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There is a college town in which there is a house not unlike many houses found in many college towns. It’s an old house. The paint that was once white now flakes off like dead skin from a psoriasis plaque. The pastor of the First Baptist Church, Skip Larson, once owned it and raised a family there, but there isn’t a trace of God’s glory left. The yellow grass in the yard is pimpled with worm-bitten crab apples. The porch is sinking, half the windows are cracked.

The chimney is crumbling. In fact, the fireplace hasn't been used for decades. There is an old furnace is the basement. The furnace itself is an object that looks like it could use a service call.

Currently, you live in this house with your roommate, who has also just begun his freshman year.

Taptaptaptaptaptap. Your legs bounce up and down in fitful, nervous jerks. Slouched in your chair with your neck craning forward, your eyes scan back and forth across the screen of your laptop. ‘...THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS...’ In the otherwise dark room, your face reflects the blackish-white glow of the screen. Your face is cemented in a look of stupefied fear and fascination. ‘...A CONSTRUCT OF THE PSYCHIATRIC MAINSTREAM, WHOSE MAIN GOAL IS TO OSTRACIZE THOSE WHO THINK DIFFERENTLY...’

The front door opens and closes, and you hear the sound of bags hit the floor. ‘...THE CHEMICAL IMBALANCE THEORY IS A DANGEROUS FALSEHOOD...’ You hear the rummaging sounds of your roommate making himself at home. There is a fart, the toilet flushes, and his footsteps echo in the hall as he approaches your room.

Please leave me alone please leave me alone please leave me alone, you think.

Knock knock knock. “You home dude?”

“Yeah.”

Your jaw muscles twitch and flex and convulse as you watch the doorknob turn. A shaft of light enters the room like it was a tomb.

“You missed a hell of a weekend bro! Weather was awesome, there was a bonfire on the beach, there was a keg, there was a band, and I finally scored with Maddy...”

Your eyes roll but your head doesn’t turn away from the computer screen. “I don’t really enjoy that type of thing. Aside from that, Professor Hedley...”

“I don’t weawy enjoy that type of fing...listen to yourself! College is ALL ABOUT that type of thing bro. If you don’t take advantage now, you’ll go to your grave regretting it. You’re bringing me down, too.”

“Duly noted. Can you go away now please? I’m reading.”

Your roommate cocks his head and puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Whatever bro. I’m gonna go get a taco. You want anything?”

“No thanks.”

Your roommate makes a peace sign with his fingers and closes the door. You reach out, picking up a bottle of pills from the desk. The pills click as you shake the bottle back and forth.

You look from the warning label on the bottle back to your computer screen. ‘...DANGEROUS, TOXIC CHEMICALS FORCED UPON PEOPLE WHO NEED HELP...’

You draw in a deep breath, scrutinizing the translucent orange bottle one last time.

‘...RESULTING IN MAJOR SIDE EFFECTS AND EVEN DEATH...’

You toss the pills in a perfect arc across the room, where they click in their bottle one last time after landing in the trash can.

*****

Weeks go by, and you stop attending classes. You don’t notice it – you’ve hardly looked in a mirror these past weeks – but there are dark circles under your eyes. You’ve lost more and more sleep and you haven’t had a real meal in days.

You’re not quite sure why, but you think that you’re being observed. By whom or to what end, you’re not sure. It seems to you that folks look at you like they’re taking notes. When you’re out in public, you listen to conversations that seem to be littered with secret messages meant to be understood by you.

You are in line at 7-11. Hostess and Pepsi, again. Tanya Moore, the cashier, is having trouble communicating with Jorge Mendoza, a Mexican man who wants to buy prepaid cellphone minutes. You start reading one of your favorite blogs to pass the moment.

‘...CIA WHISTLEBLOWER SHEDS LIGHT ON EXTENT OF DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE...’

Jorge Mendoza walks away in visible disgust after failing to scale the language barrier with Tanya Moore.

“I’m so sorry for the wait, sir. Hopefully I can get through to you better than the last guy.”

Get through to me? What do you mean? Can you read my thoughts? you think.

“Some people must think I’m a mind reader or something.”

What’s going on here? you think.

“It isn’t like there’s some sort of conspiracy or anything. Learn the language, you know what I’m sayin?”

You turn and walk away, leaving the store without a word, without Hostess, without Pepsi.

*****

You are watching a rerun of “The X-Files” on TV in the living room when your roommate drags a goddamn kayak through the front door. You look at him, then the kayak, and tilt your head quizzically.

“Craigslist, bro,” he says. He starts lugging the kayak to the basement, hitting the walls and doorways on the way. He sets the kayak leaning against the wall next to the furnace. It falls over, striking and dislodging a pipe coming out of the furnace. He doesn’t notice or care that the kayak falls over, striking and dislodging a pipe coming out of the furnace. He’s already back upstairs by the time it happens.

“You wanna come to the drum circle bro?”

“No thanks.”

“People have been asking about you lately bro. You ok?”

“Just feeling a bit exhausted.”

“I’ll be back.”

Your eyes turn back to Fox Mulder, who suspects that his apartment has been bugged by government spooks. Your face, already ashen, turns completely white as the idea surrounds you like a poison fog.

First you take the fire alarm down from the ceiling, removing its battery and inspecting it for cameras or microphones. Next you do the same with the carbon monoxide alarm. You remove one outlet cover, then another and another until every outlet in the house is exposed. You check inside the lamps, you take your cellphone battery out. You tear the house apart for hours. You get tired and sit at the front window to rest. As you peer suspiciously at passing cars through a crack in the blinds, you start to feel sick. After you vomit all over yourself, you die.

*****

When the official cause of death is ruled to be carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a leaky furnace which was the result of a fallen kayak, your roommate kills himself and quits college.

edit on 5/8/2018 by DictionaryOfExcuses because: (no reason given)