My Friendliest Friends

Assignment: tell the story of a conflict you have had so far in college and how it was resolved

My Friendliest Friends

The lights went out in my dorm before I could turn around. My first reaction was to play Marco polo, but I resisted. Something was aloof, I mean aloft, and I desperately needed to look in a dictionary. I carefully set down my fear and 40 oz. malt beverage. I got up out of Chair and turned around slowly, 360 degrees. I was dizzy so I sat back down.                    

“Who’s there?” I called out.

“Nobody,”

“Oh, I could have sworn…” and with great difficulty I climbed into my bunk and fell asleep.

            Three hours later I awoke. I had been tricked! The cheek of the ruffian, going all Odysseus on me! I leapt out of my bed, anticipating the floor five feet earlier then it came.  “Damn, that floor is fast,” I cursed as I nursed. “At least I’m not in a hearse with a purse, that would be the worst.” I also said, just to make sure I still had mad rhyming competence. I crawled over to my alcohol so I could resume drinking by myself. I actually had pain to mask now, not just middle class angst, and I couldn’t be more excited. In my elation, I almost forgot the reason for my commotion. And then I heard the screaming. It was high in pitch and hard to locate. The urge to play Marco Polo welled up inside me again, but I beat it down. Ferociously.  The sound got louder, and louder, and then stopped for a few minutes, and then got louder again. In an attempt to calm myself, I began humming to block the noise. Humming though, was not loud enough, so I started screaming. Being the competitive spirit I am, I screamed as loud as I could, to assert my dominance.

“CLAY!” my roommate’s head shot out of the covers, “you are screaming at a very early hour and I do not find it favorable. This is a conflict that I wish to resolve. Why are you screaming?”

“Because I’M THE BEST!”

“I see. You are screaming to validate your belief that you are a superlative screamer, but Clay, you need to remember that true strength comes in a quiet confidence, and this screaming is really a defense mechanism. Maybe you need to examine your relationship with your father to see…”

“No, there’s something making noise. In here!”

“Oh!” My roommate got out of his bed and headed toward the fridge. He opened the door; “It’s probably the squirrel in the fridge.”

The noise was the squirrel in the fridge, but more questions had now been created.     “Max, why is there a squirrel in our fridge? I don’t think he wants to be there. Why would you put a harmless squirrel in a fridge”

“Well I didn’t put it there, Clay, you did.”

And it all came flooding back to me; the park, the squirrels, the man in a trench coat, the nuts. THE DESIRE. How faint the memory now seemed, confronted with pain I was causing my two best friends.

“I’m sorry for the screaming Max, and I’m sorry Squirrel. I just thought you might be hungry after that fight you put up.”

“I appreciate your apology and I forgive you. Please don’t scream like that again,” said Max

“I won’t,” I said, ”And I must thank you too Squirrel, you taught me how to fight, how not to love, and that sometimes I’m batshit crazy.”

“Oh, so, you listen to the rodent, ok, that’s cool,” said Nobody.

“Nobody is perturbed right now.”

Max fanned his gaze over the room.

“Yes, I think we are all fine. Are you alright?” he asked. I’m not sure what my face said but I felt like licorice jellybeans.

Max exhaled deeply, and then gave a small smile. He then bent close to Squirrel and laid down a limb in a gesture of fraternity. Squirrel’s tale did the squirrel tale thing.

“I have a thought,” announced Max, “we can let squirrel live in our little room, so long as you stop collecting dead animals. And doing hallucinogens. ”

My cactus found a swift exit via the window in celebration of our new roommate.