November Drivels

I leave the room full of laughter and silly ideas that bubble from lips, breath sweet from their strawberry smoothies, and enter the solitude of the hallway. The lights seem dimmer than those in the rooms here in this modern dorm room, spaced out more friendly-like on the eyes that they burden. I keep my eyes to the tiled floor that makes up the floor of the entire building except for the lobby and stairs. As I pass doors, I listen, behind every door a new but similiar sound. Some doors hold silence, some doors how laughter like that which I just left but different - not the same at all. Forced laughter, natural laughter, from the belly laughter that makes your eyes tear up... I hear them all as I pass these doors, so similar, only the number changes. True, the door itself may have a poster or left over Halloween decorations but it's still just the gateway into someone else's world.

I hear doors that are filled with silence, not even the rustle of clothing and it's loud. Never has lack of presence been so disturbing as in this bustling bee-hive of a college dorm. Flyers grace every bulletin board available, movies blare from phantom tvs that are understood to be behind the doors but none of them catch your attention like that silence. Sometimes it makes me want to place my hand against the door as if somehow I'll be able to feel a pulse and the silence will lessen instead of deafen. Instead I just keep placing one foot in front of the other, passing another door and then another, music loud and making the door vibrate in it's frame, an instrument strummed lightly and sweetly and then the riotous yells and slams as a game goes on - inside the room or on a screen is hard to tell sometimes. Sometimes I fear the sounds I hear, sometimes I wish I could quietly knock on the door and asked to be let in but all the time I keep walking. I keep moving.

I feel like Alice going down the rabbit hole, strange objects floating beside me as I make it to a stairwell and start to make my dizzying descend. Even the stairwell doors have their own feel in this building. Some ring out and come to a sudden stop as yelling, cat calls and obscenities volley back and forth as a few guys thunder down the stairs past me, making me cringe against the railing for a moment, fearing their wildly swinging arms and legs. Some click quietly as someone slips from one floor to the next, eyes turned upwards and steps measured and controlled. Sometimes its a combination, sometimes you have to slide past the guy caring his bicycle or hold open the door for someone with a basket precariously balanced in her grip. If these stairwells could tell stories, I'm almost afraid to ask what kind of stories they would tell.
My descend is ended as I come to the first floor indoor bike rack, for lack of a better term - it is merely a straight set of bars in the same style as the railing for the stairs, mostly meant to deter students from playing under the stair cases, but it has been utilized as a place to lock bikes to inside of the facility.

I make my way to my room and here I am still, in my chair with what makes my roommate cringe but makes the chaotic side of me very pleased. Empty bottles on the desk, dirty dishes beside the sink, folded and clean clothes in a basket, not hung up yet, yesterday's newspaper and today's laying, unopened, on my desk. Movies, make-up, needed texts for my classes along with print offs, notebooks, and such - not to mention the food. Cookies, the Kroger equivalent to Oreos, a box of Chef Boyardee cups. Even an unopened grape soda can. She cringes when she sees my side of the room, carefully keeps her eyes averted when she's on her side of her room, where everything is neat and has it's place. Dishes never sit, she takes a shower every night, and would never think of wearing the same jeans twice in a row. Something about her discomfort pleases me. Just like handing a bag of pennies to the annoying RAs that come and knock on my door in hopes of collecting the dollar that I owe them for letting me into my room to get my ID that lets me into the cafeteria, my building, and my room pleased me greatly.

Ah well. Therapy is doing wonders for my writing at least.