I are paralysed and we stand staring in shock. People come outside and crowd around the guy. I don’t think anyone really knows him or if someone does they aren’t outside yet. People start getting out their phones and taking photos of the guy as he lays there unconscious and probably with a broken arm or bruised brain. People just form an ugly viewing circle around him and take photos with their flashes on. It’s disgusting and surreal to watch and I come down almost instantly. I feel depressed with what I’m seeing. I walk inside again and Sven follows. As we’re leaving I see a girl nudge the guy with her foot.

We get back to college at some pre-dawn hour. We don’t keep track and we don’t really care. We walked to the convenience store that’s around the corner from the house where the party was and bought hotdogs and more beer. We sit in the little parking lot downing them and smoking a joint that Sven bought back at the party for five bucks.

“That’s a rip off you know.” I say.

“No way. It’s not bad.”

“You could have done better.”

“Yeah.”

Some part of our brains has been shut off after the drugs and intensity of the night. We can’t say more than four sentences to each other. Maybe there’s just nothing to talk about. Everything is already said and done. The night was a success, and went better than planned. We get up and drag ourselves towards college finally, throwing empty cans onto the road to hear the sound ring out. I check my phone and see two missed calls from Tori and one unknown number. I remind myself to call Tori when we get on the grounds. I remembered I’d left her there outside waiting for me. I didn’t take it so seriously since I was buzzing again on beer and weed. I smiled and fumbled the phone back into my pocket. I was floating above everyone else. I felt powerful.

You are in a bed with your eyes closed. Your brain starts up and reboots and you know instantly that you’re hung-over. You can tell it’s bad too, maybe your worst in a good while. All the powder and alcohol of last night is strangling your brain. Your head is in a tightening vice and then you become conscious of your face. Your nose is sore and the inside of it feels like a shotgun went off. You can almost smell the caked dry blood and the fine powder crystals. Sunlight fills the room but you haven’t opened your eyes yet. You’re afraid to. You want to stay the way you are and not have to confront the consequences of your pathetic life. Seeing is believing, and if you open your eyes you’ll know how much of a failure you really are.

You can use what little brain function you have to foster a guess that you’re in Tori’s room. But something tells you you aren’t there either. All you have is your other senses since you’re too scared to let sunlight hit your eyes. You don’t know the smell of Tori’s bed and there are no sounds from inside the room except the whistling breathing of your damaged nose. You feel afraid for some reason. You breathe quicker and your blood starts pumping faster. A panic attack? No. That’s not you at all. You’re not weak like that. So why do you feel like you’re a little kid again whose dad has left him all alone in the shopping mall. You remember walking around after wetting your pants and crying for your dad right?

You jerk yourself up in bed and fight the thoughts in your scared little head. You slowly open your eyes and you know you’re still drunk. You are in Tori’s room but it looks like she’s moved everything around. The dresser and the bed are on different sides. And she never had photos on her wall. And where is she in all this? Why isn’t she here helping you or hung-over too? You shouldn’t be the only one experiencing such pain. And why can’t you remember how you got here? She’s a better person than you’ll ever be and she’s also insane for seeing anything good in you. Why does she want to be with someone as pathetic as you?

You fight and win the war to put your jeans on and you search the floor for your shirt and shoes. A hidden part of your brain tells you you’re in a dream. It shoots the message right to your pre-fontal cortex. You’re too fucked up to question reality and you failed philosophy class so you dismiss it quickly and throw your shirt on. If it was a dream, you wouldn’t hurt this badly all over. You walk to the door and find your shoes and keep your head held low. You can’t stand straight since there’s still toxic beer splashing around in your stomach. You’re on the edge of vomiting when you get out of the room and into the hall. Your head spins when you move too fast and you take it slowly. Baby steps. It’s sometime in the morning, but not too late. Your body clock says so. No one else in the hall to see you. Thank god. You stagger to the stairwell and then you’re out into the harsh daylight before you’re back in your own college. You flush with heat all over, and you can’t bring yourself to answer any questions or solve any puzzles about last night. You don’t give a shit. You’re an animal. A sick old animal just trying to find a place to die.

In your room you throw up on some clothes on the floor and trip over trying to get undressed. It’s a miracle you have the concentration and patience to take two painkillers and a sleeping pill. You don’t want any delay. Just lights out. One for me, two for you.

You’re running through the hall of the second floor. The walls are pitch black but the floor is bright and red instead of grey. You’re afraid of something but you don’t know what. It could be anything. Maybe a late appointment or a class you forgot about. Why isn’t there anyone else about? There’s usually always someone coming in or out of a room. You got lucky escaping from Tori’s room. Or was it Tori’s room? You still aren’t sure. You feel like you’re going to burst and you run to the only window on the second floor and try to open it for air. You’re choking now. Your throat is closed tight. You think you’re going to die.

Outside you notice you’re not at college at all, but in a field, or at least your college building is. There’s a fire not far from the building and it’s coming towards you. The tightness in your throat is less gripping since you’re distracted with the scene outside. The fire hurts your eyes. It’s almost as bright as the sun, but you can still see it inching closer to you. Little you trapped in your college. On the other side of the flames you can see a figure, maybe a shadow. Between flickering lashes of flame you can make out his tall figure but no features. It’s as if the man is all shadow, or whatever it is. It’s just standing there and you can’t see it but you know you’re being watched. It’s looking right into your scared baby blue eyes. Did it start the fire that’s churning towards you with every second? You back away and look each way, you’re getting claustrophobic now.

You start running to the stairwell taking big gasps. No time to think about anyone else, you can tell you’re all alone. Your pants are now soaked, but you didn’t wet yourself like you did as a kid. That would be too simple. They’re just drenched in cold water. Why water? Why only your pants? It’s pure adrenaline now. You’re out of control of what’s happening and you hate it and it scares you and makes you feel weak and you hate that more than anything. You had enough of feeling like that growing up.

Okay. Okay. Get out of the building. Get somewhere safe. Self-preservation. It’s only you. It feels hotter inside the walls now and you know the fire is here. And where is that shadow thing? You scramble to the stairwell door but the handle burns your hand and you know what that means straight away. You’re a smart kid. You know everything already, why go to college? Well now you’re trapped in college. About to feel the heat of everything you’re running away from. You fight the pain and run the other way. Sweat seems to fall from your face like heavy rain. Tough guy now, huh? Forget the pain and battle on?

You go to your on room and check the handle first this time. It’s fine. You don’t know why you didn’t think about it before. You open it up with your other hand and go in. You glance to the stairwell first to see if the figure from outside has come to see the job is done. Smoke is weaving its way out from under the door. You start to panic again. In your head you’re playing defence now and there’s seconds left on the clock. You move your desk over to the door to barricade it. You throw your mattress over there too. Whatever has come to get you is outside the door and you know it. Fire, figure, or whatever else. It’s over for you and you just sit there against the wall nursing your singed hand, crying and batting sweat out of your eyes. That’s it? No great epiphany or list of regrets? No brave last words or apologies? Just you and your ego again. Have it your way.

When I wake up it’s dark outside and I sit up and let out weird kind of yell. My chest is beating fast and for a few seconds I don’t know who I am. Then the pain kicks in and my head throws me back down on the bed like a skullcap anvil. I thought the sleep would fix me up but I was stupid to think so. What I needed was water, and sodium, and maybe a shot of morphine. The sun must have just went down I thought, as I managed to lean towards the window and glance to the sky. After I got past my initial physical problems, I started to think about Tori and feeling guilty and about Sven and feeling angry at myself. I got pretty morally depressed. Then again it was nice to use my brain for some proper thought instead of as a drug sponge.

I get up and drag my body to the showers. No one else really showers at night anyway in my college except Henry. He’s a night owl too I think. Though I don’t know what he does in his room all the time. I walk past his door and try to imagine him in there right now breathing. What I need is a good hot shower. I feel like walking slime and I’m afraid to touch my hair since I can already tell it’s as oily as all of Texas. The hot water hits my skin and I swear I can feel my pores opening and exhaling all the chemicals and alcohol. I try to get hard to masturbate but I’m too out of it to focus hard enough. I try to remember if Tori and I had sex last night but I can’t. It feels like last week already that much time has passed. If we did, I feel terrible, but I feel worse since I can’t remember. I turn off the water and dry off. I’ve thrown my body clock out the window again. But I didn’t have good routine going anyway. I just crammed all night for an exam if I needed to or got wasted and slept two days. I put my clothes on and waited for Sven to come in and start jumping around all full of energy and begin whipping me with a towel. But he didn’t. No one came in. Not even some one to make small talk with. I felt so fucking lonely.

I go into the arts building since it’s just across the way downstairs. I get a coffee at the machine and stand watching all the people I don’t know going by. The hot coffee scent hits me and I feel more comfortable, more at ease with something familiar. Getting up when the sun’s going down can mess with you. You need to comfort yourself. I go over to Grant to see Sven since I have nothing else to do. I’ll let him be a smart arse and piece together my night for me. He never seems to get hung-over and I hate him for it. And if he does he’s an incredible actor. Too bad he’s a terrible writer instead. As usual I walk in and sit on the bed waiting for him to come back from the showers. Maybe the showers are his secret. All that cleansing could be psychological too. I should have called my aunt to see if Loren made it back okay. Just a formality. I’m sure she’s fine, and probably had a few bad things to say about me.

“Still alive huh? I had a feeling you’d left this earth after how big Saturday was.”

“I did for a little while, woke up in Tori’s room and then stumbled to mine and pretty much fell into a coma. I only got up not long ago.”

“Jesus. So you did go and see Tori then huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I can’t remember anything. I mean I woke up in her room.”

“Oh yeah? She moved all her stuff in already?”

“What do you mean?”

“In her new room, has she moved all her crap in yet? That big bookshelf?”

“She didn’t move rooms. I woke up in her room. It was the same as always.”

I said the words but something in me felt weak and unsure.

“Oh okay. Must be sticking around just for your convenience.”

“Don’t scare me like that.”

“She’s in love with you.”

“What did I just say?”

He giggled like a little kid seeing a magic trick. And the magic was my fear of commitment.

“I need stop getting so fucked up.” I say.

“No you don’t, if anything you need to get more fucked up.”

“I mean it, I fucked up things with Tori. I miss two days in a hangover coma. I’m done with it.”

“You need drugs because you’re bored with your own life. It’s the same story, people turn to drugs to get away from themselves and to feel something.”

He was being surprisingly insightful; I sat and thought about what he was saying for a second or two.

“I know I’m bored with myself. With my life. When I’m sober I feel empty and just neutral. Like I’m only waiting to get on something again. At least when I’m wasted I can feel emotions. Joy, depression, it all feels so real. When I’m sober I feel like I’m in limbo, and that’s scary. It’s fucking scary not feeling anything.”

“C’mon let’s go the bar and get some alcohol in our blood.”

He probably could have given me a deep spiel about drugs and the variety of ways they affect people. He had the mind to, but he was smart enough to not get down on my level and dwell on it with me. I did want a beer and I did want to have his embrace-it-all attitude.

The bar downstairs in the common room has been there for probably a hundred years. The old dark wood of the bar has been firmly there longer than anyone alive on campus. It’s not manned of course, and it’s more like a luxury thing that no one uses. Just something they put in the college pamphlet or on the website. “Fully functioning bar located in the common room.” It sits in the corner in the dark and no one really

uses it except us and maybe some freshman rebels around college who want the bar experience.I prop up on the wooden stool and Sven turns the overhead light on.

“What’ll it be?” He says from behind the bar.

“Cosmo please, I’m on a diet.”

He scoffs and gets two beers out of the fridge. It’s up to students to stock the bar if they want to use it. No one else cares to, so Sven keeps a six pack in the fridge.

I have lost two days of my life and I’ll never get them back. I feel frustrated with myself because there’s no one else to blame. I need people or things to blame. It’s how I cope with slowly failing with everything. I get up and take my beer out onto the little outside eating area. Sven is talking on the phone to god knows who. Some drug connection maybe, some high school girl who needs money for an abortion and another bag of oxy. I feel like I’ve deserted a part of myself. A part I kept polished and safe from the outside world. I started thinking about my ex and Tori and the parallels I keep making up in my head. I wanted to grab Tori and tell her something. I wanted to say “I want you to know how lonely I am. I want it to eat at you too.” If she felt the way I did most of the time, she wouldn’t want me at all.

Inside I see Sven walking around and looking agitated. He talks slowly into the phone and is making sure he’s heard. I can’t hear what he’s saying but I get the picture. He’s offended, or defending himself maybe. I look across the way to my college and see the rooms lighting up. Little squares of yellow light shoot out from the big building all over. I let myself know that I don’t know anyone in any of those rooms. I mean really know them. How much can you really know someone? All you have to go on is what they decide to reveal and display. I know most of their names and what they’re studying. I know how they dress and what they like to drink. But they’re all strangers to me. The sad thing about college is no one really shows who they really are inside. Everyone’s just trying to play it cool and show how much of a good time they can be. It’s more than exhausting pretending to be someone else day in and day out. But everyone has to make sure everyone else is getting along and laughing. No wonder almost all of the people I’m familiar with are hooked on something. You’ve got to let loose somehow and free yourself from all that restraint. It’s probably better that way. Getting fucked up is the norm.

In another two years I’ll be done with university and college and North Maine. I’ll be shot out into world in a canon at the graduation ceremony. Everyone will be, one by one. “Hold onto your hats!” the dean says, and then pulls a lever that shoots us to NYC or Boston or Montreal. We land on the pavement feet first, still in our graduation robes. And with our degrees clutched in our hands we go into office buildings and skyscrapers and banks and laboratories. We hand someone our degree with a big proud grin on our face and they smile back and shake our hand. “Welcome aboard” they say. And that’s it. What a rollercoaster ride college was, what a bloody uphill battle it was to earn that piece of paper. The graduating class of 2016 can all sigh simultaneously from the balconies of our holiday homes in the Hampton’s. The American dream is alive and well. It’s our birth right and we deserve it.

Sven gets me drunk again but it doesn’t console me. I texted Tori trying to carefully word an apology, I don’t even now what I’m apologising for since I can’t remember. All I know is that it was bad and I’m bad to her in general. The lights above me on my floor are burning my eyes for some reason and when I look down the hall the walls start to warp a little. I attribute it the alcohol but it doesn’t feel right. Then I blink and I’m against the wall struggling to stay upright. I swear I only blinked for a millisecond. Then everything in front of me is moving and the lights on the ceiling are making me nauseous. I fall to the floor and black out. All in just seconds.

When I come to I’m in a white room I’ve never seen before. There are posters on the wall promoting good diet and positive thinking. I work out that I’m in the sick room or nurse’s office. I didn’t know colleges even had them. I thought it was just a high school thing. Maybe there was one here because of all the near overdoses and binges that happened so regularly on campus. There was no cover-up policy anymore. It grew to be too big and too powerful of a problem to just ignore. What was next? Random police raids? Contraband check? They might as well throw us in the hole too.

A woman walks in and introduces herself as the university’s counsellor, not the nurse. I’m a little surprised, but then again she is wearing jeans and a cardigan. She looks relaxed and like an average woman who maybe just came from home. She doesn’t wear a power suit or anything business-like. She’s the image of friendliness and honesty. She looks just like one of us. Like any old unstable college kid. Have I been here before? It feels like déjà vu but it’s not funny or charming. It’s alarming and it makes me panic. It makes me fee like a fraud. If I’ve already done something before, said everything and seen everything, what did I just waste my time doing only to realise it was for nothing? She shares a few heartfelt words and tells me to slow down and take it easy for a while. She tells me I passed out in the hall and then I was brought to the room I’m in now. I don’t need to mention her words in depth. It was nothing I haven’t heard before. Before I get up and go she says her and the dorm supervisor had to sedate me. They couldn’t wake me up. She said I was having the worst nightmare she’s ever seen and recommended me to a doctor in town.

I’ve failed at a lot of things in my life. I’ve let myself down more times than I can count or care to remember. I know I’m trying to escape myself and I know I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’m living for nothing and it doesn’t bother me. Is it more natural to laugh or to cry? Just past my twenty-first birthday I still don’t know who I am. Now I am driving in Sven’s car into town to go to a doctor’s appointment. I’m having a moment of clarity and truth, but it’s okay, they only last a few seconds like yawning or sneezing. It’s an involuntary reaction on my part, to stumble upon the truth about myself. I don’t sit down to think about myself or my actions, I just watch everything unfold. It’s the only way I know how to live. If I changed now, it’d probably kill me. Or I would probably kill me, to put it simply.

I thought about the guy who fell off the roof at the party. I didn’t try to think if he was okay or what his story was but I wondered if he just laid there the whole night. Unconscious, broken, no one helping him or telling anyone. A scene flashed in my head of a guy violently kicking another guy on the ground. He kicks his face and ribs. His nose snaps and blood pools from out of his mouth. I try to remember if I’d really seen it happen in front of me somewhere or if I just saw it on TV. I can’t remember.

I sit and wait for my name to be called in the doctor’s office. After five minutes I can’t sit still any longer and I get up and go outside. There is no peace of mind in being sober for me. There’s no calm. I only end up restless and feeling out of place, like I stumbled into the wrong room of a house. I’m trying to understand little by little how it is I evolved into the person I am. What set things in motion? I don’t know if I’m going to tell the doctor the truth. I may end up lying and just telling him I’ve got back pain. Maybe he’d give me some valium. If I told him about the nightmares or terrors or whatever he’d just tell me to go see a shrink. I go back inside and the woman behind the desk tells me he’s waiting for me down the hall. Dr. Rosen.

In the little examination room I sit in a chair near the desk. I wonder how many times he rearranges the room, probably never. Sick and dying people wouldn’t like change, even if it was just putting the bed by the window.

“Andrew, what’s going on?” He asks me.

“I uhh, was told to come see you by my college counsellor, about some umm, psychological things.”

Why did I say it like that? I was too scared to say nightmares. It was too childish and we were adults.

“Okay, what kind of psychological things?”

“Well I blacked out the other day in my dorm hallway. And I woke up in the first aid room. They said I was convulsing in my sleep or something.”

“Has this happened before?”

“No not at all, well, not like that.”

“You drink Andrew?”

“Yeah.”

“Drugs?”

I just nodded because I knew what was coming.

“Well, I’d like for you to stop drinking for two weeks and to reconsider your other habits too. And if you blackout again or anything happens come back and see me. Or call me on this number.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I took the slip of paper and walked out of the clinic. I felt like sleeping it all off. He could have at least written me a prescription for some adderall or something, maybe a little Zoloft. Just a consolation prize.

We’ve made it to our first break of the year and Sven has been planning a celebration. This will most likely involve blacking out at a Chinese restaurant from too much codeine, or something like last year’s celebrations for my birthday which involved a rental car and a trip across the border to break Canadian laws for a change. I’m tired from being something like fifty days behind in sleep and my right ankle has been sore since the weekend. I don’t remember doing anything to it, but then again I have no reason to remember anything. It’s a miracle that I remember my name.

I end up getting out of the car in a kind of daze, the cold isn’t getting under my jacket and I actually feel kind of flustered. I run into Tori at the entrance to my building. I wonder if she had come to try and see me. She stops walking and so do I and I wait for what I know I deserve to come shooting out of her mouth. Her hair looks nice today.

“Why are you avoiding me?” She asks.

“I’m not; I just...have been busy.”

“You can’t even tell me the truth. I’ve watched you lie before Andrew, I know what I’m seeing.”

“I’m sorry for Saturday night.”

“You give yourself to suffering so easily. All you do is take and never give back. I think you want to suffer. Maybe because you’re bored or it’s just easy.”

“I just came from the doctor’s.”

I wanted to change the topic from me to me.

“What’s wrong?”

I had her.

“I don’t know, I blacked out the other day for no reason. I’ve been having these nightmares.”

I was putting on a show for her. I was opening myself up to her like she’d never seen before. She was eating it up.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I guess I wanted to get checked up first. I wanted to tell you.”

She took my hand and I looked up and at her face. She’d changed in seconds. Now she was playing nurse for me and I loved it. It kind of turned me on. I felt a rush, like an actor moving about on stage.

“Come have some coffee.”

“I should probably get some cleaning done. Papers and stuff.”

“Okay, text me if you want to hang out or if you’re going out tonight.”

“I will.”

I smiled like a nervous high school kid again and she kissed me on the cheek. We parted ways and I went upstairs to change and get some leftover beer. I’d done it again and I was already replaying my little performance with Tori over again in my head.

When I’m listening to someone talk to me, most of the time I feel at distance. There’s no doubt my drug use plays a part in this but I feel it’s something that’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember. My first words were probably something I made up or mumbled or heard from a TV somewhere, blaring in the background of some living room. The division of the self that is so common in every conversation I have is hard to explain. To appeal to both parties involved, I have to create two identities. One that is completely myself and the other that is an ever-changing and evolving character designed to produce the most pleasing and satisfying outcome for everyone. I wonder sometimes, when I notice this and feel self conscious, if Henry feels the same way, or notices himself more acutely. Is this what schizophrenia is like? But on a larger and more terrifying scale? He’d never speak to me again if I tried asking him. If I tried comparing my little quirky conversation habits with his very real mental illness. I end up pitying Henry a lot when I think of him. Then I feel guilty and end up pitying myself. Someone more deserving of it.

For someone so self-aware and intelligent I’m strangely satisfied and content. I am most likely an idiot with a really pretty mask on. I walk around disguised in my reality and I’m only getting better at it.

Lying awake at night, a little afraid to sleep, I think about my high school girlfriend. Allison was certainly out of my league then. I was about as interested in myself as a door knob is. I was so wrapped up in her, but I treated her like garbage. She used to have flowers on the windowsill in her room. She’d replace them each week or so once they’d died. She got mad at me one day and we had a fight when I told her it was stupid to keep doing it over and over again. They’re only pretty for a few days and then they’re dead again. She cried and cursed at me. She’d never done that before. She called me a sociopath and I went home and later read all about psychopathy on Wikipedia. I wasn’t trying to prove her wrong. I just wanted to know what the word meant. I tried to imagine her somewhere, maybe at college too in a little dorm room still replacing flowers in a vase every week. I imagine that she took a pottery class and made the vase herself. I see her walking around the campus and stumbling upon some flowers she likes or has never seen before. It was like a religion to her I realise, like praying. Some people are held together by the smallest things. I quickly lose my thoughts and drift off to sleep.

You are such a coward. How do you sleep at night? Do you even know what you really are? A monster? You’ve come so far, but really, you never left the playpen in

the basement. You’re still four years old Andrew. You’re still playing with the same little toys, only now they’re people and they’re very real. You discard people like they’re nothing, to you or to anyone. But then again, you’ve never been good on the inside of things have you? It’s too messy in there for you, too involving. So you sit back and watch life instead of living it. Taking every little thing that’ll let you feel something. Anything. Because you’ll never let yourself feel anything real. You’re too scared. You don’t deserve the miracle of life. You never wanted it anyway right?

Things just have to be right by you and your standards, otherwise everyone else has failed you. But I’m sure you can keep playing victim and get helpless girls to fall for you. You’ll never have to worry about being alone. But the best part is, even though you won’t be alone, you’re still going to feel alone. Very alone. You’ll try and get away from it but you never will. It’s always the whole world against you though isn’t it? When is it going to be easy for you for a change? People everywhere have one thing in common. They are all so much closer to death than they think. You are no exception. Maybe you should start living. Who knows when it could just fall out from under your feet? Any day now? Any week?

You know so much more than everyone around you right? That must be comforting. Knowing you’re above all those around you. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Whatever lets you feel like you haven’t wasted your life. But you have wasted your life. And you still are and you always will. All you can see is yourself, anywhere you look. Stay that way if you like, enjoy the view. Life is too short to waste it on anybody else.

You’re scared to think about the future because you know you have no future. It’s all downhill, and it’s gonna be slow and miserable. You probably can’t even remember why you’re at college. Or why you can’t do new things. Or why somewhere in your little head all you want to do is go back home and lock yourself in your room. There’s not much to worry about though. Just hang in there for a little longer and all of this will go away. There’s a change coming and it’s got your name on it Andrew. Did you really think you would get out of this alive? Did you secretly believe you would graduate top of your class and get the dream job and the dream house and the advertised smoothie maker? People need to hold onto something. Dreams, hope, fantasy. They keep everyone grounded and whole. It’s what keeps people stubborn enough to get out of bed in the morning everyday of their little lives.

Don’t you think that’s kind of sad? That the only thing holding us all together is false hope? Just blind faith. You need a lot more false hope in your life. That’s why you’re more pathetic than everyone else. You don’t believe in anything. You have no hope, no ambition. No dreams. You’re a parasite. The way you walk around like you’re wounded all the time is nauseating. It’s almost time for your wake up call. It’s been a long time coming. Any day now, you can start living. Everything is going to change.

Courtney used to be an actor in L.A before she went broke and had to come back to Maine. At least that’s the story she’s always gone with. I used to watch her undress from across the way looking out my window. I’d do it every night, sitting there looking across, every night like clockwork. She never closed the curtain in her room and anyone could look out from my side of the college and see her thin little shoulders moving around in her room at night. Does she trust all of us not to look over at her

and not be the perverts we are? I paced around trying to cram more acronyms and mnemonics into my head and saw her pacing around in her room too. Maybe doing the same? I’ve only spoken to her three or four times. I’m betting all of those times were when I was fucked up. No one really ever talks to each other when they’re sober. Not really talking or saying anything real. Just the same conversations, pleasantries, empty smiles in the halls. This was helpful though, and probably the best for everyone. Living amongst everyone and being so close all the time makes people cautious and careful about how they come across. Everyone plays it safe. Except with the sex, and the drugs. That’s the other side of the coin I guess, and it’s lost every bit of glamour. I thought about transferring last month, maybe trying for Boston. Looking back now, that was probably a moment of desperate clarity. Somewhere inside my mind, an honest thought fought and got through and told me to run. Now I can laugh about how crazy I was being. Now I can only pray for blankets of thick snow to come and coat the ugly repeating view I see every day outside my window. Now I’m praying I can do a tiny bit of good before I lose myself.

I wake up after dozing off for I don’t know how long. I was lying down on the bed about to open another book when I guess I zoned out. It was still dark and it had to be nearing morning, or maybe I’d only been out for thirty or so minutes. I shifted around and felt the damp fabric of my pants. I’d pissed my pants? Me? Light was pouring in from the corridor outside my room. The door was open a little bit but not all the way. I got frightened out of nowhere and stood up and looked around my room trying to scan the half darkness around me. I was a ten year old boy again, afraid to sleep on wall-side of the bed since the dark crack was there leading down underneath. I channelled my fear into anger, at everything around me, at the world for fucking me over and making me wet my bed. Could be just a side effect from all my drinking, sounds logical enough. And my medical knowledge wasn’t good enough to prove it wrong. I turned on the light and changed my clothes and my sheets. I haven’t had to flip the mattress in weeks since I came back and puked myself awake one night. I rolled around in bed, confused, and still terrified. No matter how much I convinced myself I wasn’t, I was still in the dark.

I never really had a good sleeping pattern. Dating back to nap time in day care. I’d just lay there on my little mat with my eyes closed. The teacher would turn the light off and close the blinds and after a while I’d open my eyes and watch everyone else sleeping peacefully. It was amazing to me, to see that they could just fall asleep like that so quickly. The teacher would read a book at her desk or do some paperwork. I’d just look at the other kids and try and guess what would be for dinner that night. Maybe all the sleeplessness of my life has caught up with me. I feel like I’ve come down with that disease where you fall asleep uncontrollably, and I don’t like being out of control. I couldn’t tell Sven, god knows I couldn’t tell Tori about what’s been happening with me. The only time I need someone to confide in and trust and all I can think about is how selfish that need really is. I’ll go back to the doctor’s. That’s all. He even said to come back if something else happened. Well something else has happened alright. He could probably tell I was just a drugged up college kid. He probably raised one himself, or deals with them all the time. He could probably smell the alcohol and Xanax I was sweating out in his cramped little office. Blackouts would have to be like the common cold for him as far as walk-ins go. I bet he has a little self-help pamphlet in a drawer with my name all over it.

I skip my morning class and skip my grooming ritual too. I have tunnel vision for an extra shot long black and a small fear I’ll get pulled up by the cops flying into town trying not to be late for this appointment. I’m usually the last person to care about breaking the law, and the last person to get caught luckily. So why am I scared now? Is my fear getting worse, and seeping into my everyday life now? I don’t want to tell Sven what I’m doing, but I feel weak and needy always thinking to tell him about my every movement. I nabbed his keys from his room while he was out. I suppose realistically he is the only person I know well enough to call a friend or a confidant, and when I think of that fact I’m likely to fall into some serious self-pity. It’s not that I can’t make friends it’s just that somehow I know I’m better than having only one shallow sidekick like Sven. What I really needed was someone who could balance me out. Someone who was more or less my opposite and not my business partner. The business being the religious pursuit of nihilism and addiction. He really belonged in some movie or book. He was like a character in every way. Jut barely human, like he was made up of snippets of culture and forced dialogue. He could entertain, on a really basic level. It was his one talent. He could hold your attention and suck you in. And isn’t that what any good character should do?

I know after so long that what I need is connection and a real exchange between people. I can’t be entertained, or humoured anymore. I can’t be self-preserving or egocentric. I’ve been fostering loneliness for so long, I’ve forgotten that it had a name. I can’t try and be with a girl again since it’s proven I’m no good at it. Relationships aren’t for me, but I’m cocky enough to believe I can build a good friendship from the ground up. When I want to work hard enough at something I can get it done. It’s how I’ve stayed afloat so far at college, with a really sharpened discipline, that I’ve been able to turn on and off like a switch. It’s hard to be honest with yourself and face certain things sometimes. Even really simple things like loneliness. Because loneliness is weak, and it’s defeating and shameful. It’s impossible for some people to believe anyone could ever get tired of themselves. And I was one of those people. And I lived in a satisfying and fragile thought bubble for a long time. But now I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot, watching old people and kids on crutches limping into the doctor’s clinic. I’m laughing at how much I’ve wasted my time. I’m laughing at the punch line I’ve been waiting years to hear. In a few seconds I will stop laughing and I’ll stop looking around outside. I’ll sit still and silent. I’ll want to go home and poison my brain.

“Have you stopped drinking?” He says.

“Yeah, I’m cutting down slowly, it’s hard.”

Dr. Rosen hunches over his desk and scribbles something, probably a prescription.

“Take these for a few days, and stop drinking soon or things will get worse.”

“The blackouts too?”

“All of it.”

“Shouldn’t I see a psychiatrist too or something?”

“If you want to pay that much, sure.”

I take the slip of paper and walk out unsatisfied. The man runs a business, not a charity or a helpline. Get in get out get prescribed. It should be written on plaque and hung above the entrance. Back at college I make my afternoon philosophy class and feign interest by scribbling in my book and occasionally bantering with the professor in front of everyone else. Keeping up appearances is my newest philosophy and I’ve been a firm believer for years, but I never practiced it until Sven taught me. Andre Jameson pulls me up after the lecture and in the few seconds in between him calling my name and him coming up to me, I can’t work out his motives. I’m usually very good at this.

“Hey Andrew.”

“How’s it going Andre?”

“Umm, okay, umm, I was actually wondering what you were doing Friday night.”

“Friday night? Umm I’m not sure, I’ve got a couple of ideas. Why?”

I decide I want to hear him out before I go with an excuse.

“Well my friend Chet lives in town, he’s a chemistry major, and uhh, he’s having a party. He just told me to invite everyone that I thought would be cool.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, would you wanna come? If you’re not busy already. Sven can come too.”

I resented that. How he made it sound like Sven was my better half and that we were inseparable.

“Well let me get your number and we’ll talk about it.”

I really didn’t want to hang around any longer. I wanted to go take a shower, since after all the mental back flips I’d been doing had made me forget to shower daily. I left him there looking at his phone, proud and reassured. Did he think I was some golden piece of furniture that needed to be at his little party for it to be any kind of success? Or was he just always nervous and hesitant? Either way I’d talk to Sven and see what he thought of it.

As I walked through the first floor of my building something caught my eye. There were people looking into a room, crowded around the door. They were watching something inside the room and it had to be good. They all stood there shuffling to see inside. I went against my will to not conform and walked over to try and peek into the room. I didn’t know whose room it was, not by name at least. But if I saw them go in or come out I could probably place them. I moved in close and looked over a guy’s shoulder. There were three people in there having sex, two guys and a girl. I saw their faces and probably knew all of their names but I was at a loss to remember them. The guy on the bed with the girl was putting baby oil all over her skin. Next to the bed on

a dresser there was a cucumber, then a carrot, then something I couldn’t work out. The other guy was drinking beer, standing naked and laughing and then looking at the crowd at the door. I felt like I was watching a bad porn scene. I felt apathetic towards it all, but maybe what was strange was that I wasn’t horrified or shocked, I was just uninterested. It bored me. Did everyone feel differently? Were they so encapsulated in what they were seeing? I felt better than that mostly. My ego takes a different form when I’m sober, a kind of pure indifference and separation to everyone around me. It’s not so much that I’m looking down at everyone else, just observing from miles away.

I fold my clean clothes up and place them on my towel. I grab my toothbrush and then my slippers. I have a thing where I don’t like my bare feet to touch any ground after I shower. I don’t want them to be dirtied before I put socks on. I take two vicodins from the little bottle I bought ages ago at some party in the city. The vicodins will hit quicker than the oxy, I want to feel something while I’m showering not afterwards. My pre-shower routine is something of solace and peace for me. It’s a little shelter from the outside world. The Japanese have Zen gardens that they tend to during the day. Something like raking rocks around can calm the spirit. I am a samurai and my bushido is in this ritual.

In the showers I am alone, the way I like it. I can listen to the rhythm of hot water and try and forget about names and faces and human error. When someone else is in here with me it doesn’t feel right. I have to have my own thoughts bouncing off the walls, not some other guy who’s thinking about mom’s apple pie back home and that girl who smiled at him once in an anthropology lecture. My spine feels like butter, and my neck moves left to right like a gentle wind moves a leaf. Sometimes if I’m lucky I’ll get a little bonus with vicodin and feel a tingling at the base of my skull. It shoots from my nerves and spinal cord and jumps to my brain stem. I don’t get that today in the shower, but just thinking of it makes me smile. I wonder how much semen has flowed down these drains. Watching that circus scene unfold downstairs had put sex in my mind. Surely all the pent up guys on my floor would rub one out when they hit the showers. It only seemed logical. The pressures of being an overworked undersexed college student had to result in a sticky white river that ran down the drains daily. I don’t feel disgusted by this, rather I feel a weird camaraderie. We’re all in the same army here, we’re all battling against the same tantalising enemy, and we all hold our swords with one hand. I kind of wish I had some company now, I’m feeling on top of my buzz and a little social too. Though giving a speech like that to someone else would likely have him running out of the showers, with his hard-on tucked between his legs.

I walk over to Sven’s room, neatly dressed in fresh clothes. Someone is cooking downstairs and it’s floating up to me and teasing my stomach. Lasagne maybe? Something Italian for sure. I want to go and check and talk and maybe score a bit of it, but I pass it off as being just the vicodin. Sven is also in the showers of his building, but somehow I get the feeling he knew I would come over. He’s left some beers out on his desk and there are some half eaten corn chips next to them. I crack one and sit on his bed sipping it and thinking that if they billed Sven and I for all the water we used showering they could probably fix the economy and then some.

I feel like myself now. I feel at ease on my skin and inside my own head. My dependencies don’t really scare me anymore. I just feel a part of a routine that stabilises me. Like a diabetic and insulin or someone with travel sickness. If my quality of life is unchanged and I’m not in any anguish about it, is there anything really wrong? I don’t think so. I think of something my mom told me before she left home for good. I had coffee with her while she was waiting for her friend Maxine to come and pick her up and take her to Quebec. I was so angry at her I barely said anything and after a while she got tired of trying to explain herself to me. Then after we’d been sitting in silence for some time she said something to me. It was like she wasn’t talking to me anymore, she was talking for me.

“Andrew, I’m not leaving you. I don’t want you to be sad, or angry, and think it’s all your fault. Sometimes the best people can only see the worst in themselves. Please be kind to yourself.”

Those words are locked away and marked to my memory stronger than anything else. She told me to be kind to myself, and I’m trying, I’m really trying.

When Sven walks in I have my eyes closed and I’m slumped against the wall on his bed, resting the beer on my stomach. For a little while, I felt like a jellyfish, with a gentle current all around my body.

“You could have joined me for a scrub.” He says.

“Yeah, I had my own.”

“Are you nodding right now?”

“Just some vicodin I took before a shower. You should try it.”

“No thanks, showers are like my lifeline to honest sober society. Soon as I’m out though you can put anything in my hand.”

“Sounds like a good philosophy.”

“It is. You see the new guy?”

“New guy?”

I sit up a little more on his bed and give a little more attention. My peak has long passed anyway.

“Yeah, Jane says he’s a transfer, from like, somewhere in Virginia.”

“What the hell’s he doing up here?”

“I dunno, go ask him. His name’s Trent. I saw him downstairs moving in, looks like a real gym freak.”

“Really?”

“No, I was being sarcastic, but you’re obviously too zonked to get that. He’s heroin skinny, it’s weird. Skinnier than you.”

“You think he’s a junky?”

“Nah, doesn’t look like the type other than his physique. No junky would be at college and making transfers.”

“Maybe he came here to try and get clean.”

“I doubt it, but let’s make this fun shall we?”

“Christ, here we go.”

“No no, listen, just a little competition. Whoever finds out if he’s a junky first, gets fifty bucks.”

“C’mon man, make it more interesting than just fifty bucks.”

“Okay let me think.”

He throws a shirt on and some faded jeans and then he turns to me, cracks a beer and smiles.

“What?”

He wants me fish it out of him.

“Well?”

“Winner gets to open up a bar tab on the loser’s money, and if you win, I’ll throw in a bonus. I’ll give you the shrooms I have coming.”

“You really think you’re gonna win for sure?”

“Yep, and I know you’re gonna try to win just to prove me wrong.”

He was right and I was already getting competitive. The money for a bar tab was no problem, I had money. But the shrooms I wanted. So I got started on trying to find our new mystery man. He was in the same block as Sven so he had an advantage, but I’d catch him first at dinner. Sven never ate dinner with everyone else. He went on about how he hated the food and how “high school” the whole thing was. I never cared that much, the food was okay, a few levels up from prison food.

I got myself looking nice and ready to make a new friend. I felt impressionable enough, I didn’t know what kind of person the guy was so I wore my most neutral clothes. If he was a junky he wouldn’t be eating much, so I made a list of clues that could tip me off. If he was here to get clean, he’d only be in the dining hall to seem friendly and set up a good image. He’d look sickly and might be sweating. I ran over

the list again as I walked into the dining hall and started serving myself something that might have been meatloaf once. I sat down more or less in the centre of the room with a few guys I was on good terms with. I watched the door and waited. He came in about five minutes later and after serving up a bit of food he sat down in the corner with some girl. They talked and I watched him like he had the meaning of life hidden somewhere in his movements. I made a plan to catch him on the way out, maybe follow him back to his building and pull him up, have a few kind words, shake hands. He did look kind of nervous and high strung. I wasn’t going to make any assumptions this early on though. I somehow lost my focus and started to think about Tori. I saw her alone in her room, silently hating me and cursing me. I felt guilty again, and the emptiness I felt was made worse only by how familiar it was. I understand the facts, I know there’s no middle ground with her, or at least those are her terms, and it’s pretty clear. I can’t wake up with her and then quickly dress in the still light of dawn, trying to flee the murder scene. I know I can’t leave parts of me in her head. I tell myself it’s use or be abused. That it’s dog eat dog, and it’s no different anywhere in the world. But all of it is just an excuse, every smart little arrangement of words is just a way to make myself feel okay about breaking her heart. And about being a pathetic, frightened little boy. I can’t tell her that the way she kisses me makes me desperately miss my mother. I can’t tell her that I don’t believe in relationships anymore and that they burn everything to the ground.

Suddenly, I don’t want to find out anything about the new guy. I don’t care what his name is or if he’s a user. You learn a lot more in the dark than you do in the light, and I’m not talking about daylight. But how is it that after so long I’m only understanding myself now? In the middle of my second year of college, and when I’m the closest to being a joke. Am I meant to go in some new direction, is something inside me trying to tell me something? I’ve never been good at listening to my own advice, so I’m kind of afraid I’ll miss the vital message. I want to be saved, and guided by some unknown power that I have inside me, but I’m scared I won’t be able to follow its directions.

He gets up from his table and he waves his friend goodbye. She joins another table, and starts chatting and he makes for the door. I get up and wipe my mouth. I decide that I’m gonna follow him. Not in pursuit of some shallow bet or scrap of knowledge. But in the weird hope that he can tell me something that I’ve never heard before. Somehow, I’m genuinely curious about him and I want to know this guy. I want him to clue me in on a secret that I’ve been waiting to hear my entire life. Just inside the entrance to the college I make my move. Whether he’s noticed me following him I don’t know.

“Hey.” I say.

He turns and offers a smile.

“Hey, I’m Trent.”

“Andrew.”

We shake hands and I ask him the basics. Where he’s come from and why, what he thinks so far.

“It’s nice up here, it’s nice to get away to a little place like this.”

“Yeah, it’s got some charm.” I agree.

“Well I’ll probably see you around, nice meeting you.”

“You too.”

I head upstairs and he heads down the hall. I have no reason to be in this college but I want to look like I’m visiting and not stalking him. I don’t want to see Sven, but rather I want to go back to my own college and maybe make a cup of coffee. It’s a nice night out and I feel an energy building up in me. I think about going for a walk but I know better than to go out in the wind out there. It’s likely to snow like crazy sometime in the early morning. It snuck up on us last year. They had to bring snowploughs onto the campus and clear all the paths. I start to get the idea that if I play this right, I could end up with a new friend. It could be exactly what I need. I feel like I’m on the schoolyard again, and I’ve just got to be careful of the asshole bully that Sven is.

After I wake up from struggling to find sleep, I’m cold and I’m sweating from the face and neck. The sun is just coming up and I look out the window for maybe two second before I close the curtain quickly. I hate the light of dawn, especially just after or during sunrise. It’s always been an omen to me, and it teases me almost, for lighting the day and taking away the dark that I’ve come to thrive in. My body clock aside, I am neither a morning person nor someone who reads into things with beauty. There is enough beauty in the world, I’m aware of it, I just don’t feel I have the right to pass it onto something so boring as a sunrise. I splash my face with warm water in the sink. It’s cold and the heat never really reaches you in your room the way you want it to. I remember last year, just into winter, there was a student committee that rallied to get the old heating system replaced. The college board threw the idea aside and decided that the medical building needed to be repainted internally. Productivity boosting blue was what they settled on. God loves the med students.

What going to college at a university in small town Maine has taught me is that you can’t run from yourself as much as you think you can, or for as long as you think you can. What I can ultimately take away from this wisdom is that if I was going to college in Boston or New York, I’d have ended up killing myself long ago. And I mean in a stupid, foolish, naïve way where I try and live like a god. I’d have been a kid in a candy store. They’d have found me in my room after someone complained too much about the smell. Here it’s different for me in that no one cares about what I do or who I am. And there’s something liberating in this. It’s not about creating a myth or a celebrity-like aura about yourself; it’s about doing your work and living your life. Everyone here is as dull as a forty year old, and there’s no revitalizing mid-life crisis in sight either. It really makes you feel juvenile being around so many mundane, boring people. They have this weird way of sucking something out of you and making you feel ashamed of yourself. You owe something to them when you walk around, or at least that’s how it looks in my head. What they all really need is some valium, and maybe a nice little dispensary on campus. Grades go down slightly, while college friendships and Mario kart games skyrocket. Maybe in a better world, maybe in the next generation.

Sooner or later one of my lecturers is going to get sick of pretending that I’m a fully functioning student. Everyone else in class might be dumb to it, but I’m more than certain at least three professors suspect I’m harbouring a serious drug addiction or health problem, and they’d be right. Maybe they pity me, and even admire my tenacity and discipline to come to class through my anguish. I watched Professor Duncan chain smoke cigarettes outside the arts building. He goes around the corner out of sight from students walking by, but I can see him from the second floor windows. He looks more like a lost journalist to me than an English professor. He paces around sucking down one after another. I guess he never lost the anxious, neurotic character of a writer. If he ever was a writer, I’m betting he never made it big time, no writer just chooses the path of teaching. It’s more like a fallback I think. And he doesn’t look like he’s having much fun here filling us with knowledge when he’d rather be tucked away somewhere working on his masterpiece.

On Wednesday afternoon something weird happens. I’m at the gas station closest to campus, and I’m filling up Sven’s car after going into town and getting groceries for us both. I’m filling up the tank and I’m staring down at the pump in my hand, and for about ten seconds I think, I lose consciousness. Or my mind goes blank and I just zone out, like I’m sleeping standing up. I’m still gripping the pump and running up the meter when I come to again. I look around, like I’m lost and then try and collect myself. I hope no one was watching. I go inside and pay for much more gas than I wanted. The guy looks at me weirdly as he gives me my change, or I could have just imagined that he was. I drive back to campus and start to worry that it might happen while I’m driving and that gets me a little scared. I end up sitting in the parking lot in the car just looking out at the snow and wondering if something bad is going to happen. I wonder if I’m going to live much longer, though at this point I know I’m exaggerating the worst case scenario. It’s difficult to believe that I’m a living breathing person sometimes, and the recurring feeling of being out of place is becoming more common for me. It makes me feel out of touch and anxious, like I’m not really in control of my actions or my body. I am starting to feel trapped. I don’t know if it’s the snow, or the drugs, or some deep well of pain and loneliness I’ve been neglecting for as long as I’ve known how to. As a realist, my money’s on the drugs.

In my little dorm room I have had millions of thoughts, collections of dreams, fantasies, arguments. I’ve lived inside these cold brick walls for more than a year and in this small space I’ve done more living and felt more human than I think I ever have. I guess when I was a young child was when I was the closest to this level of quality of life. It’s strange how the smallest of spaces can change a person immensely and permanently. A teenager who feels trapped and frustrated in his bedroom who then comes to crave it and miss it after leaving home. The prisoner who becomes both defined by and inseparable to his cell. We are creatures deeply connected to our surroundings, and what is interesting and clear as one of our flaws is that when we are severed from our surroundings we are affected in a deep and very much real way. While I am here in bed at three in the morning on my own, I can think at my best. It only seems fitting that my best thoughts aren’t heard by anyone else.

Lying here awake, I think about my cousin Chris. I think how long it’s been since I’ve seen him and I feel guilty for not reaching out to him more. Now he sits in a prison cell somewhere in Nevada for holding up a gas station while drunk. I almost feel

ashamed, like I’m letting him down by being such a failure. I used to look up to him more than anyone else. He overtook my father when I started to come into my own as a teenager. Now I feel like I’m taking life for granted while he’s behind bars counting the days and the months. What this does to me is point me to the recurring fact that I have next to no one in my life. I could pass it off and cover my tracks and say that it’s just how I am. But really I know I’ve been in complete control of every single one of my actions and choices. Sometimes I hope mom might call me one day out of the blue and tell me I’m an okay person, or that at least my efforts are enough. But you can’t just wait for people to come to you, you’ve got to reach out and latch on to things. You’ve got to open yourself up and take risks and put faith in those around you. Now I’m still afraid to fall asleep, and getting my thoughts racing is good for keeping me awake. I don’t want to piss myself again, and I don’t want to have some night terror where I wake up sweating bullets. I want to soak my brain in some substance, and travel far away from my own mind. But it’s Thursday, and the sun will be coming up soon to shake my confidence. I feel lost. The shadows are crawling around my room.

I am walking with my new and surprisingly kind friend Trent. I have no plans or desires to see through another empty bet with Sven so I leave it in the past. He has a chemistry lecture and he tells me about his passion for science as we walk through the arts building drinking coffee from the machine. He must have told this story before because it’s almost rehearsed too well. What’s funny about Trent is the fact that he’s come to fit in so well so quickly. It’s only funny to me because it took me so long to find anyone I could get along with. I suppose distance is only in our minds but still I can’t help but think he must have been high school president or something. He should be studying something political. He already has my vote.

“The art building is really nice.” He says.

“Yeah, it’s my favourite, I think it’s the oldest.”

“I read you got new labs and stuff put in after getting some funding?”

“Yeah I think so. I’m pretty out of the loop though.”

“Hey, I met your friend Sven.”

“Oh really? What did he say?”

“Nothing much, just talked really fast and asked a bunch of questions.”

“He’s like that.”

“Seemed like he was wired on something.”

“Knowing him, he probably was.”

“Much of a drug trade on campus?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say trade you know, no one really likes to deal and sell to other people. But yeah, there’s a fair bit of stuff on campus. You after anything?”

“Oh not really, I used to smoke a bit of pot back at my old college but that was it.”

“Well if you’re ever after anything I can try and hook you up.”

“Sure.”

I got a feeling I’d crossed a line somewhere. Maybe I just sounded too drug eager to him. It could be that our assumptions about Trent were way off. He could be the picture of honour and integrity, and then harsh judgement. Why would anyone ask about drugs on campus if they weren’t thinking about it? I’d have to plant it in conversation at another time since we were walking in silence without anything to say. There was that uneasiness that hangs in the air when two people are uncomfortable with silence between them. You panic and think of things you can say or ask that will fill the air and sustain the conversation. I’d run out of ideas and I was feeling nervous so I cut my losses and said goodbye. Short and sweet, I hoped. I was never a good read of people. Once in sophomore year I accused my then girlfriend Sarah Zandow of cheating on me because I thought she was bored with me. She said she thought we were in love, which threw me into a confused state of silence. I knew then that I was really bad at guessing what people were thinking or feeling.

It was Saturday afternoon and the grounds seemed lifeless. Despite the cold, people still walked around and went back and forth. Everyone kind of toughens up and ignores the wind and cold, walking around like nothing’s changed. Winter makes us all get a little stubborn with nature. We want to show that we’re not fazed by it. Sven and I just make the bus that comes by and swoops into town. It does so about four or five times a day but only twice on Saturday. He sits next to me and starts up another cycle of reminding me that I lost the bet and that he’s going to drink me dry when I open the bar tab. Trust him to ask Trent straight off the bat whether he’s a drug addict or not. It gets to me though that his vulgar cocky way of living succeeds sometimes. That’s what seems more than unfair to me.

“I’m thinking whiskey first, maybe a shot or two. Slow-sipped to warm the insides up.” He goes on and on and doesn’t hide that he’s having fun.

“Sounds great.” I say, rubbing my gloved hands together.

“Actually maybe a nice cold beer, you know, a hearty stout. The Irish way, they can’t be wrong. Ahh hell there’s too many choices.”

I look out the fogged window and notice the darkness starting to cloak the suburbs in the distance. The lights overhead on the bus have a weird brightness to them and it reminds me of a dull hospital corridor.

At the bar of Sven’s choice we sit in the corner at the back. There are a few people sitting at tables eating snacks and sipping wine and whiskey. It’s a nice looking place with pricey drinks and a menu of small meals with what seems to be a Spanish theme to them. I quite like the fire in the middle of the place and the dark wooden look of the bar. Sven gives the order that our first round will be savoured sitting at the bar itself.

He wants to watch me open up the tab and maybe take some deranged pleasure from seeing me hand over my credit card.

“There that wasn’t so hard.”

He pats me on the back and sips from some thick craft beer he’s ordered us.

“The thing I love about you Andy is that you’re a great loser. I guess practice make perfect right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I sip from the molasses like beer. It’s nutty and from the taste of it pretty alcoholic.

“Oh and I hope you don’t mind but I’ve invited Tori and Monica.”

“What? Why?”

“Well Monica’s only just back in town and Tori is dying to see you so I thought why not get them out for a drink, you know?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Oh c’mon you can’t run from Tori forever, at least seem like you care instead of going completely cold on her.”

I said nothing because I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to agree with him. I took another big gulp of the beer to ease my discomfort about Tori. Monica might be able to salvage the evening though and keep from going cold and stiff like a corpse. By the second last gulp I end up growing a little taste for the beer and consider another, or at least finding out where I can get some. It could be I just want to spark up a conversation with the cute blonde girl behind the bar. I watch her make cocktails for some dressed up couple on the other side of the bar. She’s got to have been doing this a while. Her expertise and skill is something hypnotizing to me and I end up not knowing whether I’m just checking her out or admiring the contemporary art of mixology.

“Not bad huh, well now it’s time for a little kick to get us ready for our guests.”

He leans over the bar and gets the attention of the blonde who’s now freed up. I kind of resent him a little for it, but I feel naïve for doing so and I just coil down in my stool and observe her smile. She fixes us with two shots of bourbon and we toast to nothing and throw them back. It hits my stomach in a little flare of warmth then a shockwave comes back up to sting my tongue and mouth. Sven slams his hand on the bar and we head back to our table in the corner. Somehow after all my mental torture at the hands of Sven, I notice I’m starting to feel a little better all-round. I identify it as the little rush of alcohol that’s coursing through me. I’m still not thrilled to be sitting face to face with Tori, but I’m feeling better about it than I was not long ago.

“They’re getting a lift, Monica says.”

He skims a text on his phone then shoves it back into his pocket.

“From who?”

“Big Reggie.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“You know, big Reggie at the offensive tackle, number sixteen.”

“Oh yeah, is he back on the team?”

“Nah, he’s still juicing though, which is weird.”

“Didn’t think it was that addictive.”

“Maybe he just wants to get bigger now.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

“Yeah, and right now he’s driving our women here.”

“Don’t say that.”

“What? Everyone loves double-dating.”

“We are not dating.”

“Well you’re gonna have to act pretty romantic since I told her you were dying to see her.”

I sigh and put my head on the table, waiting for some anvil to drop, or some carnival strongman to swing a hammer and crack my head like a melon. I sit defeated and preserving what little discipline I have. I know that any minute now Tori will walk through the front door and look me in the eye and I’ll have nothing ready to say, nothing smart or funny to pitch. I don’t know whether it’s the nervousness or the bourbon but my stomach shifts a little and I decide to get up and sneak one more shot in before they arrive. Sven throws his support behind the idea. This time I hit the bar alone and the blonde gives me a reassuring smile as she pours. If I had a photo of that smile I could carry it around and look at it when I was feeling anxious or uncertain about something. I gulp mine before sitting down again, praying for a little liquid courage to come and save the day.

I catch them out of the corner of my eye coming through the door. Instinctively I look up and glance over at them before turning away. Sven waves them over like we’re at an airport or something. I watch the dinner party seated a few tables over. Two well dressed couples sitting across from each other laughing and drinking red wine. The parallels between them and us are strange, they seem to be the picture of success and happiness. I’m wondering if something like being content and satisfied can be fuelled

by dinner parties. There’s a chance that they’re just acting, just keeping up appearances for themselves. I think I’d be able to get by just fine if I was in their positions. A careless period of middle age is going to be my reward for these years.

The girls sat down across from us and I panicked for something to say and break the ice with. If I started talking to Monica right away Tori would feel ignored so I said nothing and got up to get our first round of drinks.

“I got first round.” I said.

“Jack and coke for me would you please Andy.” Sven said.

“Monica?”

“Gin and tonic? Thanks.”

“I’ll have the same.” Tori said.

I went to the bathroom first and splashed some cold water on my face. My cheeks stung a little with the water but I needed the wake up. My hair was a mess and I tried to manage it a little before heading back out. The girl behind the bar put all the drinks on a tray and we had a brief conversation.

“You at college?” She said.

“Yeah, second year.”

“That’s cool. You lose a bet with your friend or something?”

“Actually yeah, did he say something?”

“Yeah, he’s got some mouth.”

“Yeah he does. Thanks.”

I picked up the tray of drinks and slowly paced back over to our table. Sven had done what he’s actually surprisingly good at, getting people socially relaxed and comfortable. If he talks and jokes long enough people get into it and start to open up. I silently thanked him for that as I handed out the drinks just in time.

“Monica was just talking about her little accident in Vermont.”

“Oh really? Care to tell again?” I said.

“I was in a café and I was walking away from the counter with my coffee and some of it spilled on the floor, and I didn’t say anything, I just kept walking and the guy behind me kind of slipped in it and did like, the splits. I felt so bad for laughing.”

“Wow you are a sociopath aren’t you. I bet you planned it all out.”

“I did not!”

“Yeah, who knows what’s next she could spike one of our drinks tonight.” Sven said.

We were rolling now, the one-two game we had running on Monica had me feeling a little cocky.

“Like I’d drug you losers, you probably spiked your own drinks knowing you.”

“She’s got us there.”

And she got me thinking. I zoned out of the conversation and started to get lost in thought. I felt calm and I started to form an idea in my head. Maybe I should drug myself. But everything good was back in our dorm rooms. Damn it, the plan crashed and burned right then and there and I got up to go and use the bathroom again, but this time in a more genuine way. Sven followed and told the girls we were off to powder our noses. I thought it was kind of lame, but they gave a little laugh maybe just to seem amused.

“Not a bad start to the night am I right?” He says, standing next to me at the urinal.

“It’s okay I guess. Are you holding anything right now?”

“Boy, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Well what do you have?”

“Couples Vs. You want em?”

“You don’t want em?”

“Nah. Not tonight. I’m feeling like stretching your tab a little further and I’ll need to stay on the drink to do that.”

He pats me on the shoulder and slips them into my jacket pocket. I’m still getting some drops out when he leaves the bathroom. Then I’m alone in there and I can hear the lights above buzzing. I wash my hands then put them in the alien looking dryer that shoots a blast of uncomfortable hot air. Then I take out the pills and look at them. Still in their packaging. Two left out of eight. I swallow them with some water out of the tap. Then in silence, I look at myself in the mirror for a second or two, inspecting my face for pimples. I look at myself until I’m staring at a stranger with hollow eyes. Then I dash out of the bathroom in a weird terror, feeling a little colder than before.

I sit back down and wait impatiently for any sign that the little pills I took are kicking in. Right now they’re bobbing around in my stomach dissolving in acid and waiting to hit my blood stream. Maybe I should have taken up medicine because despite my curiosity and admiration for the human body, the closest I’m going to get to having any kind of involvement would be through volunteering for trials and testing. I’ve pretty much been a walking experiment for pharmaceutical companies for a while now. What I do to distract myself from getting too worked up is I stare at Monica

while she’s being entertained by Sven and one of his stupid anecdotes. She doesn’t look different at all, but something has changed about her and I can’t work it out. A haircut? Different clothes? If I get too wrapped up in the mystery I’ll start to throw answers around out loud and I don’t want that so I look down at my drink. I can feel Tori looking at me as I’m looking down and playing with the ice in the bourbon. If I could only know what she’s thinking. I have nothing to say or ask her so I keep my head down and let her eyes go over me. It’s kind of unsettling and unnerving and I want to say something just to feel like I’m not on trial or being examined. I can understand how it is for those unlucky women who are watched almost constantly by perverted eyes, as if they were animals. Thinking so, I feel like an idiot because I know I’m one of those guys, and I know most of the time I’m proud of it too.

“So they see the fire from the kitchen window.”

“No.”

Monica recoils in deadpan anticipation.

“Yep, and they drop their beers and run inside screaming and yelling. One guy starts scooping water out of the toilet with his cup and throwing it into the kitchen.”

Monica lets out laughing uncontrollably, Sven is grinning and waiting for his audience to be composed again.

“So they end up burning down half the frat house.”

“What happened then?”

“They convinced the dean that it was an electrical fire, just a malfunction. And they all still go there.”

“They got away with it?”

“Yep.”

“No shit.”

“Crazy right?”

I only catch the end of the story but I’ve heard it before in all its different variations. Tori isn’t really listening but she’s acting involved and trying not to give me any clues as to what’s going on in her head. I start to feel like a scumbag for not saying anything to her so I give it a shot.

“Are you hungry?” Ends up as my best opener.

“Oh, no not really.”

“I heard you got a lift with Big Reggie.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty intense.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the stories.”

“He was talking about going down south and going to Alabama or something.”

“Why’s that?”

“He said his uncle lives there and grows the best weed this side of the Mississippi.”

She tried to put on his voice and it made me laugh a little. I didn’t think conversation would be this easy.

“Do you want another drink? It’s on me.”

“Oh, I heard. Vodka and lime for me.”

I got up and went back to the bar hoping to maybe share a few sweet words with the blonde, but in the time before my last check in I guess her shift had ended. Now there was a guy with a bad looking goatee serving drinks. He looked more like a bodyguard than a bartender. He must have been six foot eight or something. I felt a little frustrated having to explain that I had a tab. I suppose I was just upset that the cute bartender was gone.

For some reason, and which might have something to do with the vicodin in my bloodstream, I can’t help but see the big giant of a bartender as the personification of this character in a story I remember reading. In freshman year of high school I took an active interest in creative writing. Now, I was never anything but a terrible writer, and most of what I wrote I plucked from parts of TV shows and movies. But I liked the teacher we had. He wasn’t really on the faculty, but he was taken on to teach the creative writing course in our English class. At the start of the semester he told us that he used to be a pretty famous writer in Canada and he passed out a short story collection that he’d written. I remember thinking that the move was kind of pretentious, and that he was just trying to achieve some kind of audience, no matter how small. But his stories were actually kind of good. One I remembered really well was about a man who kills his mother in a rage and then tries to crash her car with her body in it, so it would look like an accident. It was pretty weird, but kind of absorbing. Well, as I picked up the round of drinks I likened the tall bartender with the mental image I had always had of the character in that story. Even though I’d completely sculpted an image in my mind of that character, here I knew I was looking at a perfect image of him in real life. It was too much for me to think about, so I went back to our table and decided on getting hammered. That was simple logic for me, and that was all I needed for the night.

Five drinks down and I couldn’t care less about the bar tab. I was feeling charged up enough that I considered getting up and maybe ordering some top shelf stuff. It’s a little past nine and the dinner crowd has all but left the building. Now there seems to be some students coming in, maybe some people meeting up for after work drinks. I wonder how much this place gets an underage crowd. Big grins and good manners and fake IDs. It seems too classy to be a hangout for the underage. Why go through

all the trouble and risk to hang out at a boutique bar? When I was eighteen I finally got a fake ID and I was so excited to use it I got high with a friend in a park and then waltzed into a liquor store to get a six pack. I kept my cool and the guy didn’t bat an eye. I was amazed. We were so excited we went into the bushes at the park and started chugging the beers. I threw up not long after that.

It used to be that I felt a certain sentimental longing for when I was younger. I used to feel like that a fair bit when I was still settling in at college. But then again that’s more than natural. More than a year on now, I have a more objective view of the past, and to a lesser extent, the future. Living in the present has gotten very easy for me. I thought it’d be harder but letting go of the past was one of the healthiest things I’ve done. It’s a bad habit of mine to replace old vices with new ones. I haven’t decided if my drug use has reached a certain threshold yet. In my mind it’s still sitting at neutral to me, and sometimes it spikes up into being good. The odds seem to say that in the near future at some point I’m due for a big drop into the bad scale of things. I can’t say that it’s completely uncalled for either. We end being shaped by the bad times more than the good right? Well all I have to do is wait it seems. I can feel it coming.

The girls are laughing again at Sven, this time they’re not holding back and being socially cautious. They laugh openly and loudly and it makes me look on at the people front of me with a certain passion and fondness. I even feel a soft spot for Sven, the great entertainer. If I’m going to concern myself with the worst parts of him so often I might as well applaud the good parts of him. I smile and watch him deliver another monologue, I haven’t heard this one before, and I’m listening like a bug-eyed child. Watching him almost gives me motivation to open my own mouth and start rambling about something. I’ve drunk enough confidence and false charm that I even believe I can pull it off. But I keep my lips sealed and know better from previous incidents. If I start talking it’ll never end, and what I really want to avoid is any kind of loss of face with Tori. It’s not like I’ve redeemed myself but I don’t want her to see me and think I’m more dull and boring. I can see, or maybe sense that there is something in her that is still putting some faith in me. I can tell that she has some hope or fantasy where underneath all the trials I put her through and all the little rejections I’ve given her there’s her perfect idea of a man or at least her perfect idea of me. I’m a real fix-up job but I guess she likes the challenge, and god knows I like the attention. It’s just that sometimes when I’m coming down or when I’m worrying about my mental clarity, I can push her aside without knowing. It’s only afterwards when I’m reminded somehow in a flash in my head that I realise that I’m the cause of this negative cycle for her.

Monica goes outside for a cigarette and I follow her out looking for some fresh air or at least a break from Sven’s talk show. I’ve always liked Monica, I can call it admiration maybe or just genuine friendly affection. I was thinking about it earlier in the day and I came to the conclusion that the reason I don’t lust after her or try flirting with her is probably because I already know subconsciously that she’s out of my league. It didn’t bother me and I kind of made a truce with my ego on that information. As I followed her outside I noticed in the light of the bar that she must have gotten her hair cut while in Vermont. I could just be seeing things, I reminded myself. I haven’t exactly had a sound state of mind for the past two weeks. It’s been strange and difficult but I’ve forced myself to be sceptical about my own mind. What I perceive and interpret and take in mightn’t be anything real at all.

Outside it’s cold and the change of temperature from going from the warm, toasty bar to the cold winds is a harsh wake up call.

“Smoke?” She says.

“Oh, sure.”

I take one of her Camels and light it when she passes me the matches. I’m not a regular smoker but I don’t mind one every now and again. They’re great for social situations and little exit strategies. I like the short fix of smoking as an idea, but I’ve never liked the act of it enough to pick it up full time. You can’t have some drinks or pop some pills and go about having a regular day at work or at school. A cigarette doesn’t really alter your state of mind in as much of a way as other drugs.

“It’s good to be out with you guys again.” She says smiling.

The way she says it is so sincere that I’m caught of guard. She makes it sound like tonight’s her last night on earth.

“I’m glad you’re back.” I say.

“Me too. I was almost losing my mind up there.”

“I hope it wasn’t too hard on you.”

“Nah.”

She took a big drag and looked like she’d come to that same thought that’d been kicking around in her head for weeks.

“I just feel so selfish you know, for wanting my own grandmother to die already. I just want it all to be over. I know she does too.”

I tried to be really careful about saying the wrong thing. I was drunk and saying the wrong thing came naturally to me while under the influence.

“I’m glad you’re here taking your mind off it. Let’s just have a good night.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

We smoked for a little while and just watched the cars go by, in the distance some siren was screaming. The city felt pretty neutral to me.

“So, you gonna stop being a bitch and talk to Tori?”

I laughed and tried to build a case for myself quickly.

“I probably should right?”

“Yeah you probably should. Before she crosses that line from thinking you’re the greatest guy around to thinking you’re just an asshole.”

“What should I say?”

“Just be your usual self, but maybe less ego-stroking.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“Good.”

Soon enough and quicker than I would have liked, the night speeds by. People start leaving the bar and they start looking like they want to close up. Sven says we should go to another place that should be heating up soon. I’ve got a nice buzz going on and as I do a little count of the drinks I’ve had I know I’m at a nice number. We put our jackets and coats on and walk a block into town to a place called Prism. I think it used to be a rave club in the eighties but it was shut down for a long time. It’s only been in the last few years that they’ve revived it and made it a classy up market place for drunk office workers and art students. Tonight there’s a bouncer on the door, so I make the connection that they must be having something on. Maybe a DJ or some event we don’t know about. He stands with his arms folded like every other bouncer in the world and eyes us as we walk towards him laughing. He scratches his beard and then gets a little power kick asking for our student cards.

The night takes the shape of a familiar warped blur of images. The people, the ugly faces swerving in bright light. Drink after drink and it’s a downward spiral. I end up with only fragments of the night in my brain as per usual. My hunger and determination for numbing myself has always been at the forefront of my night out. It could be seen as problematic in a lot of ways, but I’ve remained neutral and indifferent to my own actions and impulses. It keeps me grounded in a way. I can remember vaguely talking with Tori more inside the club. I remember perpetually holding a full drink, which is probably an omen I should make note of. I think we kissed but I’m not too sure. Maybe my ego fabricated a memory to preserve my own delusions. Stranger things have happened. I remember riding in the cab back to college with Tori and I remember Sven staying at the club with some group of girls. They were foreign I think? German maybe? I swear I listened to them speak. Mostly I remember the weird paranoid fear that came over me when I got into my college building. Through the fog of alcohol I had somehow remembered my newly developed fear of having night terrors. It shot right through the drunk daze I was in and buzzed like an urgent alarm. I tried to prove I was as courageous and strong as I knew myself to be and tossed it from my mind. It was kind of quiet in my building, which I thought was a tiny bit strange, but not impossible. I just need to get a proper night’s sleep, I told myself, or convinced myself rather.

It was faint at first but then it faded in slowly. Like notes on a piano in some room in the house you grew up in. this was before your mom got rid of the piano and before your dad started sleeping through the day. You’re there but you’re not there right? The story of your life so far I suppose. Your dreaming now, you’re seeing the colour your room used to be. Light sky blue. This is a showcase, an exhibition of your past and fragile memories. Your life has become so devoid of energy and spirit that you

only really have your scattered photo albums shelved away in your head. Your little alcohol soaked head. Don’t you get tired of it? The same thing over and over again? Are people too ignorant to realise that all they do is go in circles for all of their lives? Little tiny circles, everyday. You have the power to change your life, but somehow you’re okay with it. It’s kind of scary when you think about it. But you don’t think about it, do you? You think about escape and indulgence and some twisted kind of redemption.

You’re bigger than yourself Andrew. You’re bigger than the images you see everyday. The view from your window and the stairwell and the bricks in the walls. You’re letting your surroundings imprison you. This really is a wake up call. The question is, is the volume loud enough to get through to you? A sea change would do you good. An adjustment and a little push in the right direction. No one will do it for you. You’re not going to do anything productive, that’s for sure. But now here you are, dreaming of your own environment again, of your idealistic little college. You’re wasting your dreams. Even in sleep you can’t get away from yourself. You’ve trapped a part of yourself here in these walls. You’ve traded something away and it’s purposeless to go on like you are. But somehow and against all odds, there’s still something you believe in. There’s still something you have faith in, whether it’s the good of mankind or the fantasy of a transformation. A great change you’ve been secretly wanting for years. In your mind it’s an open door in front of you. It’s warm and inviting and you know what’s on the other side, in the other room. But what if you don’t know what’s on the other side of that open door, through the shadow you can’t see through? What if you’re not in control of your own life? You’re really just powerless.

It’s all pretty bleak isn’t it? A little out of character for you? That is all you are really. Just a character. A single character in a story that’s already been written. For this small, miniscule amount of time, you are alive and breathing. You will wake up and continue living out your life. You will make coffee and make jokes and masturbate. It’s almost time for your trial by fire. You’ve spent two decades building up to this. Every minute of every day has been leading to what’s coming. And now here it is, right under your nose. It’s a new day.

Feldman brings around everyone’s mail in the building and he hasn’t grasped the idea that the majority of college students want to wake up on their own terms. He bangs on each door, three bangs, at the same volume. With this method he almost certainly wakes up everyone who isn’t already up and out or in class. I thank god that mail day is only once a fortnight. I feel under whelmed that I’m not as angry or as annoyed as I should be. But I figure there’s no point on wasting time and energy. I’ve adjusted to the morning mail routine like everything else. The human being can adapt in more ways than any other species. Especially when it’s mail day and you’re hung over. My head isn’t throbbing and my stomach is sitting at rest. It must be my lucky day.

I get up and throw a hoodie on in the brief few seconds of cold air outside of my bed. There’s still a rotten taste in my mouth but you can’t win em’ all. It’s a trade-off I’m willing to live with if it means I won’t be hunched over and vomiting for the duration of the morning. Then I move my stiff body around the room a little bit, pacing back and forth, trying to get some blood flowing to my aching joints. I do what I usually do when I wake up hung-over and that’s to curse myself for not buying a coffee pot for

my room. I complain to myself but it doesn’t do any good and nothing will change. I open the door and grab the pile of mail sitting at my feet. A few envelopes, probably old library book notifications or tax slips from ages ago. At the bottom of the pile is a thick looking manila envelope. I pick it up and go back inside with the mail. It’s obviously a book, but I don’t feel that curious about it. Maybe a mix up or something, or maybe it’s some course book I didn’t get earlier in the year. I go through the letters. Nothing special there. After feeling like I’ve done something productive I go downstairs for some coffee. At the machine Erin Wright is standing impatiently, waiting for a latte to finish pouring. She used to date the guy who was our floor supervisor, before he graduated. She always seemed suspicious to me, like she had some big secret she carried around. The thing was, she almost always hinted at it and made it known. A call for attention I guess.

“Andrew.” She says.

“How’s it going?”

And we leave it at that. She struts off down the hall, back to her room maybe or to see one of her part time lovers. I try not to think about it.

I lay back up in bed, sipping coffee and wishing I had a newspaper or some other prop in my hand. Reading a newspaper and drinking coffee sounds kind of attractive to me, there’s something classical about it. Instead I grab the thick envelope on my desk and open it, looking for something to flick through. The book tumbles out onto the bed and I turn it over and read the title. “Blood Country” is written on the cover in thin black lettering. The background colour is a greyish kind of blue. I can understand it’s a novel, a pretty thick hardback, but why was it given to me? I’d never heard of it before, and I’d remember if I borrowed it from the library. Without any information, I flip it over and look for a blurb on the back. There isn’t one though, just that same dark grey blue that looks like some sickly oil painting of a polluted ocean.

I’ve never been much of a reader; I read some commercial teen kind of stuff when I was in high school, tragic romance, people dying, the usual kind. Still, I was definitely curious about the heavy hardback that was next to me on the bed. I felt like I could spare some time, maybe read a few pages for the hell of it. Why not? Every other piece of reading material within reach was a case study or an essay or an instructive outline. Opening up the book, I could tell it had to be pretty old. The front cover was faded on the inside and there was some writing I couldn’t make out, faded with what had to be decades. The title page was next, and then page one, no chapter list or anything. I took that to only signify that it was an old forgotten book, lost in the mail probably. It could have been meant for some senior doing a literature thesis or a study. Things get mixed up all the time, every day.

Still, it was easier than I thought it would be to read the first couple of pages. It was written in third person, I still remembered the different points of view from high school English and the creative writing class I took freshman year just to fill credit. It was kind of intriguing not knowing what you were reading. I thought about looking it up online, if there was anything on it it’d be on some literature forum or something. The story gave nothing away in the first four pages. I couldn’t work out where it was set, but it was starting to describe a group of people, their faces and clothes. They

turned out to be a group of refugees or survivors I still wasn’t sure. I put two and two together and took a guess that it was set in the 20th or maybe 19th century. The writer was describing the setting and the landscape, with really detailed imagery of a mountainous section of forest somewhere in the forty nine states. My first thought is somewhere in the Midwest, the Dakotas maybe. My elementary knowledge of history has never been useful.

I put the book down and did something I hadn’t done in a long time. I got up and went out to go to class early. I wanted to be moving and doing something. Sven says I have the opposite of motion sickness, where I can’t sit still for too long otherwise I get flustered. My dad had another name for it that I can’t remember. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I’d get up and pace around the house drinking microwaved milk. There was a period of time when I was six or even where I would lay awake for hours and then I’d eventually go into my parents’ room telling them I was afraid I’d die in my sleep. I don’t know how long I believed that, but I’d like to know what changed my mind, what gave me comfort and peace.

Going into the sociology lecture hall there’s a poster on the pin up wall outside and it reminds of me of freshman year, before I knew Sven, or anyone for that matter. This band came to play at the college, some gig organised by the students’ council. They were a heavy rock kind of band and no one knew they were a Christian band too. They played in the music conservatorium where there’s this big indoor stage for visiting orchestras or the rare showcase of music grads. I stood in the back amongst dozens of other tentative freshman, looking around, trying to pick friendly, welcoming faces to spark up conversations with. I wasn’t exactly looking for companionship right then and there, but I ended up talking to this girl whose name I think was Anna. She raised her voice a lot and leaned into me firing fake laughter here and there. The band hadn’t started yet and Anna and I stood in the back still, not too taken with the idea of pushing to the front to get a better view of New Hampshire’s best sophomore Christian hard rock band. What I can’t remember is their name, and it’s more than bothering me. I can remember the hooks and the chorus lines to the songs they played, but not their name. I’d try and get a hold of Anna just to get that name but she dropped out about three weeks after the band played.

I sit through a two hour lecture, how many have I been to now? It must be a hundred or more. I’ve always liked the way the light spills through the big windows in this specific lecture room, and especially in the afternoon, just after midday. Everything has to be jut right, and if it is, I’ll be staring at dust floating in sunlight for the whole two hours. I used to hate sitting through lectures, I used to hate sitting in the little desks and uncomfortable chairs. It wasn’t as if I found the subject boring or the professor unbearable it was just this restlessness I carried around for about half of last year. I wasn’t even drinking a lot then, not like I am now. It was a strange few months, walking around campus, still not settled in, half knowing too many people, too many names. Thinking about it now, I know I’ve lost that restless feeling, but in a trade-off now I only really know two, maybe three people, but I’m definitely at a better level of comfort and solace.

I never really caught on to sociology, it always felt to analytical to me, like it was closer to doing economics than anything related to humanities. I preferred philosophy, or at least I missed taking the philosophy minor I took last semester. I never skipped a

lecture. I just thought the history of it all was really fascinating. Just the fact that over the span of centuries philosophers have devoted their lives to these abstract, intangible ideas. I used to think there was a kind of underlying loneliness to it, giving all that time to these huge ideas and theories that may later be proved wrong or argued against, devoting so much time to things not in the physical world and not concrete seemed really desolate to me. I guess I was never thoughtful enough to think like that. I preferred things in front of me, things that were immediate. It’s no coincidence I have little to no patience and a short attention span.

After the lecture I get another coffee since I feel like loading up on caffeine. When I’m not drinking or not in the mood I usually end up indulging in something else like coffee or some candy. I never really got into full time smoking, so in between drinking and bumping on other little things I’m usually after another kind of fix. People call it an addictive personality, but to be honest I don’t think there’s such a thing. It’s just too easy to lump things into categories, everyone is slightly different personality wise. Any psych department could write a whole textbook on the abnormal functions of Sven’s personality, mine too, but maybe as an introduction chapter.

I clean up my room a little and after a while trying to decide whether I should take a shower or not, I end up back sitting on the bed reading the book that came in the mail. The coffee has me jittery and eager to take something in, any kind of information. I think it’s been wired into my brain to produce such a result after drinking coffee. Years of chemically stimulated studying will take a toll on you. It’s a behavioural adaptation that’s been ingrained over time. That’s senior high school biology, and all the coffee in the world couldn’t have saved me from flunking that class. Why I remember that one useless fact is something I’ll never know. I’m beginning to feel more and more at odds with my mind.

It’s Friday again and it came around quicker than I expected. I leave a beanie on my door handle to give some sign that I’m out, but I know it won’t deter Sven from going in and looking through everything until he works out I’m in the shower. There’s a bar in town that does theme nights sometimes, Bar Virgo is its official name. I went once last month when they had a tropical themed night, Hawaiian shirts, fruity cocktails, it was a nice break from the cold that everyone knew was coming, it was a little bit of sweet ignorance. Tonight their theme is to come as your favourite fictional character, which I think is a little broad to be honest. How can there be any overall unity or shared theme if everyone has come in pseudo-costume of their favourite TV show? I can see fifty people walking around and repeatedly asking “Who are you supposed to be?” and then hearing the same thing spat back at them. The girls will get all dressed up to the nines and walk around in an outrage saying “Don’t you watch Dancing with the Stars?”

It’s too cold to sit outside anymore, even for a minute. People still take to eating lunch on the benches outside though. It’s insane. I go and see Sven and seeing as how it’s only a littler after two, we decide to catch the bus into town to get something to eat and kill some time. Sven has maybe two classes a week I think, I’ve never known his schedule, I just know that he’s always passed his classes and I’ve never seen a single text book on his desk. He prefers to boast about other things though, and he remembers to remind me on the bus.

“You seen the new German girls yet?”

“German girls?”

“Yeah, they’re here for the rest of the semester, study tour kind of thing.”

“How many?”

“There’s three of them, and one weird looking guy too.”

“I’m not making any bets.”

“Nah take it easy, I don’t want to gamble with these angels, they’re above that.”

“They probably have big German boyfriends back home.”

“Not the way they were looking at me they don’t.”

“You invite em’ out tonight?”

“I wanted to but I lost my phrase book.”

“Doing it by the book huh?”

“You can’t do love by the book.”

I gave him have a little laugh and then I rubbed my hands together again, since I’d forgotten my gloves.

There were a few other people on the bus, people I didn’t know, people I shared a campus with, classes with maybe. It’s easier than you think to find privacy on a campus with hundreds of other people living with you. People tend to have this narrowed consciousness, like tunnel vision. They do their things, see their friends. A lot of other things fall out of sight. This is where really important things or really interesting things can slip into your life I think. They’re never right in front of you, they’re on the edge of your vision. So many little things can slip by if you’re not paying attention, or paying the right kind of attention. Whole lives can go by like that.

Sven starts talking about how his room should be bigger and that the lighting isn’t right and how it hampers student productivity. In fact there’s a little bit of history to Sven’s room that got a lot of attention just before I came to college. The guy who used to live in Sven’s room was named Vernon Mint and he was a graduate student in archaeology, real bright guy, loved by all, with a toned body that existed more strongly in every girl’s fantasy than it seemed to in real life. The fact that he had some high school sweetheart back in Montana only made him all the more attractive and unattainable. Vernon was also the founder and proud president of the university’s first ever spelunking club, which apparently met twice a week and planned trips in and out of state to scope out locations and eventually, spelunk. In what was referred to as the school’s greatest tragedy, Vernon died one afternoon in winter trying to replace the

light bulb in his room. The way it came to be understood is that Vernon stuck his finger into the light bulb socket, but the school and the newspapers aimed to spare the public of knowing that such a brilliant and exquisite young man could die in such a shamefully stupid way.

I kind of tune out his voice and go into some kind of trancelike focus with rubbing my hands for warmth. There are never heaters on the bus, maybe some other buses in town but not the ones we get. I don’t have the energy or drive to make myself angry so I just sit weakly in the seat, stuck in some sick serenity with the sound of the engine shifting. Sometimes I think, there’s something I’m not getting, like there’s information I can’t grasp or understand, and I know it’s so simple and easy, but I feel it takes a long time or a lot of work to get to it. It’s a kind of tugging feeling, like a craving for something more. I just feel one-dimensional most days. Wasn’t this supposed to be a little easier? I know I deserve better. I deserve better than all this white noise.

I’ve been waiting painfully through the last three days for my dad to put some money in my account. The trust fund dried up years ago and we still keep a very neat arrangement as long as he continues to believe the fantasy that has me as the picture of success and the golden boy. What’s difficult for me, and an unwanted side effect of his monetary support, is the fact there’s not much more to our relationship than that. It’s just the movement of money that connects us now. Some would say that’s a perfectly normal side effect of living in capitalist America, but I can’t help but think that the old man might feel a tinge of loneliness, or that maybe he needs the vicodin I buy more than me. He had surgery on his back two years ago to correct a disc in his spine. I missed a good chunk of my senior year staying at home and tending to him. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that he had to bribe me to care for him. There’s where that benign flow of money started. I guess there is some sentiment to it. I suppose if I think hard enough I can see that he does care, and that he shows it through bank deposits.

“You ever see that movie Midnight Cowboy?” Sven says.

“No I don’t think so.”

“Well it’s kind of like how I see you and me, the two characters.”

“Yeah?”

“How do you find time to watch movies and daydream?”

“Time is just a tool man, it all depends on how you use it.”

“Who said that? Faulkner?”

“Nah, it was on an American express ad on TV.”

“I read somewhere that TV has educated more people better than the public school system.”

“How the fuck would you test that? Run a survey? ‘Excuse me son what do you prefer, going to school or watching TV?’”

“It could still be true.” I said, and I believed it. “TV makes people so dull.”

“Don’t pretend you’re better than everyone else in the country because you don’t own a TV, we all have the same problems Andrew.”

“What, did you find one of you old sociology books our something?”

“Nope, just trying to educate you a little, someone has to.”

“I’m allowed to think I’m better than people, because I know things they don’t.”

I was getting kind of angry now, I felt fiercely defensive.

“We’re college kids man, everyone already thinks that’s how we feel, and if that is how you feel, then you’re just falling in line.”

I shook my head and turned away from him. I was done and no matter how angry or frustrated I was, the fact was still that he was more knowledgeable than me, and all that did was twist my pride and ego into some vindictive silence. He’d cut me down in a few sentences, or maybe I cut myself down. He’d planted the idea in my head that I was just a stereotype of something, just a one dimensional character, like how I’d been thinking of myself lately. Nothing can hurt someone’s pride more than being told you’re just a puppet, or a cog in a machine. There’s something so fragile about the male ego, or mine at least. It’s an inner weakness that doesn’t go away, a little murmur that floats to the surface sometimes.

We walk a few blocks to some Italian restaurant Sven’s been going to since he came here. It’s technically a small town, in comparison to the city, but people don’t really like to get adventurous much, they stick to what they know, and keep to routine. I rarely come into town to eat, or buy things except groceries, and even then I go to the same store every time. Inside the place, it’s cramped and shaped like a bowling lane, long counter on one side, tables and chairs on the other. The smell from the kitchen is enough to convince you to stay though. On the counter side, on the wall there are some photos in black and white of landscapes, Italy maybe, the home country, kept and neatly framed on the wall like a shrine. Maybe it’s a gimmick though, to sell people the experience of Italy, while they eat their food. We sit in the middle of the restaurant and I inspect the menu.

“Man that smells good.” Sven says.

“Yeah, it kinda makes me wanna get high.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, when I was in high school I used to smoke a lot of weed, and when my parents were at work during the day, I’d come home, smoke up, and then make ravioli.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah, I guess being around Italian food it all comes back to me.”

“Like some muscle memory or something. Is that a thing?”

“I think so.”

The food comes quicker than I thought it would, pasta with meatballs the size of a baseball almost. Sven gets bolognaise and we go into that ritualistic silence that exists when the food is universally delicious.

“So are you gonna cut Tori loose? I’m starting to feel bad for the girl.”

“I know I should, but I don’t know how to. I wanna do it right you know?” I say.

“Yeah, I could always just get her alone for a little one on one time.”

“Don’t fucking do that.”

“I think I’m hearing a little bit of emotional attachment in your voice.”

He smiles this sinister grin, mouthful of pasta.

“I’m trying not to think about it too much, I think if I do I’ll end up marrying her.”

“Could be good for you.”

“How’s that”?

He plays with his food a little, poking at it with his fork.

“Might be a nice change, living a healthy married life. I could see it suiting you.”

“No way, c’mon I mean think about it; college is the best years of our lives, nothing compares to this in the long run. Why would I want to get married and be so unsatisfied and so unfulfilled? It’s pointless. The experiences we have at college are the best we’ll ever have.”

“So you’re saying that empty sex and getting fucked up all the time is some kind of enlightenment?”

“Exactly.”

Outside the restaurant there were sirens closing in and then I think I saw an ambulance go by, or maybe it was a cop car. For an impressive small scale drug trade and a lot of drunken parties, the town has a pretty small crime rate. I remember there was an article on it in the paper earlier in the year, it was a real town pride type of piece, like they were talking up a statue of the town’s founder or something. I found some irony in it and found myself feeling a little rebellious since that very day I’d just

bought an ounce of weed for a cut price. The only reason I can remember that fact is because of the weed, since I was so proud of the price I payed. I told Sven that day and we sat in his car and smoked until we could agree on what kind of food to go and buy.

He keeps pushing to go to the costume night at the bar and I’m no more up for it than I was earlier, he even tried to coerce me by picking up the bill at the Italian place. We end up just walking through town, not really going anywhere. I tell him I’ll come if he’s paying for the cab back up to college, it’ just to get him off my back, but as soon as soon as we get back I know I’m gonna have to find some place to hide so he won’t be able to find me and brainwash me into going.

On the last bus back we sit again near the middle, the same seat almost, except this time I’m nursing a case of some cheap Asian beer, courtesy of Sven. He’s never been short on cash so he’s never had reason to watch his spending, but I think he likes to feel like he needs to save like everyone else, I think it helps him feel normal in a university of middle class factory town kids. We’re still the minority and we know that. The people who grew up in town, went to the high school, still go and visit their parents for lunch or dinner, they’re a completely different species to us. We rarely mix and both parties know there’s no desire to really. To them we’re outsiders, with only the roof over our heads as our connection. They see most of us as privileged and pretentious trust fund kids. For the most part there is some truth to this stereotype, but it doesn’t really improve student relations. Then again we don’t really make a good case for our innocence when Sven is walking around the college with pills bouncing around in his pockets like quarters or with expensive liquors he shares with no one.

When we get off the bus and start walking towards the colleges we can both see the sirens flashing just around the road near the student parking lot.

“What the fuck’s happening?” I say.

“Drug bust maybe?”

“Could be.”

And we walk a little faster trying to round the corner and get to the parking lot where the sirens are lighting up the sky. I remember the ambulance shooting past when we were back in town and I think for the first time that maybe something bad has happened.

I think that after a drug bust an overdose could be more likely, everyone knows it at college, thought it’d be a shock to anyone on the outside. Top ranked liberal arts college has underground drug trade. There’d be an expose, national press, lots of cameras on campus. Right now there are two cop cars in a kind of barricade looking position in the parking lot. On the lawn a little ahead there’s an ambulance with the back doors open, a paramedic stands a little to the side having a cigarette. He has latex gloves on, is he expecting blood? There’s a small crowd being spoken to by the cops, six people holding bags of groceries and beer, just getting back like us. Nobody has come out of the building yet, so whatever knowledge of what happened in there is

staying there so far. We go up to the cops as the other people have walked away, back to their car.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Suicide.” The cop says, looking at his hands.

“Who was it?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“You guys might as well sit down and have a beer, you probably won’t be getting in there for a while.” He says.

So we do exactly that, sitting on a bench across the road from the building. We have a good view if anything happens but I’m not sure if we want a good view. There’s a kind of mourning feeling hanging over the place and us too. If it was an overdose, it’d make more sense to us, it’d be something to shake your head about and put half of the responsibility on the drugs. The external killer. But a suicide is something completely different, that’s a conscious choice to die, and everyone can only feel a little at fault or partly liable in some way.

“This is fucked up.” Sven says.

“Yeah, I wish it was something else you know, like an accident or an overdose. I know that sounds bad but, this is the worst.”

“Yeah.”

I drink from the warm beer and wait to see a gurney being wheeled out, while simultaneously feeling disgusted with myself for being such an eager spectator, I feel like I’m behind a television screen, there’s no emotional involvement in observing and watching, because it’s so easy to be a spectator, and I feel like I should be possessed with all kinds of compelling emotions and I feel like that’s the normal reaction for a human. I don’t want to be looking on and waiting to see a body or a traumatised paramedic. I want to be somewhere else, away from the overwhelming presence of death.

More people have started to stand around in the parking lot now, some on the grass on the other college, looking over, trying to clue themselves in. Then the gurney comes rolling out of the building, two paramedics on each end of it, escorting the body to the ambulance. The other paramedic who stayed outside throws away his second cigarette and gets in the driver’s seat. It’s only about ten seconds before the body is out of the public’s view and the doors are closed. Nothing tell-tale about the body except it was covered with a thin white sheet, with a protrusion of some kind at one end. The brief view of the dead body in transit to the ambulance is enough to cause a stir in the people watching in front of the police officers. They all start to pull out their phones, one by one and call someone, like a rippling effect they all start to walk around with their smart phones to their ears, it’s like they have to talk to someone, anyone, they have to say what they’ve seen and what’s happened but they can’t talk to each other

because it’s too involving, it makes it too real. To talk from behind a phone is to put up a barrier of some kind, to suspend if only for a little while the very harrowing truth that death was right here in front of everyone and it scared the shit out of us.

When the cop cars go the parking lot is drained of its sense of emergency and exhibition and everyone just splits up slowly, some go into the college building chasing the chance to find out who it was, some guys just get right back in their car and go back into town to probably drink away what they just saw and willingly took in. Sven and I just sit at the bench still, in the cold, reading the labels on our beer cans for the tenth time. Here, outside at the bench, it feels like we’re at a perfect balance. If we go inside and get out of the weather there’s no way we could avoid hearing who it was and how they did it and why, we can already tell that that’s all that anyone is talking about in there. But if we walk away or go back into town like those other guys, it would feel like a kind of retreat; like we’re running away from the reality of what’s happened, like we’re blocking it out and pretending like it never happened in the first place. And that feels like a childish response because it deserves to be acknowledged and taken seriously and given a generous amount of emotional weight.

There are no reporters yet or local news crews, maybe they’re still in the dark. It’d feel more official with them around, it’d almost feel complete. When someone’s asking you questions and there’s a camera pointed at you, you feel an obligation to be composed and thoughtful and the best version of yourself, and it creates a kind of order. I think that’s it, order.

We finally pick up our things and go inside. I’m tired of waiting and trying to delay what’s coming. In the little foyer there are two girls on the couch looking at their phones. They’re the messengers and they probably take some kind of pride in breaking the news to people. It’s like a really dark kind of gossiping in a way.

“Hey, did you guys hear?”

“Yeah.” Sven says.

“I still can’t believe it.” One says.

“Yeah, it doesn’t feel real.” I say.

“I just never thought it’d be Tori, you know.”

“Tori?” Sven asks.

“Yeah, Tori Keenan, what, you guys didn’t know?”

One of the girls leans over and whispers into the other’s ear.

“Oh god I’m so sorry” She says, looking at me.

“C’mon.” Sven says.

He leads me away, arm over my shoulder, traditional consolation gesture. I don’t know if my body language is saying something or it’s just my silence. We go to Sven’s room in the other college, there aren’t many people around, it could be that they’ve heard about what happened and are staying in town trying to put some distance between it and them. But here we are, ground zero, and it does feel weirdly like the eye of a hurricane is supposed to. It’s too calm everywhere, I feel like hysteria would make more sense, it would justify it more. In his room he sits me down on the bed, directing me in my lost state of mind. He hands me two Xanax bars and I wash them down with another beer. I sit hunched over, reading the label again and he opens up the curtains at his little prison cell window.

“That window’s smaller than mine.” I say.

“Oh yeah, I guess a good view is too distracting.”

“At least you have a view.”

He sits in his out of date desk chair and leans back.

“Hey you know what happened wasn’t your fault. No one saw this coming.”

“Yeah.”

“Keenan.” I mumble.

“What?”

“Her last name was Keenan.”

“Yeah.”

“I never knew that.”

And I laugh a little, mostly at myself and how unaware I was with her, all the time. I probably had countless opportunities to know everything about her but I shunned the idea of it away. It was too involving, too selfless for me. I always only saw myself as a character in my own story. There were no other characters, just extras, decorations for passing scenes. I thought I could live my life. I still can’t understand why this is affecting me so much, I thought I was living without any clear purpose or direction and even the fact that I’m questioning the directionless way I’ve been living is affecting me. There’s no way out of this cycle of thinking. I didn’t come to college for this.

I get up and make the decision to go back to my room for an undetermined amount of time. Now I know I’ve got to take a minute to embrace one of Sven’s philosophies and realise that from this point on I’ll mostly be concerned with keeping up appearances. The idea of keeping up appearances and maintaining order, to me, has to do with people’s inability to deal with change or any kind of upsetting alteration that might come up. It’s only a twenty-past six but I just want to crawl into bed and not hear anymore comforting, tender tones of voice and to not hear anymore developing

facts or things that I never knew about her. I started reading the book that came in the mail as a kind of escape from everything going on. It read like a ninth grader’s effort during free writing time, but it was absorbing and that’s all that mattered. I read about thirty pages; it ended up being about a society of cannibals that lived in the woods in the fifties. They lured people out of their cars on country roads and then kidnapped them, taking them into the forest to be divided into cuts of meat. There was no religion to them or deity worshipping, they just somehow all agreed to form a secret society. They end up starting to turn on each other slowly and, in secret, they start eating each other. For a few hours it took me away from the fact that in all likelihood I was the cause of a girl’s suicide, and when I remembered that, I took a sleeping pill and went to sleep. All I wanted was one night of sheltering, satisfying sleep.

In the morning I go downstairs and across the way to the coffee machine like I always do. I stand against the wall trying work out if anyone is staring at me out of the corner of my eye. Two guys walk past, backpacks on, beanies pulled down, just nameless students that make up the population. The taller of the two has a blonde ponytail coming out of the back of his beanie.

“You know she killed herself with one of those compound bows?” He says.

“No way.”

“Yeah, she was like, the captain of the archery team or something.”

“How does that even work?”

“I dunno, I heard she stood on it and it like, shot up under her chin and into her head.”

“Dude, that’s heavy.”

And they walk off and out into the cold winds, while I stay leaning on the wall, looking at the faces of every tired-eyed, impassive college kid going by.

Dude, that’s heavy.