VIII

You are a mathematician. At least, that is what logic tells you is the only viable reason for which you shouldn't do your algebra homework, and you don't have it. But the realization of your pent-up arithmetic genius does nothing to vitalize the morning. Cynically, you open your notebook, purple with MUSIC THEOR Y scribbled across its face, and scratch in dull pencil the equation asked of you and your classmates.

y = ^[(x * x) - 16]

It's a hyperbole. You know this because you are a mathematician. You know all things that are math; an omnipotent being in a world of numbers. A term of the same name comes to mind, from eight grade English class. A word that means "to inflate or exaggerate." You wonder why a true mathematician would use such a word, when clearly the only inflating going on is that of the graph's importance.

You awaken, rather abruptly, to "algebra aerobics."

Hell no.

As you slump, forehead to desk, the twenty-one students who are not you bounce in place, jumping jacks, lifting and letting fall their arms with flailing miscalculation, attempting to demonstrate and memorize the characteristics of positive and negative coefficients, alternately.

You leave. You're always leaving. Last night at jonathan's, the night before that at webster, a week ago at Starbucks, before that, the girl. Every time inside and outside your collective memory you are leaving some place. Not once have you been headed somewhere for some purpose other than to not be somewhere else.

Reflecting with disdain on this rather depressing fact, you push open a door to the outside, and wonder where to spend the hour before your next class.

VII

You have to go.  You don't know where.  Anywhere but here, you suppose.  Its wrong.  What is, exactly, you aren't sure, but its wrong.  You haven't been here in over two weeks.  At least, not since the last attack, and you can't stand it.  The purple hooded sweatshirt, Rocky Horror, the girl who now rests her head on another, the whispers, the guffaws, the hair cuts, the lofted beds, the television, sitting indian-style on the sweating tile floor, the heat, the presence, the grinding of teeth, its intense.  It shouldn't be, you think.  Is not normal to feel this way, you think. Thy are going to come looking for you, you think.  Regardless, it is time to leave.  Battling your own sense, your legs, in their torn jeans, lift you involuntarily, and your ankles and feet, in their scuffed black boots, bring you to the door.  You turn, mouth gaping, a portal, an absence of sound; your mind shuts down, unconsciously, you exit.  The room lengthens.  You spread your legs to accomodate the expanding linolium, and with a motion unfamiliarly fluid, you disappear. 

No longer existing in the uncomfortable silence of a television set, the hallway slides into focus.  The cream colored walls breathe hard in your presence, rising and falling, constricting and expanding with your own breath.  You feel your way along them to the common room.  The Lounge, they call it, and its a good thing, since that's exactly what you need.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

Don't pass out.

You feel light, tired, it is hot.  Breathing is a task, and the air is thin.  For a moment, you consider outside, but the ground is cold with last night's ice, and you left your coat and shoes inside with your silent friends.  Are they friends?  You believe you consider them as such, but it appears that your body, which carried you out to this ugly, lonely couch, may feel differently.  Someone down the hall is listening to "Such Great Heights."

Why haven't they come looking?  

VI

The girl's friend is here. Well, more ex-boyfriend than friend, since you haven't been aware of any communication between them for some time. At present, you staring, without real purpose, at a pair of faces painted on the wall above and behind you; your head is tilted back to such a degree, you believe that any passerby would not be able to distinguish the features of your own. The figures on the wall, a plane now horizontal to your line of sight, are malformed. This is not the artistic kind of malformity, but the kind immediately noted as a downfall of its creator, much like the sight of a physically disabled person or animal. Boring of this stressful new vantage, you rest your head back upon its shoulders, and survey your current setting. The place is not unfamiliar. Its Starbucks without armchairs. Between this and the girl's ex-boyfriend's presence, you won't be returning. But you aren't leaving just yet.

"After all," you think, "I just paid two fucking dollars for this coffee."

V

You are dreaming. You know you are dreaming because you've never met these people before, and they appear to know you very well. Glancing around, quickly to regain your bearings, you seem to be in an office building of sorts. Cubicles are scattered in disorderly, random intervals throughout the room, the dingy, gray carpet reeks of the sterile scent of professionalism. There are no walls to seperate this room from any other. It appears that you could walk directly into the open air of this new world, but refrain from doing so. You are being watched by every soul in this strange room, a dozen of them at least. Are you supposed to say soemthing? As if to answer, the room turns away and conversates among itself. The people you don't know speak calmly to one another.

At this exact moment, a television screen above the desk you didn't realize you were even sitting at flickers and comes to life. The newscaster speaks in tongues you do not understand about a scuffle apparent in the background montage. You turn toward the non-existant windows, doubletake, back to the screen, then back outside, with amazement. The world you've become apart of mimics with incredible accuracy the images of war behind the newsman, but this doesn't seem to bother anyone but you.

You are thirsty. Ignoring the outside scenery for the moment, you make your way across the room in which the cubicles have disapeared, to a water cooler in the corner. On your journey, you are stopped by a woman of about thirty.

"Tell me something." She demands. You don't know what to tell the woman, and say nothing. "Is something the matter?"

At the utterance of her question, a spew of words find their way out of your mouth and onto the floor in front of you. The woman stares, as you reach down at your knees to sort out the mess, and find what you intended to say. Evidently something about the apparent certainty of your death in the war waging on outside. She stares apprehensibly through her glasses, and with an outstretched hand, invites you through the wall with her.

Stepping into the heat, you awaken on the couch, the tastelessness of water still on your lips. A look at the clock (it reads 9:18, but its broken. Why did you even look?) a resituation, a gathering of covers gone astray, a muttered "What the hell?" and you're back asleep, hopefully through the morning.

II

The ride home is a dreary one. It is raining, though not quite pouring, and for it being two o'clock in the morning, the road between your house and hers is suprisingly busy. Usually a ride like this is theraputic, but tonight it is cold. You long to be back in the girl's room, between her and the sheets. It's warm there. For a moment you consider turning back. “That would be creepy.” you say allowed, aware that no one in their cars can hear you speak. It would be just that easy though, you think. Turn around an pedal in the opposite direction. Reflecting on this fact a list begins in your head of similar instances:

Turning into oncoming traffic.
Hugging complete strangers.
Throwing yourself out a window.
Tearing pages out of a textbook.
Walking out in the middle of class.
Punching a friend in the neck (you chuckle aloud at the thought.)
Cutting in line. (any line)
Leaving and never coming home.

The final thought sicks in your mind, as it is not the first time the idea has crossed it. The only effort it would take is that to physically pack and leave. But as is the nature of each item on your list, the thought is quickly dismissed. You couldn't do that to your family, your friends, the girl. You suspect that they are the reason behind every occurrence such as this.

Upon arriving home, you pick up your bike, a simple, somehow glamorous machine of vibrant orange and cream, and drag it up the six steps to the back porch. A primitive structure, tacked to the back of the house by your father, a forty-something military man. Through the double doors (which connect the porch to the house) and up the stairs, you find yourself in your own room, debate whether to turn on the lights for a moment, decline, and continue to the sofa on the far side. A faint outline can be made out of the rooms furnishings, but even this seems unneccesary as it is so familiarly laid out. Much more so than the girl's room, you are again reminded of another place. This time a little more clear, but no more distinct. This deja vu is getting strange. Finally settled on the sofa, sleep takes hold and your familiar surroundings sink with you. You hardly ever sleep in your bed anymore.

I

This is not your bed. In fact, you are not in a room that you frequent. A wonderment of why this should be the case crosses your mind and quickly finds its out, sinking deep into the thick comforters and a mattress atop two others, crooked against the wall to your left, her right. It's peculiar, this kind of comfort, you think. The kind that is both claustrophobic and forgiving, which conjures memories of another place, vaguely similar to this one, though you don't remember actually ever being there at all. The word "homely" comes to mind, and is cast aside, as you know it isn't the correct one to describe the place.

Not entirely foreign to the present scenery, you adjust your body in such a way as to maximize your view of the books on their shelf, english standards you decide, the albums in their sleeves, and the flowers in their vases, as your company (to whom this domain belongs) dances around mounds of fabric on the floor. Your aren't paying attention to what the thin girl has to say, but you don't feel guilty, since she is clever enough to know this and perhaps chooses to continue regardless. For minutes, she goes on in this fashion, seldom standing in one place, seldom even glancing in your direction.

Then there is a presence behind you, in the bed that is not your bed, in the room that is not your room. Turning to face it, you wonder when she stopped talking. Since you haven't said more than "mhm" for over an hour, the flowers had caught your attention longer than they normally would have, but the girl appears content, and apologetically informs you that it's come time to leave. At the door, "I'll call you tomorrow" surfaces behind your tongue, but gives way to a simple "Later, man." Best to play it safe, you think, and on the way home reflect on your use of the article "man." You've never said that before in your life.