stuff.”
“Philosophy?” she asked.
“School in general,” I said. “But yeah, philosophy too, I guess. We’ll see.”
She nodded and finally took her hand off my shoulder. “I’m glad someone is. What’s your name?”
“Jacob.”
“I like your contacts, Jacob,” Instead of correcting her, I decided to simply say thanks. She touched her hand to her chest, where a tattoo of a black orchid seemed to grow from her fingertips. “My name’s Dixie.”
In addition to wearing too much makeup, she wore more perfume than she needed to. A strong scent of ocean mist wafted past my nostrils.
Dixie expended a lot of effort for attractiveness where none needed to be extended at all. She radiated natural beauty and covered it with distracting accessories and an overpowering smell. Part of her uniqueness spurned from a creative spirit, but something told me she hid a deeper secret beneath her bleached cheeks than just a pretty face.
Dr. Reeder lectured on, channeling the ever-attentive demon, and I might have given philosophy a pass, except for the intoxicating aroma behind me, which I suddenly felt entangled with. The cool breeze from a rattling air condition unit brought me to a tropical beach with just a hint of Texas Dixie. I felt compelled to learn a bit more about philosophy than I cared to before.
Eat’em curled his legs up beneath himself, sitting on my abdomen as he clung to the side of my shirt. He bounced joyfully with my every step as I searched the campus for Isaac, Valentine and then hopefully our ride home.
“Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz said all of everything is monads , yes!” Eat’em pushed off my chest, digging his dexterous toes into my beltline. “Leibniz said monads don’t die and we’re monads so we don’t die! Yes. Also monads are un-interacting Leibniz said, so I’m a monad and I’m un-interacting. You’re a monad too, but by the miracle of a pre-ordained harmony, you’re programmed by a different set of instructions governing your eternal Self! Communication between any two things first starts with the connectivity of monads as a reflection of the whole universe.”
I imagined the Infinite Ocean and short, scissor-cut purple hair.
“See,” Eat’em threw a sweeping gesture to a hallway of people paying no mind to the crimson-eyed eighteen-year-old and his even redder quill-covered companion, “they’re all monads, floating in empty space, yes! Your monads and my Monads, they’ve met, so we met, yes! It all makes perfect since. My Monads met the Monads of the Pepto-Bismol and your Monads already met the Pepto-Bismol so then my Monads, your Monads, and the Pepto-Bismol’s Monads make us all the same person!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I found myself blindly strolling the middle of the campus, and half-listening to Eat’em regurgitate his version of the lecture we’d just sat through. A more pressing matter grew at the pit of my stomach as it became urgent I find a bathroom.
I entered a two-story building behind the library, which housed a large advertisement for a planetarium. My natural father used to take me to a similar learning center in Virginia. We took tours around the universe in domes filled with projected stars and moons. Constellations spanned out for as far as the eye could see in a room the size of a movie theater.
An empty Information Desk greeted all whom entered here. The lobby was empty and a poster declared the planetarium would open in just a few weeks.
Caution tape cordoned off the theater, but to my relief the men’s room beckoned from just across the abandoned hallway.
I slid into the men’s room, where I was greeted by an “Out of Order” urinal, a single sink, and a couple stalls. I could have scooped the stink from the air with a ladle. The bathroom reeked of stale urine, mildew, and something rotten. A large clear trash bag taped to the bottom of the urinal was filled with orange liquid to the point it looked
“Philosophy?” she asked.
“School in general,” I said. “But yeah, philosophy too, I guess. We’ll see.”
She nodded and finally took her hand off my shoulder. “I’m glad someone is. What’s your name?”
“Jacob.”
“I like your contacts, Jacob,” Instead of correcting her, I decided to simply say thanks. She touched her hand to her chest, where a tattoo of a black orchid seemed to grow from her fingertips. “My name’s Dixie.”
In addition to wearing too much makeup, she wore more perfume than she needed to. A strong scent of ocean mist wafted past my nostrils.
Dixie expended a lot of effort for attractiveness where none needed to be extended at all. She radiated natural beauty and covered it with distracting accessories and an overpowering smell. Part of her uniqueness spurned from a creative spirit, but something told me she hid a deeper secret beneath her bleached cheeks than just a pretty face.
Dr. Reeder lectured on, channeling the ever-attentive demon, and I might have given philosophy a pass, except for the intoxicating aroma behind me, which I suddenly felt entangled with. The cool breeze from a rattling air condition unit brought me to a tropical beach with just a hint of Texas Dixie. I felt compelled to learn a bit more about philosophy than I cared to before.
Eat’em curled his legs up beneath himself, sitting on my abdomen as he clung to the side of my shirt. He bounced joyfully with my every step as I searched the campus for Isaac, Valentine and then hopefully our ride home.
“Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz said all of everything is monads , yes!” Eat’em pushed off my chest, digging his dexterous toes into my beltline. “Leibniz said monads don’t die and we’re monads so we don’t die! Yes. Also monads are un-interacting Leibniz said, so I’m a monad and I’m un-interacting. You’re a monad too, but by the miracle of a pre-ordained harmony, you’re programmed by a different set of instructions governing your eternal Self! Communication between any two things first starts with the connectivity of monads as a reflection of the whole universe.”
I imagined the Infinite Ocean and short, scissor-cut purple hair.
“See,” Eat’em threw a sweeping gesture to a hallway of people paying no mind to the crimson-eyed eighteen-year-old and his even redder quill-covered companion, “they’re all monads, floating in empty space, yes! Your monads and my Monads, they’ve met, so we met, yes! It all makes perfect since. My Monads met the Monads of the Pepto-Bismol and your Monads already met the Pepto-Bismol so then my Monads, your Monads, and the Pepto-Bismol’s Monads make us all the same person!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I found myself blindly strolling the middle of the campus, and half-listening to Eat’em regurgitate his version of the lecture we’d just sat through. A more pressing matter grew at the pit of my stomach as it became urgent I find a bathroom.
I entered a two-story building behind the library, which housed a large advertisement for a planetarium. My natural father used to take me to a similar learning center in Virginia. We took tours around the universe in domes filled with projected stars and moons. Constellations spanned out for as far as the eye could see in a room the size of a movie theater.
An empty Information Desk greeted all whom entered here. The lobby was empty and a poster declared the planetarium would open in just a few weeks.
Caution tape cordoned off the theater, but to my relief the men’s room beckoned from just across the abandoned hallway.
I slid into the men’s room, where I was greeted by an “Out of Order” urinal, a single sink, and a couple stalls. I could have scooped the stink from the air with a ladle. The bathroom reeked of stale urine, mildew, and something rotten. A large clear trash bag taped to the bottom of the urinal was filled with orange liquid to the point it looked
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