The Roommates

“24 hours left”, he thought.

“Can it be done...” neither a question or a statement. The noise spilling into his senses. Chatter, and random spurts all coming from different devices. Every head down. They don’t hear each other. But he heard them. He neither felt alone or in company.

In the middle, a gleam in the eye of a young man’s sole intention to put points on the scoreboard. He was The Guest. The screen reflected in his eye, but his true intention was visible behind the screen’s reflection. He possessed a look that did not harm, but intended to win, not for pride, but for a truth. Maybe that he really was better.

“Somebody dropped chicken,” a roommate said. The rest of the room meagerly answered,

“I don’t know.” She cleaned it up.

“You know you’re her boyfriend, you should get her to at least drink some water.” A roommate spoke out. The seemingly inconsequential remarks echoed through the room.

The mysterious figure sat in his chair. Monitoring his senses. Slightly reclined, one leg out one knee up. Surveying what has been going on in his experience, relaxed but aware of his envirnoment, almost suspicious. He is trained, it seems to know what goes wrong within himself down to his capillaries.

“We’re getting rid of the black table upstairs, I hate it.” A roommate sounded off. The mysterious figure had no business in hatred, or ugly furniture. Only where he was presently investing into his future. He figured the roommate was in the same business.

The mysterious figure felt at the end of his efforts and yet “three feet from gold” from his goal. Remaining still in his judgements, in his habitual thinking, moving his awareness again to his senses; he watches each moment looking for an inkling, the next tellings of a both arbitrary yet succinct universe.

“I ran out of gas today,” another roommate walked in front door. “I had to get more on the way to my p*ss test..” his venting obscured into the background of the mysterious figure’s attention. He knew it was only another step in the process of life. He stayed with that precious moment inhaling and exhaling cooly. Any idea that seemed valid he wrote down.

“I need to pee now and shower.” another mentioned. The crude verbiage clung to the air.

“I thought you said you were going to wai-”

The mysterious figure waited, then closed his eyes. The external world only would briefly enter his internal world. He felt the already present tension in his left shoulder and with awareness relaxed it. The habitual tension was much more subtle than when he first discovered it reoccurring beneath his conscious awareness, 7 years ago.

That roommate got up and walked passed the figure. It was almost as he could feel the warmth, the energy, even the contention carried with the roommate on his freed arms in his sleeveless shirt. “Ya’ll need Jesus”, the tank read. He looked over at the remaining three in the room. Two were busy in a device, The Guest with the same desire to win yet he looked relaxed, as if his path was certain.

“I am going to eat this upstairs.” The first roommate said and left.

He hadn’t eaten, but wasn’t hungry.

The persistent and existential question of “what are you doing here” faded as a stencil of the past on his mind. As he drew another breath, he grinned at his previous self for trying so hard, knowing that same breath supported his life through it all. He was, however glad where his efforts did take him.

He knew that what he used to want had no intrinsic worth. One dream of many he could conjure anytime, it felt like. Yet he knew the world played by certain rules, and everything had a process.

Everything he wanted now was much more real then everything before, and he knew not to make the same mistake. He stayed calm. All that was left for him was the compassion he had for himself after his failures; the remaining burning of his ego, also becoming a fading memory. The rest of the negative content in his mind “he gave to space.”

This gave him one gift he could give in abundance yet to him at times seemed peculiarly finite. Another chance for himself and everyone around him.

“What the heck I am going to smoke.” The Guest got distracted and was now frustrated with his desire to win.

“Do it.” another roommate called out.

The mysterious figure observed, not far from himself.

“Yea my manager said do what ever you need to it is your life,” a roommate reported.

He finally glances over to one roommate that hasn’t spoken. She really didn’t live there. She gives him a wink and a smile like she knows that together they can just be, and its enough.

“$20,000,” he finally wrote down.

“I just need to eat something again, I’m feeling sick again.” A roommate interjected. The roommate who took a shower was going through a withdrawal symptoms from not smoking.

Just as the roommates jump to help the symptom, the fire alarm goes off and is quickly (and routinely) shut off after a brief moment. He comes back down, coughing. Checking his device to have a brief meeting with the master of time.

“You want to smoke?” The Guest asked.

“Nah, I am good.” The mysterious figure replied.

The figure returns back to himself. For some time he has began to understand “how” he will get to his destination. He knows “what is” because of having too much much of “what isn’t.” He re-calculated to himself. $18,754.55.

“Yea I really should round it up to 20.” He thought.

And he knows exactly what he would do with $20,000. Even though he is in the living room to have a good time with his roommates, he is precarious where he plants seeds of hope.

The roommates wonder what the mysterious figure wrote in his little black not book, but they respected his privacy enough to leave it alone. It was one of many that he filled, starting from the back of the notebook. He said it was because he was left handed. He felt their temptation to ask. He continued writing.

“I just wanted to break 100 points anyways.” the Guest said and hopped out of the chair, losing his game by three points.

The figure feels almost sick from what seems like intimately transcribing his universe. He knows his opportunity is on the way and he’ll be there, ready. He closes the book.

The last roommate gets back from his first day employed after a year being unemployed.

“Peace out” said The Guest, smiling and walked out.

His energy seemed to service the moment perpetually. And the mysterious figure was reminded everything was alright.

Later that evening he goes to the grocery store with the girl for ice cream. “Here, take this.” He hands the girl $20 dollars and gets through the line. They walk past a lottery machine on the way out and his instinct brings him to his new memories with the girl watching “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” They each get lottery tickets.

“Yea we can check them later tonight, it’ll be fun.”

“Why not” She gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Hey you know that story you told me about. Why do you think it’s your best one to get published? She was the only one that had known something.

His pause was almost unnoticeable.

“Because it's real.”

“if it doesn’t work out, then at least it will for someone else.” He smiled and flipped her a coin he took from her room earlier. It said “Every Day Counts.”

“Right” she said grabbing his arm tighter as they left. He knew nothing was bigger or better than that moment.