cakewalk

A shrill beep summons me from, well, not sleep, but from the dull stupor befalling one about to sleep. As I reach for my pajamas (toasty from the laundry), there is a flashing white light out of the corner of my eye. The sound does not bother me as much as this pulsating light. ‘And now I find out that I’m eptileptic,’ I bemoan. The beeping light continues. “Woh! Woh! Woh!” I noticably flinch every time. And then, I spy the source, hanging just inside the bathroom door, a red box. A red box with the word “FIRE” neatly printed in white.”You have got to be kidding me,” I say, staring at the box and trying to will it out of existence. “It’s…” I look at the clock. “It’s a quarter to eleven!”

My door is propped open and I can see everyone beginning to walk past, towards the emergency exits.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I say again.

My first instinct is to cover my laptop with a pillow to protect it from the sprinkler five feet away and then I look around. Where the hell are my shoes? I’m not going outside without shoes. I get one foot in and someone gives me an odd look. ‘Fine!’ I think. ‘Is this weird? Fine!’ I tear off the first shoe and stand up. I hear a voice down the hall: “If this were a fire, you’d all be dead by now.”

I stop.

This is a drill?

I look back at my shoes. I look back at the clock. I am barely coherent as it is.

I walk down the hall in my socks. I walk down the emergency stairs in my socks. I walk down the sidewalk in my socks.

“Everyone needs to get on the grass!” an R.A. orders, motioning his hands as if to push us all back at once. “Come on now!” He almost knocks me over.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter, taking off aforementioned socks. The grass is cold and wet, just like grass at 11:00pm should be.

“It will protect us from the fire!” a friend proclaims.

“It had better,” I say. “Because if I get sick out here, I’m going to kick their asses.”

The entire building is standing on the grass now. I have lost the feeling in my toes. And I am not enjoying the knowledge that my door is still wide open and I have a fortune in technology, games, and books in there.

Fifteen minutes later, “All right! Good job, everybody!”

What? I thought we were dead.

I cannot for the life of me pronounce the word “hajimemashite” without stumbling over the first three sylabols.

“Ha-gee-may…Ha..Ha-gee-may..maash-tay,” I mumble. “Leh-muh…key dess.”

In essence, I’m introducing myself. “Yo!” I’m saying. “Name’s Lemke. James Lemke.”

Except, if someone came up to me and said “yo” I think I would spit on them. Just because, well, that word is aggravating.

Of course, I’m God, so I can say it all the time.

I stare at my Hiragana practice sheet for “a”, “i”, “u”, “e”, and “o”. I pick up my pencil; it hovers a few inches from the paper. Hesitantly, I lower the lead to the surface. It snaps.

Fuck.

Okay, maybe I’m a little tense… Let’s try this again:

I successfully sketch the first line.

SNAP.

…

“Dude, you want me to kick your ass?” As if I ever carry through on that threat.

“Yes,” it replies. “Just you try: kick my shiny, pointy lead ass!” Indeed, inanimate objects are real snobs.

I throw it at the sterile, white wall on my left. It bounces and stabs me in the arm. Rolling, it falls onto a pillow and glares up at me.

Oh, it definitely needs to die.

“Just you wait,” I tell it. “There once was a bonsai tree that tried to kill itself. So I lit it on fire. You have done me actual physical harm. Just wait and see.”

It seems not to hear me, and then, “Crap.” Good, it understands.

I am sitting on my bed, cross-legged, laptop between my knees, and the cat beside me. I am listening to that Halifax cd I got yesterday; it isn’t very good. My bedroom floor is aflood with plastic bags, papers, books, clothing, and boxes. In 24 hours, I realize, I will not be here anymore. In 24 hours, my room will no longer be my room and I will be sitting on a new bed, raised high off the ground so that I can fit a dresser and small bookcase beneath it. My laptop will have a cable lock, and my cat will be a photograph on my bedstand. Instead of looking out a basement window at a carport and a propane tank, I will stare down three stories at a dusty campus.

I am crying because the thing I will miss most is this room.

It will not miss my family or friends or cat as much as I miss this place. I will not miss opportunities I didn’t seize, chances I didn’t take. Instead, I will miss the hours I spent in this room, through five years of depression and happiness. I will miss the days of hunting for that one poster, for that one calendar. I will miss watching my pile of cds and dvds climb.

I am material. So these things are important to me.

My relief was enormous when I called my roommate yesterday, because there is a chance of having a single room now. I won’t have to sacrifice all of it too quickly. But I’m also angry. I’m fucking furious! I wanted a roommate so that I would have to make choices. So that I would have to limit my possessions.

I have been trying to reach Kimberly for three weeks. I’ve called a dozen times and left four messages. Finally, I make my last ditch effort to contact her. The phone rings twice.

“Hello?”

Oh crap. It’s actually…a person. What do I do?

“Um, er. May I please speak to Kimberly?”

“She’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”

“This is Alisa. I’ve been trying to reach her for a while. I’m her CSUMB roommate.”

“Oh… She’s not going to Cal State anymore.”

…I beg your pardon?

“She’s actually already at her new college.” I don’t catch the name. This woman is a mumbler.

“Okay…”

“Sorry for the confusion. But maybe you’ll get a single room!”

“Yeah. Well, thanks.”

“Yeah. Well, bye!”

Click. It was all too cheery.

I look at the phone in my hand. I look out the window. I look back at the phone. The thing seems vile to me now.

“What did she say?” my best friend asks from the front seat.

“She’s not going to CSUMB. She’s already at her other college…something that starts with a ‘P’. Um, yeah. …Yeah.”

The drive continues. But. Dude. I’m kind of frazzled.

An hour passes. We are walking into the mall.

“I can’t believe she’s not going to CSUMB,” I blurt. “Can you believe it? I can’t believe it.”

It has been two years since my last dentist appointment. Two years. Typically, this would be due to my neglectful spirit, but that is not the answer this time. You see, they just didn’t send me the usual happy postcard a year ago, stating, “Alisa! You’re freakin’ awesome! You need to come see us, so we can fill your awesome cavaties with awesome filling goo.”

So, I step into the dentist’s office at 11:43 (for my 11:30 appointment) and glare at a white wall before being whisked into the back.

“Sorry I’m late,” I mumble to the medical assistant. “We…took a wrong turn?” We hadn’t. Duh. My internal monologue says, ‘You’re fat.”

“Oh, it’s all right!” she replies cheerfully. “Those things happen.” She sounds sincere. Dude. I feel bad.

I sit down in my chair and stare ahead of me. Another white wall.

“We’re going to do this really quickly.”

Um…okay. After all, it’s only been two years since my last visit.

I sit for twenty minutes with her hands in my mouth. The taste of the blue latex gloves gags me. My saliva gags me. The plaque pick she nearly drops down my throat gags me. I hate this. And then, just as I begin willing death upon some third world children, it’s over. Suddenly, my social consciousness floods back and the internal monologue begins again:

“I’m a terrible person. I’m a terrible person who wants third world children to die. I should die - I pictured them being stabbed by stick-wielding elephants. And then the elephants trampled them. OMG. I need to do something to help them. Have some money! Have some money! Take my goddamn money! The karma will get me if you don’t… Wow, she’s still pretty damn fat.”

I watch the assistant waddle away. Ten minutes later, the dentist walks in, looks at my teeth, and says, “Ideally, you would get some orthodontic work…”

“No. My teeth don’t bother me as they are.”

After all, they’re straight. There’s no crowding. No, I am not going to have my jaw broken and moved back for vanity’s sake!

“Are you sure?”

Just as sure as I was two seconds ago, thanks.

“Yes.”

“All right.” He stands and leaves.

So…am I done? You’ve walked away. You didn’t say anything. Am I done? Come on, tell me. I’m not just going to sit here forever.

A second medical assistant enters the room, unhooks the dribble bib from my neck, and begins to walk away. She pauses at the door.

“Oh, by the way, you’re done.”

Gee.