A wave of relief hits me so hard that I’m fighting back tears when I realize that there is a seat for me at the lunch table. I make my way to the table, careful to not seem over anxious, shrug my backpack off, slouch into my chair, and offer my friends a disinterested nod. After ensuring my aloofness, I take two deep breaths, and for the next twenty minutes, am all smiles…
The usual people are there: Dan Reiter, Nikki Strobel, Brad Renfro, Megan Helmey, Matt Lyke, Kirsten Dunst, Jason Pierce, Anna Begins, a late Marisa Pantene Pro-V and Lindsey Mycha… It’s the who’s-who of Texas State CRU and people crowd around, trying to hear what we’re saying. Other students, who couldn’t even get in because of the surging crowd, stand outside pressing their faces onto the glass, their envious eyes like dinner plates, stone-armed and freezing. Paparazzi line the steaming sidewalks, clicking off pictures and viciously elbowing for position…
The usual topics are discussed: coked-out Professors claiming people come from stars, the appropriate consistency of gravy, sexual position billboards in the dorms, Saturday night bed times, high-school lunch room politics. Each topic surfaces briefly, a joke is made, we share self-congratulatory nods and smile widely at each other, and finally it slips away, making way for the new. It’s like a disjointed Seinfeld episode but we’ve all lost our scripts and can’t hit our cues…
I’m trying my best to look demure, but someone ends up asking me if I have something in my eye. I look down at my sandwich and consider feeding it to the stray cats who live outside my house; this thought continues for nearly five minutes. Inspiration strikes and I seriously consider pitching my newest idea for a movie trilogy, centering around a cosmopolite Octopus who stalks para-sailers off the Florida Keys. The films would be called, respectively:
1) Shhhh!!! The Octopus is Coming
2) The Fashionably Late Revenge of the Octopus
3) Get Me Away From That Damn Octopus!
This whole time I’m nodding rapidly and have failed to realize no one is even talking anymore. Nikki puts her hand on my shoulder, consolingly, and asks if I’m “generally okay.” I smile, swallowing tears, and casually say, “I thought I heard voices man. I thought I heard voices.”
7 comments:
My favorite ones are back! See ya at the den!
Are you okay?
Michael, you take creative writing to a whole new level. Keep it going.
Dan is right.. You cross the line daily and that's why I keep on coming back. I really need to come to the den more often to see this.
Yeah, I think I'm doing okay. And Dan, you got it... It's only going to get worse from here. Good news for all.
Be careful with Nikki's touching. Touching leads to spooning and spooning leads to forking.
What in the world?? Spooning and forking? I only spoon with Megan and forking, well, that's strictly off limits.
And yeah Marisa, you're so right. One day we might have a regular, semi-successful (socially speaking) encounter. It will be a sad day and tears WILL be shed. Until then I'll run like an antelope when I see ya.
M
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