Poetry Jumble
Outside the wind is howling, an ominous, lupine sound. Snow is quickly accumulating on the glass roof above you, and it’s making the light even stranger than usual. It feels like you’re underwater – but at least the water is blessedly warm.
You zone out, staring at the plants surviving in this island of warmth despite the weather outside. How do people do it? How do they just keep going forward in this environment?
Suspended above you, overlooking the courtyard, is a balcony. You came here to try and get warm, but you can’t stop shivering. How many places are there on this campus where someone could be watching you without you noticing? How often do you go about your day so vulnerable, so exposed?
You need to get underground, where there are less windows and balconies, where no one can see you. You leave the courtyard, go downstairs until you can’t go downstairs anymore, and then – through the tunnels. Sound acts strange down here: echoes around corners, reflecting and deadening in turns. You can hear your own heavy breathing, the pound of your heartbeat.
And then, underground, you find an unexpected oasis, so sudden and incongruous with your mood that you wonder if you are dreaming: a diner. You buy another cup of coffee – your blood these days must be half coffee, maybe that’s why you can’t stop shaking – and then sit down in the corner with your back to the wall so you can see everyone coming and going. No one can sneak up on you here.
As you sip your coffee, you nervously bump your foot against the little table again and again, watching the ripples form on the surface of the dark liquid. When is he going to move next? When will he tell you what he wants from you?
You sit for hours, your coffee going cold. Outside, the wind continues to howl, and the snow falls in deep drifts. Eventually, the diner closes, and people slip away until you’re the only one left sitting alone. Finally, body stiff and sore, you get up to leave. As you do, you notice that someone has left behind a textbook on one of the tables. On the cover, an enormous painted hand hovers ominously over a globe. The Norton Anthology of English, Volume B.
You look at it warily, like you would a wild animal you encountered while walking in the woods. What if it’s a message from him? But on the other hand – it looks expensive, and god knows English majors aren’t on track to make enough money to replace their textbooks all the time. You pick it up, intending to take it to the lost-and-found, and a scrap of paper flutters out. Instinctively, you leap backward as if it has bit you.
Stupid. It’s just a poem. Isn’t it?