.I.

Frost crawled across the window. The campus was wrapped in a blanket of snow and ice. John sighed and his breath momentarily fogged the window, hindering his view of the commons. It was certainly no night to be out. He caught his reflection in the glass, frowned and turned back to the cluttered office.

He sat in the chair and looked over his thesis, the final proof, stuffed it into a sealed envelope and put it in the box for his advisor. One journey was at an end.

John frowned. This is one place I won't miss, he thought. He was startled from his reverie by a knock at the door.

"Can I talk to you?"

He groaned inwardly, it was Lara, one of the other graduate students in the department. Attractive, red curly hair, freckles on a slightly upturned nose, she was the epitome of classic Celtic beauty.

"You've been avoiding me," she said in a soft voice: Irish accent.

He didn't know what to say, because it was true. "My thesis-"

"Was done a week ago. What? You think you can ignore me?"

"I'm sorry, I've been busy with-"

"Not too busy to sleep with me."

He put his feet down from the desk and leaned forward.

"Look," he said. "You are a nice person, I don't want to hurt you-"

"But you don't love me?"

"Would you stop cutting me off? I only have known you for one semester."

"Oh, I see, fuck the new girl from Dublin and then dump her."

"You know that isn't true! I'm done here. Finished. You have four years to get your PhD., what would you expect of me?" He noticed his voice was rising but didn't care at this point. "I don't know where I'm gonna be in the next week, let alone the next four years."

She slapped him hard across the face. "I expected more from you!" With that she spun and was down the hall. He stepped out after her, but then noticed the heads over the cubicles, like gophers popping out of their holes, and slammed his door shut. The glass cracked with the slam.

The shock of stepping from the warmth of the building made him feel even colder inside. It had been easy to forget how bitterly cold northwestern Ohio could get in late December. As his feet crunched through ice and snow, he began to wish he had invested in a down coat instead of the fashionable leather jacket. The walk to the recreation center across campus was a long one. It gave him plenty of time to think and plenty of time to get depressed. If his roommates hadn't been waiting for him, he would have stopped at his favorite bar.

You're a real jerk, aren't you? He shook his head and picked up the pace, taking the steps to the rec center two at a time.

He saw Tom waiting for him, sitting with his usual aplomb against the far wall. Though not physically striking, he possessed what John would call a coiled energy, like that of a taut spring. Tom Smiling Wolf was half Sioux, with the facial angularity that was typical of Native Americans, set off by light sandy hair. He was dressed in wool and cotton of a coarse weave, seemingly innocuous enough for him to melt into the woodwork. Immersed in his medical textbook, his left eye scanned the pages in front of him, his right eye didn't. It was made of glass.

Copyright © 2006 J.J. Eliyas.