“All pleasures and all pains, remembering the bough of summer and the winter branch”
-Sunday Morning, Wallace Stevens
It doesn’t take a full two weeks for me to get into the Cambridge, Massachusetts rhythm. Soon enough, my two first friends at the University collide, producing constructive results. Elisa develops, and clings firm to, the idea that Andrew must not have a soul as a trade off for his vibrant ruddiness. Still, I can tell that they get along just fine. My mother thinks it’s healthy for me to spend so much time with extroverts.
“It’s good for your qi1,” I remember she insisted one night over the phone. “Your friends have heat and you have ice. It creates balance.”
I rarely understand the things she says. What matters is that I’m happy at the University, and school doesn’t even start until the day after tomorrow. It already feels like a home away from home. Elisa has her fun dragging me on late night excursions to new dessert places and bars all over the place, provided that the music is played at a civilized volume. She sometimes invites Andrew on a whim, and sometimes he joins. He doesn’t really understand why I hate loud noises and bright lights, but he respects my fastidiousness nonetheless.
It’s Saturday night. Thanks to Andrew’s flat screen, I’m able to put on the Saturday Night Life as he showers. The shortest he’s taken is twenty-four minutes and change, so I should have enough time. Regardless, Andrew doesn’t seem to mind the things I put on the television, as he’s always engrossed in watching and/or listening to something on his computer.
When he walks out of the bathroom, his curls seemingly tamed by the shower water, he goes not to his computer but to a hefty-looking textbook of some sorts with some confusing array design on the cover. He doesn’t open it, instead sitting legs crossed and brow furrowed on his bed.
“This seems wrong,” I note perplexedly. “No headphones? No computer? What troubles must be on your mind tonight?”
A smile flickers briefly on Andrew’s face as he rolls his eyes and, reaching over to set his textbook on his desk, turns onto his side and buries himself beneath his covers.
“Some people are just so touchy,” I mock.
Andrew’s muffled voice retorts, “I’ll deal with you in the morning.”
Little does he know, I have no plans of sleeping. With the first day fast approaching, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Out of respect for my afflicted roommate, though, I decide to channel my eagerness into finishing A Passage to India. Equipped with my annotating materials and my phone’s flashlight, I’m able to fill all ten-or-so hours that Andrew spends asleep analyzing the novel.
Just as my highlighter leaves the final “T” in the mysterious “No, not yet,” I hear the poorly articulated question, “Night owl or early bird?”
I look up from the book for the first time in ten hours, replying, “That’s a very interesting question. If I stayed up past my bedtime until the early hours, would that be staying up late? Or maybe, since I’ve been up since first light, I’m awake early. Thoughts?”
Andrew sighs, “It’s not even 8:30. Give me a break.”
“‘In contentment I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss,’” I recite. “That’s Wallace Stevens. ‘Sunday Morning.’ Great poem. You know, we should go out and enjoy the fresh Sunday air. I bet it’d be nice to sit down at a restaurant somewhere, maybe take Elisa, hmm?”
Andrew grunts and trudges his way to the bathroom.
At first, I take his morning grumpiness as a “no.” However, my suspicions are dashed when my roommate steps out of the bathroom cleanly dressed and de-tangled. His shock of red curls still points in every which way, but he seems to have brightened up within the last few minutes. His white jacket and light-blue shirt make him look like a cross between a mariner and a high-school heartthrob, and his crisp white pants accentuate the seaside vibe. Internally, I question his choice to wear two layers considering that it’s still warm out, but I let it be. Far be it from me to ruin a perfectly good outfit.
“Hurry up, then, I’m hungry,” Andrew beams.
Though I’m loath to part with my book, my stomach is giving me urgent messages, so I follow suit and decide to change into something nice. After a moment of deliberation, I settle on a pair of white shorts at the bottom of my pants drawer, a light gray t-shirt with small words reading “Radiate Positivity” below the collar, and a cream-colored button up shirt that I leave unbuttoned for the aesthetic.
Andrew insists on leaving Elisa behind and having a guys-only outing. I’m reluctant, but I allow it to sate my roommate just once before school starts. Finding a new breakfast place to call our own is a pain in the neck without Elisa’s internet savvy, but before as we’re walking along the strand by the University, we stumble upon a cozy cafe with muted white walls adorned with lively graffiti of all sorts. It isn’t orthodox, but it doesn’t assault my eyes, so we give it a try.
We are pleasantly surprised. The food is just so-so, but the chai latte2 that I order tentatively is brewed to perfection. I make a mental note to come back several times throughout the school year.
“So, are you ready?” I hear Andrew ask as I’m staring at some fixed point on the horizon. The breeze brushes my face as I turn to face him.
“I’m going to need you to be more specific,” I prod, though I already know what he’s about to say.
“For tomorrow,” Andrew clarifies.
I can’t say “yes” quick enough. The feeling is unexpected, but I somehow have an assurance that good things will happen tomorrow. I tend to trust my instincts.
“You seem… less than elated, though,” I note.
Andrew raises an eyebrow, deadpanning, “Gee, thanks.”
“Sorry. Was that the wrong thing to say?” I ask sheepishly.
“I’m just teasing,” Andrew rushes to reassure me. “You’re right, though. I always get jitters before the first day of school. A lot of kids from my high school stayed in Pennsylvania for college. Plus, I’m not close to any of my former classmates who came here. I guess I like the independence, but I can’t help feeling nervous, you know?”
“Well, knowing you…” I start, but I end up correcting myself. “I mean, I don’t know you that well yet. But from what I’ve witnessed, I’d be inclined to predict a good start for you. Just loosen up a bit. Learning is supposed to be fun.”
“Right,” Andrew snorts, the corners of his lips shooting upwards. “But thanks, man.”
I nod and take a long look into the distance before flagging down our waiter for the check. I can’t help adopting a sliver of my roommate’s first-day anxiety, but it vanishes when we return to our room.
To make a long story short, we enjoy ourselves enough to make us both exhausted and very, very full by the time we return to the dorms.
“You know, it just struck me that we won’t have another day like this until Thanksgiving break,” Andrew deduces. “That’s kind of depressing to think about.”
“Just occupy your thoughts with how exhilarating the concept of tomorrow is. I mean, do you realize how close we are to having one foot in the door to a world of knowledge? I feel enlightened already!” I reply blissfully.
Andrew sighs happily as he brings his pajamas into the bathroom. As he closes the door, I hear him deadpan, “Man, what a nerd you are.”
Right as he steps in, the sunlight reflects off of my wall trinkets, illuminating the entryway. The day is drawing to a close. When the sun rises tomorrow morning, the college cycle will have begun. Tonight’s evening glimmers make me think of the ocean and how the sunlight bounces off the water like a glare on a knife’s blade. Later, as the shower’s spray hammers my back, I feel an ecstatic sense of renewal. Perhaps it’s just zeroth-day jitters making me loopy, but even as the blow-dryer expels the droplets of water from my wildly tangled hair, I can feel life’s current urging me forward. It takes a while, but when my eyes do close for the night, a blanket of self-assurance and comfort envelops me and shuttles me to sweet dreams.
Euphoria wakes me before my alarm gets the opportunity. My first class is Statistics, where I’ll be seeing Elisa. I have just under an hour and a half to get ready if I expect to be five minutes early to the class, which normally begins at 8 A.M. In other words, I can take my time freshening up before the day officially starts.
I wash my hair first thing and spend way too long staring at my clothes drawer in an early-morning daze. Eventually, the cogwheels in my head start spontaneously turning, and I quickly shed my nightwear in favor of a simple black t-shirt that hugs my shoulders—but not too tightly—and a pair of loose gray pants. I tie a thin jacket around my waist just in case I need it and dash out of the door to grab something to drink.
From one of the cafes clumped around the Rotunda, I grab a quick iced mocha, something I’ve never tried and something I finish long before I return to the dorm to wait for Elisa to be ready.
I stare at the text she sent me as I was in line.
Don’t leave without me! 0:, it reads.
I reluctantly speed walk back to our dorms. My right leg can’t help but shake violently as the caffeine courses through my digestive tract.3 Elisa finally saunters leisurely down the dorm stairs at 7:48 A.M.
I spring up from my seat, to which Elisa snorts and inquires mockingly, “Who spiked your coffee this morning?”
“With urgency, please,” I deadpan as I speed-walk out of our dorm towards Statistics in the newly-developed Bardin Center. We arrive a little less than five minutes early, but we find that only we and another member of our class of about thirty has arrived. This is the largest class on the roster for both me and Elisa, yet the bright and pleasingly Modernist lecture hall has a very quaint feel.
Settling down in the second row from the front, we watch as our professor, a small and hasty woman named Dr. Suzuki, meticulously charts tables of numbers on an electronic whiteboard at the front of the classroom. Once the bell rings, she turns around swiftly and in a robotic manner, introducing herself to us with a cheery smile. She breezes through the syllabus, throwing what seems like two hundred-some words per minute before she power-walks back to the board.
A very efficient hour and a half passes in a flash. The five-and-a-half hour break that comes afterwards is much appreciated, especially considering the fact that Dr. Suzuki has assigned heaps of first-day homework.
Elisa starts both of her classes (barely) before I start my second, meaning that I’m left deserted for a good chunk after we grab lunch, but I occupy my time well, so the hours fly by. Class two is Introduction to American Literature, followed by a rudimentary Advanced Composition class.
About fifteen minutes before three o’clock, I rush to Intro to American Lit with bated breath. Out of listless curiosity, I did some beforehand extensive research on the class’ professor: the apparently locally famed Dr. Callahan Quin.
From less than an hour of Google searches, I had already learned plenty about Dr. Quin. At only 35 years old, not long after acquiring his PhD, he published a wildly successful collection of critiques on American poets, The Ticking of Eternity4. Not a month passed before it headlined, and critics loved it so much that they compared it to such literary giants as Harold Bloom and Cleanth Brooks5. It goes without saying that hiring him a couple years back was a win for the University.
All things considered, I remember being a little puzzled when I saw that his class was pretty remote relative to the rest of the campus. Nevertheless, this side of the University is sweeping, rustically beautiful, and intensely Georgian. I quickly find, upon observation, that the classrooms inside look just as cozy as the hall’s outside feels.
I am the second person to arrive at Dr. Quin’s classroom after the professor himself, a charming little space with a long, mahogany-colored table spanning the middle. I take a seat at the median with my back to the window, organizing my things in front of me at perfect perpendicular angles.
“That looks like a couple more books than a freshman should be carrying around with them,” Dr. Quin notes astutely, scrutinizing my open bag. “So, what are you reading?”
I glance sheepishly at the leisure novels I’ve brought with me, mostly just to know that they’re there but also for time-filling just in case I have free time.
“Uh, A Passage to India, sir,” I stammer.
A couple of students enter the classroom. A strange yet seemingly inquisitive look plastered on his face, Dr. Quin notes, “Forster, hmm? Good man.”
I nod. I can’t quite place whether or not the professor has started forming judgments, and the enigmatic expression he wears puzzles me further.
“Not a talker, I suppose,” he hums. “We’ll fix that by the end of the semester.”
My face warms.
As the time on the classroom clock approaches exactly three, the long table becomes host to a cluster of anxious-looking freshmen, no more than twenty in number. The clock ticks right to three, and I survey what seems like the final roster. And yet, someone walking through the door catches my eye unexpectedly.
A straggler. A flash of gold, underlain with bursts of ash. A glimmer—two blue opals darting across the room. Ambitious. Long strides, confident and precise.
I’ve no clue why this ordinary boy catches my attention. Luckily, I don’t have to waste time pondering, as Dr. Quin starts his spiel right as the Boy takes a seat directly to my right.
Quin begins by introducing himself and gives us a general run-down of how the class is going to be.
“I’m going to go ahead and mark the Indigenous Oral Traditions reading as ‘Recommended Reading’ on the class page, but I wouldn’t even recommend reading it,” he announces, very blase. He makes a few soft clicks on his computer’s track pad and brightens up. “But that means the next thing on the list is Bradstreet! Aren’t you all so lucky? Before Wednesday, you should read ‘Prologue’ and ‘The Assyrian’ from ‘The Four Monarchies’ up until the end of ‘Sardanapalus.’”
He continues, pacing a bit, “You should write some simple analyses and annotations on both, since discussion will commence on Wednesday. And please, do use Google and other resources at your disposal. I don’t want any super far-fetched comments on how The Tenth Muse6 foreshadows the total takeover of artificial intelligence. Unless, of course, you can argue the entire hour and impress me. My advice is, just don’t.”
I can already tell that my classmates have developed a liking for Dr. Quin. Considering that a couple of involuntary smiles have passed across my face, I’m positive that I’ll rather like this class.
Dr. Quin’s upbeat tone as he gives us some background on colonial poetry keeps me hooked. Before I know it, my classmates are already walking out the door. It feels like I’ve jumped from one hour to another. I don’t hate the feeling.
As I’m arranging my things to be packed up, I hear a suave yet sincere voice from my right drawl, “Your handwriting looks really nice.”
It’s the Boy. He examines the scribbles I’ve jotted down from Dr. Quin’s rants then looks up at me and folds his lips into a neat, polite little smile.
His words bounce around a bit in my head, and before I have the opportunity to thank him for the compliment, he ambles out of the room. Something about what he just said hooks onto my brain fiber, but I pass it off. I thank Dr. Quin briefly and hurry off to my third and final class of the day.
I doesn’t get too late before I don’t have anything to do. Elisa and I exchange a couple of texts about our Statistics work, but nothing my teachers have given me today proves too challenging. I’m able to go to shower and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Yet, when I climb into bed, I can’t seem to keep my eyes closed for very long. I spend what seems like an eternity tossing around, trying to find a good enough position for my brain to decide that it’s finally time to get some sleep. Tragically, though, no arrangement no matter how comfortable seems to put me to sleep.
Is there something that I’ve left unfinished? I start to wonder, my heartbeat picking up. Is this my mind’s way of telling me that I forgot something? I’m not worried or scared about anything. At least, I don’t think I am. What’s bothering me?
Suddenly, I hear an echo in my head start to get louder. It’s a voice, but it’s not mine. It’s the Boy’s, the one sentence he uttered.
…looks really nice.
I can’t stand how much my brain fixates on it. The sight of his eyes flashes across my psyche. I think of their turquoise gleam, the way the sunlight from behind me reflected perfectly off of them. I think of the strands of taupe peeking out from under his spikes of gold. The Boy’s voice runs over my mind like velvet. As soon as it ends, it repeats.
I can’t stand it.
I feel around for my phone on the nightstand, grab it, open Elisa’s messages, and press “Call.”
- A classic Chinese concept of the energy within us all. Some refer to it as an innate wind or air pressure that is contained within us—it can be hot or it can be cold, and we must surround ourselves with certain conditions in order to balance out our qi ↩︎
- From the Author: “NOT chai tea latte coffee beverage drink.” ↩︎
- A bad habit of the author’s. ↩︎
- Derived from “Renascence,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. ↩︎
- Cleanth Brooks published an influential collection of essays on poetry in 1947, titled The Well Wrought Urn. It explores a plethora of poetic geniuses, including the likes of T. S. Eliot and William Wordsworth. ↩︎
- Anne Bradstreet’s major anthology, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was read widely in the early Colonies. ↩︎
Above painting: The Geographer by Johannes Vermeer