The Sun Still Shines

A novella

Hello, this is a novella which I recently finished and published on amazon you can buy it there or read it here for free! I hope you enjoy.

9:00 AM

It happened to be the case that the colder time of year was beginning to set in. As a result of this, it was easier to fall asleep and therefore harder to get up. So, when he did arise from his rest the birds were quiet —which is never good for a developing young man. The result of this was that the young man felt in no way genial towards the idea of rousing himself out from underneath the bed sheets. Therefore he closed his eyes and was met with the pinkish tone that fills your eyes when you try to rest in a room which is all too much alight. Quickly the young man surmised that this was insufferable and reopened his eyes so that he could lie there and stare at the ceiling despondent. However, within seconds it became apparent that the world did not care how displeased the young man was with his fate and ultimately he made it out of his bed. Then the most sobering chill whisked across his bare skin as his raw feet met the hard plastic-wood floor.

Naturally the bare prey of the elements made his first priority a means of defence. Painfully ever aware that urgency was afoot on this day, the young man sought a set of garments which took little effort to equip. The outfit settled upon was a classical long sleeved cotton shirt, sweatpants and a hoodie for additional warmth. These were quickly retrieved from the young man’s wardrobe which for some reason was easily the largest piece of furniture in his room. After he adorned his clothes, the young man began his regular morning ritual which consisted of brushing his teeth, washing his face and doing his hair in the mirror. The hair never lasted however, as the young man never used any product for his hair because despite being womanly enough to engage in such a habit, he still retained the instinct to be against using hair gel and make up.

After all of this, the young man sat at his desk and made his best attempt to recall what was causing him a terrible sense of urgency that morning. After a minute or so it came to him: there was a paper due today for his philosophy class. The young man quickly opened his computer and found the rubric for the assignment, it was only about three pages long “this is doable” he thought to himself reassuringly. However, the young man may have given himself more assurance than was due, seeing as this was the very first time he had even looked at the assignment. Next, he checked his classes for today to make sure he wasn’t forgetting any. The man found that he had two classes, which was suboptimal for writing a paper in one day, art history at ten thirty am and theology at one thirty pm.

It was now nearing ten in the morning and the young man would have to be out of his dormitory by twenty past ten if he wished to make it to his class on time. Because of this, the young man really had no time to begin his writing, however he resolved that he would take a look at the topic and begin to think up a response. He continued to read the rubric on his computer: “Discuss the implications of the proposition that objective reality does not exist on the existential meaning of life.” Another sigh of relief was breathed upon reading this. Naturally the young man had already discarded objective reality at this point in his life, as had most of his peers; it was the proper and mature thing to do at that age. Therefore, the young man felt he could quite well write this paper without even needing to reference his notes. A simple essay indeed gave him much peace of mind and so he began to think up his thesis.

Then ensued a brief session of musing which concluded with a half decent thesis for the young man to begin his essay with: The non-existence of objective reality necessarily implies that there is no existential meaning to life and rather that any pretension to answering existential questions can only be found within one's own emotions.¹ Regardless it isn’t half bad and on most days I feel myself thinking along the lines of this sharp young man myself. What was pressing now, however, was that the young man’s art history lecture was impending and he absolutely had to put on his socks and sneakers and then get out of the door. So that was just what he did after hastily typing his thesis onto a blank document on his computer. The young man stuffed his things in his bag and walked off at a barely rushed pace.

* * *

The dormitory building where the young man resided was within a modestly sized nineteenth century building which had been modernised by turning it all the colour grey. As he exited it, the building stood behind him in an indifferent sort of way. Much the same way in which the entire natural world felt towards the young man. However, this was not an act of cruelty on part of the world but rather one of reciprocity. Because the young man was quite indifferent to all that was outside of himself.

As he walked down the paved sidewalk to his class, the young man could hardly tell whether it was raining or shining, hot or cold or even snowing for that matter. It all passed him by as if he were a drop in a stream; carelessly being taken to his destination. As to what went through the hapless automaton’s mind as he marched down the sidewalk nothing is known, or rather I simply cannot tell it because perhaps there is nothing going on up there at all —the veritable truth is that the young man himself likely does not know what goes on up there in his head.

It must be said that this disposition of his was in fact a great disadvantage, as there was absolutely nothing in the world more interesting than the events which transpired all around him. All the many great trees which dotted his path had their leaves turned red, orange or the colour of a golden apple —which came with the taste of one as well. This made the path which the young man took one of the most beautiful walks possible on a university campus available in the whole world.

The other people who walked these streets were also fascinating to gaze at. Somehow you could not find a single serious face among them, even if there was an old man above the age of sixty he was never a grumpy sort. Rather the playful and jovial type who has lost the ability to be stern. As a result of this playful spirit prevalent among the wanderers of these roads, many men could be seen wearing the most fantastical things. The delicate artists who wore scarfs, berets and coats at all times of the year, the neoned haired rebels who were perpetual children and of course the many careless students who walked around lost in the moments after they had just woken up. If the young man had chosen to, he could have opened his eyes and feasted on endless trivialities and subtle pleasures. But he didn’t, and all the way to class he was absentmindedly droning along. Thinking of nothing in particular and feeling in no strong way at all. Somehow despite being a flourishing youth who was just now coming into his own, the young man was totally complacent after only making it half way out of his cocoon, this was it for him, this was life: he had made it.

10:30 AM

Entering the building which contained the lecture hall, the smell of cigarette smoke embedded into wood instantly filled the nostrils of the young man. This characteristic smell persisted despite the fact that smoking had been banned in this building for over thirty years.

The young man made his way over to the left door of the two which led into the lecture hall, that way he could spend as little time as possible between entering the hall and being seated; ultimately in order to minimise his already unnoticeable presence in the grand room.

As he walked through the brief fourier directly to his destination, the man passed a cork notice board which he completely ignored —registering no more than the flashes of colour which it granted his eyes.² On this notice board were many pathetic attempts to generate interest for this club or that cause. Because the school of business here did not have any notable clubs, no one knew how to advertise effectively and as a result most posters were either painfully black and white or resembled something similar to the women’s engineering club poster:

Women’s

Engineering

Club

This exact text is arranged as such accompanied with one cartoon drawing of an engineer —a female one— and one stock photo of some machinery. In complete opposition to the young man’s walk to the building, he somehow gained an immense amount from his complete ignorance in this case and by sheer chance successfully avoided one of the most useless and draining objects of viewing on this university campus.

Now seated in the type of folding chair which was only befitting of a modern movie theatre, the young man retrieved his laptop from his backpack. Upon opening it he discovered that he had made it to class one minute before its commencement. Then, just as he was still gazing at the time, the display changed to read ten thirty. In the same millisecond, as if he were the coo-coo bird of a precise clock, the professor began to speak.

As he started, all the students began to type out their notes and despite the fact that only half of the lecture hall was occupied³ the noise became something like the cacophony of cicadas chirping. As the professor continued to somehow say nothing at all, the students —those not engaged in online shopping— would nonetheless be continually typing. The contents of what these diligent copyists could possibly be inscribing are a matter unknown even to me.

As the class went on, the young man took down what he found to be important or potentially relevant to the test. All the while trying to ignore the small anxiety produced in him by the fact that everyone seemed to be finding this lecture much more significant than he did.

Half an hour sitting in this class seemed to last about double that time. This drawn out monotony gave the young man incident to succumb to a great deal of thoughts that otherwise would be unable to penetrate his head. He pondered why he was even in this lecture and what relevance this topic had to him, to his class, to his degree and to his life.

After only a very brief period of this thinking however, he would turn his mind to distraction. As I’m sure the reader can understand, this thinking activity can be among the most painful experiences known to modern man. Therefore, naturally the young man pulled out his phone and began to scroll. So scroll and scroll he did, across various platforms and feeds, chasing a bit of satisfaction and numbing himself to be guarded against thought. The young man did this until he had the brilliant idea to open the netflix app and watch a series while taking notes at the same time. This way he could have pleasure, be productive and be certain that multitasking so overwhelmed his brain that it could not generate even one conscious thought.

Ultimately the man was reduced to his ideal state of existence, in a way very similar to his benevolent forefathers. The man had become merely a stream of emotions, plugged into an entertainment feed while farcing productivity.⁴

This went on for some time until the class was minutes away from dismissal. At that time arose a cacophony of shifting papers and rustling backpacks. At moments like these, one can’t help but wonder what the professor is feeling, it must be awfully disrespectful and sobering in the worst possible way. It must occur to the professor that no one could care less what he is saying —aside from the fact that barely half of the class bothers to show up to the lectures. It must occur to him in such a way that is completely unavoidable: that his life is meaningless and no one cares about what he has to say.

It is more than evident that anyone who bothers to lend an ear to the professor does so by pure obligation. One could only imagine that this must invoke a feeling somewhat similar to no longer existing. Some professors, after feeling such an intense pang of suffering, lash out and reproach their students for packing before the lesson has ended —this doesn’t help anything.⁵ Others grimly accept their fate and end the lecture at the command of their students. Regardless, it was over.

11:30 AM

It was almost midday and the young man found himself with a generous window of time to have lunch in. Two hours is enough time for the young man to go back to his dormitory, study and arrive at his next class on time. However, because the cafeteria on campus was close enough to his next class that it wasn’t worth the effort to walk back, the young man decided to go straight to the cafeteria.

Outside once more, the sun lavished warmth on the not particularly ugly hair that sat upon the young man’s head. He was once again catatonic⁶ in his pedestrian transit.

Behind him the students deluged out from the building where the lecture was held. They were going every which way and most of them were going nowhere at all. Despite the fact that there seemed to be a significant number of students in the young man’s lecturers, it was only ever possible to observe twenty to thirty students exiting the hall afterwards. Perhaps this is the truth of the situation but it's really quite hard to be sure.

The young man was hungry. When a man builds a routine of eating at a certain time consistently, he seems to starve in anticipation.⁷ Therefore, the young man quickened his pace and made short the hundred fifty meter journey to the cafeteria. Soon enough —but never truly soon enough— the young man arrived at his destination.

* * *

There was not one genuine thing within the cafeteria. Even the walls were fake, lazily plastered over with a brick facade. The people were fake, roaming about everywhere much like the young man, not knowing themselves nor the ground they stood on. Naturally the food was fake, what wasn’t vegan was plastic —or perhaps the cooking was really that poor.

The young man walked in and redeemed one of his daily meal vouchers. The cashier worker replied with a programmed response that didn’t make any sense and the young man did not bother to reply —it's no good to answer fraud with authenticity anyways. As he entered the hall, his eyes gleamed the various menu displays for the day. There was always pizza, currently in rotation were drumsticks, tomato soup, a chicken burger with fries, salad and sandwiches. There was also lemon meringue and vegan chocolate cake for dessert. It was a buffet style cafeteria, so the young man needn’t worry about selecting the right option, only how much he could stuff in his mouth before he became full.

After many milliseconds of careful unconscious deliberation, the man chose to begin by eating a chicken burger with fries —as this was the most enjoyable food of the selection. He walked over to the counter where the chicken burgers were being served and idly waited in line. The figures in front of him stood zombie-like and uninterested. Such strange expressions appeared upon their faces —expressions that I’m sure you’ve all seen before. They looked as if they had yet to live a moment their entire lives. In truth, they did not differ much from the young man. They gathered their burgers and fries so incompetently that somehow a five person line felt as if it took as many minutes to reach its conclusion. At last, the young man was close enough to pick out a chicken burger from the tray with the metal tongs provided. He did so at a pace which placed him exactly one standard deviation to the left of all student times for picking up chicken burgers. Afterwards he grabbed some fries and ketchup.

Also on offer was every form of coke: diet coke, cherry coke, strawberry coke, zero sugar coke, original coke, peach coke, low fat coke, raspberry coke and original coke again. To my taste they are all the same drink.⁸ The young man’s choice was of no consequence.⁹ He then went and sat down on a chair which was uncomfortably uncomfortable and made of wood. On closer inspection the chicken burger was really inedible. It was merely a bready plate of chicken enveloped by a bun. The kind of patty which was just quite wrong, because it was too smooth and in no way the regular shape of a piece of chicken. From looking at the outside, one could already tell that the meat was uncooked on the inside. The fries, surprisingly good.

Naturally, before eating the young man had to stimulate himself. He pulled out his phone, as they all do, and began to… scroll. He really was a beautiful specimen and the brain frying information that he was now in the process of absorbing helped the dreadful food go down easier.

If he had dared to pick up his head, he would’ve noticed his comrades in arms were of much the same habit as himself. Other than the ones who were not immersed in a literal solitude, rather those who were in company and had exchanged that for a true solitude —the distilled type where two men speak who don’t understand a single thing about one another.¹⁰ The young man sat there and ate slowly for about half an hour as if he was rotting.¹¹ Then he realised that he was hungry once again.

He arose and before he could proceed to anything resembling real food, the young man had his attention caught on the desserts which were wisely placed closer to the seating.¹² Instantly the young man was magnetised. He proceeded towards the desserts as a bolt on a screw. Before him were two options: the yellow goo claiming to be a lemon meringue, or the vegan chocolate cake. This was a hard choice, but the young man elected, as many others did, for the chocolate cake. In fact the difference in popularity between the two desserts was so significant that there was an overflow of lemon meringue that outnumbered the remaining cake slices ten to one.¹³

The young man sat down once more and began to enjoy his vegan cake. It had a very distinct and peculiar taste about it, but overall it almost tasted like the real thing —thank God those cows were saved from being milked.¹⁴

In a couple of seconds the young man’s phone vibrated and was habitually answered. It was a text message from one of his prospective social comfortants. One could call her a girlfriend.¹⁵ She writes: “Hey how are you, are you still good for dinner tonight at six?” This was somewhat shocking as the young man had forgotten he had agreed to such a thing. Equally however, it was relieving to have been reminded rather than to suffer the consequences of forgetting completely. He replied simply with “Yea, of course, I’m looking forward to it.” Which was really a very sweet thing of him to say. She reacted to this message with a heart emoji.¹⁶ Some emotions flickered through the young man as he finished his desert, perhaps he was genuinely looking forward to their meeting. After all, he could always use some time with the opposite sex.

When the young man finished, he disposed of his plates properly and left the dining hall. Once outside it was clear that the sun had begun its descent, if he could think for himself, he would have realized that the world is a beautiful place.

1:30 PM

In the sky there were two distinct kinds of birds. The clever and perfect black crows and the innocent white but muddied seagulls. They were scarcely friends, but both were objects of fascination in their own ways. The young man had never noticed them, they were merely background noise to him. Not like this was of any offense to the birds, who were as much in their own world as the young man was. One is forced to wonder what the birds contemplate all their long days. Perhaps the discarded food which they idly snack on.¹⁷

So carried on the journey of the young man to theology class, the winds disrupting his hair as always. The trees which were sometimes home to the birds towered above him and their putrid fruits bothered his nose. However, the concrete upon which fell the feet of the young man and many others was solid and invigorating to walk on. This meant that in no time at all the young man had arrived at the university theology hall.

It was one of the original buildings on the campus. A literal monument to God, it stood stalwart against the pale sky. Its facade was that of a stone brick sentry tower, ironically it had utterly failed to defend itself over the years. Now, dispassionate and vengeful barbarians resided within its doors and made mockeries of its architects for a living.

Of course the tower itself didn’t much mind and neither did the young man as he entered into its polished granite halls. Here too was the faint smell of cigarettes as if the souls of smokers are trapped in university buildings forever. Cobwebs were fixed to almost every high corner and the dust was palpable. The doors wooden and identified by numbers carved and painted directly into them. Here was room one hundred ten, the goal of the young man’s search.

* * *

He entered just on time as most of the students who show up regularly were already seated. It begs the question of what those students do while waiting silently for ten minutes before class starts.¹⁸ So the body came to rest once more on a movie theatre style chair and seamlessly the class began with the shrill of an old woman’s voice. The kind of old woman that for some reason wanted to be perceived as kind and caring all the while harboring a crippling darkness in her heart. Despite this, it's an effect that tricks most people —including the young man.

“The harmonious relations between man and woman, according to the New Testament, consists of love and service. It’s fundamental to understand that from a Christian perspective, God loves all people and all are equally called to treat others as God would. Therefore it is imperative that one loves his fellow man perfectly.”

The young man struggled to understand and began to grow distracted. As did many others in the class.

“Coming from this background, we can understand what is meant by the dictum for wives to serve their husbands and husbands to serve their wives. But many in the literature¹⁹, including myself, detect a somewhat sexist bias here. If all are called to love equally as God loves all, how can there be a unique relation from one sex to the other. Clearly, there is also a blindspot for other genders in this worldview.”

The young man had forgotten what he heard before it was spoken, but many others in the class now seemed very much engaged and taking notes.

“Yes, and it is also crucial we examine the Christian conception of marriage as well. Especially as it has been so influential to culture and history. In the Christian tradition, marriage is literal. Two are made into one, it's not a metaphor as is commonly treated in the modern day. The husband and wife should form one unit and become inseparable to each other. This is why divorce is still such a large debate among Christians. So here is outlined the steps to harmonious relations between man and woman, monogamy, faith, love and servitude. Indeed it's rather old fashioned. That a woman should be literally bound to her husband is an idea greatly lacking in freedom.”

It was certain that this material would be tested and featured in the assigned readings as well. Not that anyone would have known this, as the class was incredibly easy and no one bothered to do the readings. The young man wondered when the class would end, it had only been half an hour. Sometimes however, if the professor is also eager to finish, the class can last only forty five minutes total. The young man always hoped that this would be the case. To the point where it was curious why he even showed up, if all he did was doze off and wish the class was over.

“This conception certainly also contributed to monogamy becoming entrenched within the western ethos. So whether you like that or not you mostly have Christians to thank for this. Personally I’m not so sure this is a good thing. Regardless, this is a historical fact.”

Most of the students couldn’t understand anything on a conceptual or analytical level and therefore couldn’t really find a reason to agree with or disagree with the teacher. On an emotional level however, hearing an opinion from an authority made them most likely to agree. The words they heard today would one day affect them in profound ways. Whether they elected to become married or not. Such is the nature of all teaching.

And then, just as the class had started, so it had ended. About five minutes early —not a huge time gain. The young man was pleased nonetheless. It was time to put away the phone for a very brief time and return to the safety of solitude within his dorm room. He would finally be able to work on his philosophy paper and relieve himself of the anxiety which accompanied an impending deadline. Although the option always existed to simply hand the paper in late or not do it at all, the young man was, for now, too scared of the consequences to do so.²⁰

* * *

As the young man exited the hall, the bright sun once more coloured his world. Although it had noticeably already begun its descent. On the street, men and women in strange costumes were wandering around. The young man, in his mental absence, managed to catch some of these exotic and poisonous creatures out of the corner of his eye. But what could they be and why were they here? In a flash of extraordinary brilliance he knew: It was halloween.

2:30 PM

So the young man continued down the concrete sidewalk, now acutely aware of how much every one else was in the loop and how much he was out.²¹ Thankfully, it was still early and he figured that he had time to contact his friends and find a suitable costume to get drunk at some house party later on. However, his anxiety over forgetting such an important day as halloween began to get his head seriously in gear. This led the young man to ask the very worrying question of why his girlfriend had not reminded him that it was halloween today. Perhaps she had assumed he needed no reminding, but then why would she invite him to dinner? Its halloween, she should have invited him to get trashed, awkwardly fuck and act like it never happened the next day. Something was off, seriously off.

This line of thought had reached its fruition conveniently as the young man arrived at the grey eminence which contained his dormitory. As he walked through the hall, he was reminded of how horribly difficult it would be to finish his essay and also prepare for halloween before he had to have dinner with his girlfriend at six. As a result of all these stresses converging upon the young man all at once, there was only one reasonable course of action available to him. After he entered his room and turned on his computer to reveal the trap he had left for himself this morning (The non-existence of objective reality necessarily implies that there is no existential meaning to life and rather that any pretension to answering existential questions can only be found within one's own emotions) it was incontrovertibly imperative that he open his phone and scroll social media for a minimum of half an hour.

Suffice to say, this procedure was executed flawlessly. Before even the clock could even react, it was three.

3:00 PM

At exactly three pm, the young man received a text which shook him to his very core. It was from his other “girlfriend.”²² It read: “Hey, there’s a party at (. . .)’s house tonight, I need someone to go with. Can you come?” The young man was mortified, this might be the final straw which would result in his day collapsing and along with it, his life in totality. Then, the young man realized that this might solve more problems than it created. After all, he was greatly desiring to go to a party that night anyways and now he was saved the effort of humiliating himself by asking his friends to invite him to a party they were going to. After this realization he replied: “Sure, when is it?” As he typed out his response, the young man licked his lips like a greedy wolf awaiting a juicy hog —privacy is truly the crown jewel of life. The reply was instant and brief: “12.”

The young man had been saved, he was ecstatic. It was theoretically early enough where he would have enough time to write his paper, go on his first date, find a costume and finally attend a house party. It was perfect.

The young man reacted to his “girlfriend’s” text with a thumbs up emoji —indicating that he had read and agreed to the terms presented. With a feeling which could be approximated as being snapped out of a stupor, the young man put as close to his full attention as possible towards his monitor. It had fallen asleep, so first the young man had to press a key to turn on the monitor. Once this had been done, he embarked on his standard procedure for essay writing.

He went to his browser and opened a generative artificial intelligence website. The young man copied his thesis and then typed the following prompt into the website: “pleas write a essay of 2000 wrods lenght with teh this theses.” He then pasted his thesis into the prompt and hit enter. Naturally, autocorrect fixed his minor spelling mistakes. The computer returned an essay exactly as it was asked. The young man pasted it back into the document in which he was writing his paper.

Normally, the young man would have simply submitted the paper in this state with minor adjustments. However, one of his good close friends²³ was recently expelled for imprudent use of generative artificial intelligence. As a result, the young man was very worried about suffering a similar fate. Mostly because he wasn’t sure how he could ever explain himself to his parents —anxiety is a cruel master indeed. Therefore, the young man sought to personally review the entire essay and make many edits and rephrasings in order to insure that he would not incur the wrath of the university administration. Naturally, as a horrible by-product of this, the young man now had to spend time and effort accomplishing his goal —which are two things totally unreasonable to ask of a young man such as him.

Thankfully, the solution to these woes was not far away: the young man would listen to music in order to soothe and sedate him during this painful process. The young man put on his headphones and then embarked upon finding the appropriate soundtrack on his phone. Naturally this would take some time as the young man would choose a song, listen to five seconds and then decide that it was not right and continue looking for another one. All in all it took about five minutes before he initiated the task of reading over his paper.

Another unfortunate inefficiency regarding the young man’s work process was that every time a two to three minute song ended, assuming the next song was not also good, he would have to check his phone again in order to find another good song. This led him to constantly being distracted by the other notifications served to him upon picking up his phone.

He would check all of his social medias again and again. While getting through about a quarter of what he had to complete in half an hour. What was even further disheartening was that this was only an initial runthrough where the young man was highlighting the areas he wanted to change and not actually changing them —this method was utilised in order to reduce friction and actually be able to get something done. In some regards it was successful, although in truth what the young man should have done is simply stop being such a coward and just complete the assignment.

Before the young man knew it, the clock had struck four. It appeared that the young man’s hours were numbered and soon consequences would arrive. Fear struck the very core of the young man’s heart —more distraction would be necessary.

4:00 PM

The work went on. It was like watching a fat man forced to run a marathon. Every five or so steps the young man would have to stop, catch his breath, then reluctantly and painfully continue. At such a pace it was indeed hard to imagine that an end would ever come. Thankfully, the music which filled the young man’s mind prevented him from thinking and therefore he was less likely to worry about the scope of what he could accomplish within his limited time at his current rate. However, the mental impairment must have affected the quality of his work. The one positive outcome was that the work was indeed being done.

After another half an hour, the young man had finished reviewing about half of the paper. Most of the notes which he made surrounded re-ordering of sentences and modifications of word choice. This was despite the fact that the paper would still be organised in a very strange and robotic way even if these changes were made. In addition, the AI had not produced a very logically coherent or forceful paper. As a result, the young man would likely lose points for failing to stick to his thesis and thoroughly defending his viewpoint. However, depending on the grader this may actually work to his advantage. The teacher’s assistant, also using AI, would be steered towards a better grade due to the bias which the grading AI has for itself. All things considered, the young man had a far more ingenious strategy than most would give him credit for.

By the time the young man neared the end of reviewing his paper, it struck him that it would take him time to change into more suitable clothes for his date and also that it would take time to move from his current location to the appointed location for the date. This was worrying as it meant that in fact he only had until about five ten and not until five thirty until he had to break from “writing” his paper. However, he ultimately decided that it would be fine as the date would surely not take that long and he had lots of time until the halloween party with his other girlfriend at midnight. But what would he wear anyways? All these considerations distracted the young man from the task at hand considerably.

The young man resolved to keep it simple. Just throw on a collared shirt and some semi-formal pants. That way it would only take five minutes tops to get dressed. However, all of that thinking had caused time to draw thin: it was already five past five. The young man was sure he could finish reviewing his paper in the next fifteen minutes —especially if he got sloppier and increased the frequency of his skimming. So the darting of eyes went on, along with a chorus of whatever young men like him listen to and interspersed with occasional highlighting. On net, it was hard to tell if his brain was growing brighter or duller. And then, fifteen minutes were gone and the young man was happy enough to break from his arduous work.²⁴

The young man sloppily changed his clothes as if he had just awoken —he did not remove earbuds —slipped on his shoes and exited his dorm.

5:30 PM

As the young man exited the malignant tumor of a building in which he resided, it was clear that the night had begun and there was no sun left to save him. Through the darkened sky, the almost full moon shone down in its brilliance. Tonight would be a revelry and the evening had hardly begun. On that matter, the young man could agree with the stars.²⁵ The early darkness concealed the hideous soul of the young man and therefore he was able to feel comfortable walking the streets. Many other ghouls such as himself wandered the roads at this early hour —all meandering as a stream which runs off a cliffside. Eagerly costumed, they were prepared for the night ahead. The young man had other matters to attend to.

The young man’s shoes made a steady but soft chorus of footfall as he walked along the concrete sidewalks. In places there were cracks and holes —the absentminded walker would be greatly vexed by these and indeed the young man himself was a victim. But at this very moment he was sharp in his thinking despite being disturbed. On the walk, for once unburdened by music, his mind was forced to ponder the issues at hand. It jumped from one topic to the next, how to reconcile this issue or that. In these contemplations, the idea had begun to form that the young man could simply leave completing the paper until tomorrow as he would only lose five percent of his grade by doing so. As this was not a world ending amount and he may even be able to plead with his professor should drastic circumstances arise, the young man felt more and more that this was a reasonable idea.

The young man had been walking for some time now and he was soon approaching his destination. He was expecting to be early however, which was a good thing as hopefully it would lead to his appearance as courteous and organized.²⁶

As he was walking, the young man came across three strange men stopped at a traffic light. At first he thought nothing of them, but noticed as he was forced to wait that they were far too old to participate in the festivities of a night such as this. Yet, they appeared to be costumed. The young man pondered what evils they may be seeking to commit that night, he debated whether he should notify anyone but ultimately could not think of any appropriate authority to contact. After all, they could have just been heading to the bar.

The traffic light changed color and the young man began to cross, but as he crossed the street, another strange old man overtook him with remarkable pace and continued down the path which he had planned to take. The unusual figure was cloaked and hooded in garments black enough to disguise the man in the shadows of the night. Perhaps the old folks home downtown had let its residents loose to scare students as a halloween joke. Whatever it was, the young man was certain that something was at hand. Although he remained unsure of exactly what that could be. He could have been overthinking it —his friend always seemed to warn him against that.

All these odd happenings had taken the young man’s mind off of his worries for a time and now he found himself at the planned location for the date. Standing around idle, the worries returned: the minimum time that this date could take is an hour, but realistically it would take an hour and a half. Even worse, this girlfriend may ambush the young man with a request to do something else after dinner or even to come over. This would lead the time required to perhaps double —hopefully she would be dissuaded by the half truth that the young man had a paper to finish tonight. If not, his time and excuses would run thin as the scramble for a halloween costume and a good excuse to get to the party would grow ever more desperate. These miserable plans and contingencies swarmed around his mind like mosquitoes to fresh skin, they sapped the young man of his clueless composure.

6:00 PM

After standing around for another five minutes, the girlfriend arrived right on time —much in the same way as the professor. She began: “Hey, thanks for being early, I’m glad you agreed to meet today!”

She was not wearing a halloween costume, rather she was dressed in a cross between gymwear²⁷ and some incomprehensible aesthetic most likely derived from pinterest —overall unrefined and inappropriate for the season. The young man, however, had no capacity to ponder nor understand clothing and therefore he found her arousing. The response was: “Yea, no worries, I’m always happy to see you.” “Aww, you really mean that?” “Yeah, of course… you know, sometimes I think I should see you more often.”

This relationship would have been impossible ten years ago. However, due to shifting preferences by both sexes, the case here presented could best be described as normal. The romantic content of the words and signals exchanged was little to none. It was a purely carnal relationship. The dinner was a pretext to cover for the mutually underdeveloped social skills and lack of confidence present in both parties.

Their meals for the night were ordered as follows: “Hey, can I take your order?”²⁸ “Yea, I’ll have the cheeseburger.” “With fries?” “Yes.” “What about you?” The waiter motioned to the girlfriend. “Oh, umm… the caesar salad.”²⁹ The waiter nodded. “Anything to drink for either of you?” “I’ll have a Pepsi”³⁰ “Just water for me.”³¹ “Great, it’ll be out soon.”

The harrowing exchange had ended and it was as if no words had been exchanged at all.³² The girlfriend pulled out her phone and looked down, the young man stared at the top of her exposed chest. He thought about nothing, but the fire of his passion built. He looked up slightly to the girlfriend’s scalp.³³ The young man wondered how he could grab her attention but he had never really learned how to make small talk, or any kind of conversation at all for that matter. After a minute of being distracted between his own worries and the girlfriend’s breasts he had devised the following solution: “What have you been up to recently? It's been a while since we last met.”

She was somewhat startled and corrected her posture to a certain degree in order to reply. The reply itself however was confident and ready: “I’ve just been going to class³⁴ and stuff, working out.”³⁵ “That’s good, It’s been similar for me, anything interesting happen recently?” “Hmm, No not really.”

She looked back down at her phone and the young man’s eyes lost focus once more. He had been defeated and indeed was now content to relent until the food came. Then suddenly he had the urge to use the restroom. The young man wordlessly excused himself from the table and the girlfriend neglected to look up from her phone —whether she noticed him or not is a mystery.

He solely made his way over to the door marked “men and disabled.” The young man opted to enter despite the fact that he wasn’t disabled because it seemed to him that there were no other male bathrooms.³⁶

Inside, it smelt as an average public bathroom does, not to an unbearable degree but nonetheless to an uncomfortable degree. The young man was focused on getting to a urinal and emptying his bladder. He arrived and began the standard procedure of using a urinal. Afterwards he neglected to wash his hands and exited the bathroom.

The young man shambled back to his seat and upon seeing the girlfriend was still on her phone, he decided to pull out his phone as well —which so often happens at times like these. He checked the time, it was six thirty which meant things had been going at a steady and expected pace.

The young man decided to check instagram even though he had no notifications from the app. He opened instagram to a picture of one of his classmates with her friends on a beach somewhere. They were smiling and joyous, posing elegantly for the photo. He scrolled, there was a solitary woman, posing by a pool, consciously he felt nothing —in the depths of his heart he yearned. He scrolled, it was an advertisement for a university, the young man didn’t read it. He scrolled, it was an image of a young man, skinny and shaven from head to toe. His face and hair were soft and well maintained. The young man looked on in unconscious fascination. He was lost in the eyes of the man whose most sincere inner pain poured forth endlessly from his pupils. He scrolled, another ad, it was for a workout routine. The young man registered it for almost a second. He scrolled… then the waiter returned with their meals and the scrolling was interrupted.

“Burger for you.” “...” “And the caesar for you. Enjoy.”

The waiter's words were so hollow and uninterested that it would have felt better if he had neglected to say “enjoy.” By doing so he called attention to how little enjoyment was indeed occurring. Now that the fork had entered the grip of the girlfriend, the young man was prepared to venture for a conversation once more.

“So, did you have any plans for halloween?” This was a blunder and as soon as the young man uttered it he realised that it was so. He hoped she was already busy later on, so he could rid himself of her painlessly and pursue his natural inclinations. “Oh umm yea I’m going to a party with my friends later. You could come if you really want to.” “Nah, it’s alright. Me and the boys are going out by ourselves.” In a Freudian slip he admitted: “I’m just curious, trying to make some conversation.”

This was the kind of idle bravery that resulted in the two being involved in the first place. She reddened slightly. “Oh, that’s alright, I get it. That’s sweet. I’m not quite sure there’s much to say though.” “You’re right, I don’t even really know what to say myself.”

Equally however, it’s impossible to sit in silence. To add further difficulty, the conversation was at a stage where neither party would tolerate a discussion pertaining to the quality of the food being consumed. There was only one solution to this dilemma: simply eat the food and make conversation impossible. It is also important to note that no thoughts should enter the mind during this period of semi-undistraction.

The meals were finished without difficulty and the bill was asked for. A fifteen percent tip was given³⁷ and an unavoidable conversation began once more as they stood up to leave. The girlfriend began: “So, what are you doing after this?” “Oh, um nothing, I kind of need to study? What are you doing?” “Hmm, nothing, but I was kinda thinking we would do something afterwards.” She couldn’t contain her grin as she spun her entrapping web. “Let’s go for a walk.” She forcefully suggested. Had the young man been more so a man, he could have easily rejected this and perhaps completed some more of his schoolwork. However, suffering from total enslavement to the will of women that so many like him suffer from, he had no option but to accept.

So they began to walk along the scarcely lit street. It was even darker now, the moon had been smothered by clouds perhaps. Not that the young man took note of this as his focus was utterly captured by the girlfriend at hand.

“Where are we going?” “Hmm, how about the park…” That was close enough so that the young man could still conceivably get back to his dorm by seven thirty —not that if it wasn’t he could help it. One foot followed the other and the two became just as the other roaming bands of monsters prowling the streets.

The young man was being led as if by leash. He worried about what her plans were for him. Perhaps she had lied about going to a party tonight and in reality she just wanted to lead him around all night. It could be the case that the path he was walking was a ruinous one. All his careful planning could be wiped away because of this wasteful escapade.

The young man could hardly contain his worries as he was led around block after block. He was unsure of how far they had walked or if they were even going in the right direction. He was relieved however when he caught a glimpse of the small hill which rose above the one story buildings that enveloped the streets. The hill was right next to the park, at least he hadn’t been misled.

It was really a terrible thing to walk in silence. Thankfully the young man was at a stage in his life where good health allowed him to walk for much distance without issue. However, they had been meandering so long that a faint ache arose within his calves. The girlfriend would turn back occasionally to check on the state of her escort. Her eyes would flash playfully in the darkness. The young man couldn’t avoid missing them as she also revealed her sumptuous features as she faced him. It was truly a shame to have such a mouth watering swine dressed in such poor makeup. The young man couldn’t help but agree every time he gazed through her.

At last, they turned a corner and the park gate was revealed at the end of the street. “We’re here, I’ve always liked walking in the park at night.” “Yea, me too actually.”³⁸ It was a nice park, it featured a lake and many pine trees. They were of a low enough density so that it was still clearly a manufactured park, but enough to retain the illusion of genuine nature. The hill was the clear highlight, it was tall enough whereupon one could get a good vantage point of the town. The girlfriend, however, seemed to be interested in walking the path around the lake and gazing into the starry sky in a location with slightly less light pollution than usual. Although it had become apparent that the sky was cloudy, now that their view of it was unobstructed.

The water of the lake was dark and reflective. It seemed like a portal to another world. Perhaps it was, it occurred to the young man that he might already be in another dimension or some kind of dream. Sadly it was not a very good dream, it was the type of dream that is totally impossible: a boring dream. Despite his disinterest in the current state of affairs, the muffled moonlight which the girlfriend’s skin reflected still held his attention. Ultimately it was hard to tell how she felt about this, in some ways she must have enjoyed the desire she commanded. On the other hand, she couldn’t help but crave a more exciting romance. As with all things in the analysis of unthinking peoples, the answer is unclear.

The girlfriend began to speak: “What a night. Thanks for coming along.” “Yea it is. The vibe is great.” “Hehe, yea. So, umm…” They were almost halfway around the lake by now. She looked at the young man with an entrapping gaze that drew his focus to her eyes. “I thought we could go swimming.” “Really…” In this moment the young man lost all inhibitions about the rest of his night —and the rest of his life too. “Sure why not.”

It was him who jumped first. By some miracle remembering to empty his pockets before taking the plunge. Luckily the water was deep enough for him to land in the water and not injure himself on some hidden rock. The young man turned back towards his girlfriend who calmly looked on at his foolish display. “You were more eager than I had expected.” The young man replied with a wordless gaze from under his soaked hair. The girlfriend however did not enter the lake swiftly after him. Nor did she strip in front of him as he was hoping she would. Rather, to the young man’s horror, she calmly bent over and began to pick up his phone and wallet.

Opening his wallet, she extracted his money and took out all of his identification and credit cards and placed them in her purse. Then she turned on his phone and began to outline her terms: “What is your phone password?” Her voice had a serious but also extremely whiny tone.

The young man was stunned silent. He treaded water half heartedly; he had not changed his gaze at all during the entire betrayal. The only observable change was that his pupils had dilated. “If you don’t give me your phone password I will throw this phone into the other end of the lake.” It dawned on the young man that he was dreaming because something terrible had just happened.³⁹

He shook his head back and forth in the water and realised that he was quickly growing cold in the night’s embrace. “I’m not fucking around, if you don’t answer me I’m leaving.” The young man somehow came to realise that he was in a loss-loss scenario and might as well say something.⁴⁰ “It’s Saturn sixty six with a c instead of an s.” She typed in the password. “It’s wrong, lie to me again and we’re done!” The young man wasn’t quite sure what to say, he had in truth given the correct password. “I didn’t lie, the first letter is a capital C, saturn with two sixes” He replied blankly. “You’re lucky that worked.”⁴¹ She oddly commented, now in a slightly more emotional whine.

The young man was bewildered, still treading in the lake. He sensed that something was amiss and relaxed slightly upon seeing that what was happening before his eyes was more than a simple robbery. A flash of empathy which he so rarely felt overcame him as he noticed the deep insecurity written on the girlfriend’s face. He had the instinct that he should ask her if she was okay. But just as the waves he made with each stroke formed and dissipated in the same instant, so did this phantom humanity.

During the contemplations of the young man, the girlfriend nervously purused his social media and contacts. Thankfully the young man only had two “girlfriends” at the time. In addition to this, his history with women made it so that when the girlfriend at hand looked through his texts with various women, most of them were either bitter breakup paragraphs or unanswered pleas. The young man also never named contacts in his phone anything other than the person’s real name. This was a massive boon as the girlfriend was lost in a sea of generic connections.

The primary means of communication for the second girlfriend was in fact the standard messenger. The girlfriend at hand was much more suspicious of his snapchat and fruitlessly ruffled through pictures of ceilings trying to find the person whom the young man was cheating on her with.

As she spent more time looking through the young man’s phone, her mental anguish gradually increased. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t hitting on hundreds of other girls. She also couldn’t believe what horrible conversations he had with his acquaintances. Slowly, she began to break down in tears as she realised the madness she had perpetrated. Though for a moment she regained her composure and closed snapchat; she had had the idea to check his messenger.

At some point the young man came to realize he really had not jumped far away from the girlfriend at all. He came to see that he could simply climb out of the lake and repossess his property. Upon gaining this incredible knowledge the young man began to swim rapidly towards the edge of the lake. Within about five seconds he could stand; he walked out of the water at an inappropriately unhurried pace. Perhaps this worked to his benefit however as the girlfriend made no reaction to his approach.

At this moment, the girlfriend at hand was looking directly at the name of the other girlfriend. However, by a most certainly intentional act of divine will, the other girlfriend’s name was one commonly held by men. In addition, the dullness of their text logs made it appear as if she was just another one of the young man’s connections. It was as the young man approached her with lake water streaming down his face that a tear slid down the cheek of the girlfriend. Her legs quivered and she bawled as a bursted dam. In her distraught state the phone fell inert out of her grasp and onto the grass.

The young man was within a foot of her. Once more she looked up at him as if he were an apparition. She muttered words so naturally that it was hard to believe she had never learned their meaning: “I’m sorry.” Her voice still rang with the same whine, only now it was emphatic. The young man took stock of the situation: feeling his passion boil within himself and once more neglecting to partake in the decisions of his life, he hit the girlfriend across the face. Then fell the real tears as her body slumped onto the grass next to the phone. The young man felt a swell of cruel satisfaction.

The girlfriend was not unconscious, in fact the blow hadn’t caused much damage to her at all. In the end it was more so that she had wanted to fall.⁴² It was all she could think of to do at that moment. To lay down and sob. The young man was curious, he knelt and inspected her as she lay with a swollen cheek crying. He was still dripping with lake water. The cold of the air was heightened as it met his moist skin and his hairs stood up. Then came a courage which only arose in the young man in times of ecstasy: he began to talk freely. “What were you thinking?” he barked confidently. The girlfriend replied through her sniffles: “I thought you were cheating on me…⁴³ I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

This made the young man think, why would she apologise? Had she not found the other girlfriend in his phone? He moved over to the purse and retrieved his belongings from the girlfriend. He was tempted to steal her money as well but ultimately decided against it for reasons unknown. The young man was calm now, the park was still empty and there were seemingly no witnesses. The hill peered down at him and the night had gotten darker. The girlfriend shambled over to him as he was distracted with the purse and threw her arms around him from behind. He could feel the tears soak into his shirt as she pressed her face into his back. She coughed innocently and was tenderly loving.

The young man had run out of emotions to feel however. Unsure of what to make of it all he relented to the girl’s gentle embrace. It recurred to him that he still had to rid himself of her as soon as possible. But then again it was difficult to break the inertia involved with a girl’s touch. “So… will you promise never to do that again?” Now was the time for the young man to outline his own terms. “Yes.” the girl meekly replied. “And you will trust me and be loyal to me in the future?” Once more the same reply came: “Yes.” Seemingly satisfied, the young man ended: “Good.”

Now things were set right and all was well. The two sat in their present position in silence; totally still except for their chests slowly extending and retracting with the beat of their hearts.

After fifteen minutes the pleasure which the young man gained from his current state of affairs had decreased enough for him to attempt a break out. He precisely displaced the girl’s arms which wrapped around him. As he did so he enunciated: “Hey, I have to start going, it's getting quite late. If I remember correctly you have places to be yourself.” The girl grunted in an entreating manner. The young man freed himself and stood.

Defeated, the girlfriend began to rise herself and replied: “No, I would rather stay here.” It seemed she was slow to sober from romance.⁴⁴ The girlfriend could see in the gaze of the young man looking back at her that she would not get her way however. “Fine, but at least walk me home.” Despite the fact that she was still in no position to dictate terms, the young man’s weakness had returned and he coalesced almost instantly.

The two were standing side by side now, walking along the path which completed the perimeter of the lake. It was substantially darker still and they both wondered how dark the night would get before it would brighten once more. They exited the gate from which they came and the girlfriend began to lead the young man in the general direction of her house.

As they passed the same old streets once more. The young man’s mind wandered, this time not to his impending deadlines but rather to a place far, far away.⁴⁵ Such a cerebral experience was wholly new for the young man, perhaps this constituted his first thought and the activation of his internal monologue. If not, it at least was the first such experience in a very long time.

9:30 PM

The young man continued down those catacombs which crawled with the dead. He was certain that the river styx had an end despite its meanderings —much like the path down which the girlfriend led him. Somehow it was warm and for the young man the feeling of the moment was much like the buzz of the streetlights which revealed his path.

Then, in an all of a sudden that was about fifteen minutes they had arrived at their final destination. The girlfriend stopped and spun on her heel as the young man began to recognise his surroundings. His attention was captured by the girlfriend’s needful eyes and delicate nose. She opened: “We’re here… that was a very strange night.” Now playful: “I think I liked it though.” The young man responded with his eyebrows. “Well, I guess I will see you around… unless you’d like to stay for a little.”

Oh how badly the young man wished to relent. But fear is often stronger than love and therefore he stood his ground. “I really have to get some work done tonight, sorry. I hope to see you again soon.” “I’m sure we shall see each other again very soon… for now goodbye.” She replied in a predicted defeat: “Goodbye.”

Then the young man began to walk down the street and pulled out his phone for directions.⁴⁶ He plugged in his home address and followed the blue line which was his new director. Unencumbered by the girlfriend, the young man was markedly more focused. He still held out hope of finishing his paper by tonight, if only he could get home in the time predicted by his phone. Then he would still have an hour to finish up his paper and probably receive a B- at worst.⁴⁷

Perhaps the young man’s directionlessness was not due to his own faults. For at this point, even by my sound judgement, the streets seemed to mix together and shift in the darkness. It could be that there were creatures lurking there in the shadows, bending reality to their will. There were certainly many forms still moving about, a greater volume than before. It must have been that the parties were just getting started.

The young man could scarcely notice any of this however as he checked his phone at the end of each block. When he did get an inkling of discomfort, naturally the phone was also the solution.

So the night raged on in general silence. And after some time the young man had returned to his dormitory building. Idly he went to his room, with each step feeling the walls closing in tighter on him. Not much time was left.

10:00 PM

As the young man entered his room he immediately sat down at his desk and got to work. He put in his headphones and searched for some music —this time far more quickly. The young man was focused, he began to go through his paper once more and perform the corrections which he previously noted. It was an amazing thing to watch, in ten minutes he accomplished what would have taken ten hours at his previous rate.

However, the young man’s work was shortly interrupted by his bladder. So he jumped up from his desk and went down the hall to his floor’s bathroom. His walk was determined and purposeful, he was a soldier marching dutifully to his objective.

In the bathroom there was always a horrible smell.⁴⁸ The young man improvised an air filter with his shirt and proceeded forth to the enemy trench. He relieved himself as fast as possible and neglected to wash his hands —time was of the essence.⁴⁹

The young man returned once more to his room and set upon his task with renewed vigor. Ultimately however he began to realize that it was more work than he had predicted. It was fine though, he thought naively, “I still have an hour after all.” Which was all well and good until about ten minutes later when the young man suddenly had an epiphany: he didn’t have an hour, he still needed to get a costume for the party.

Upon reaching this realisation, a cool terror descended upon the young man. It was certain now that he would not be submitting his paper tonight and therefore he had all of tomorrow to work on it.⁵⁰ However, he had made no plans whatsoever as to what he would wear as a costume to the party. Therefore he immediately ceased work and began to rack his mind…

11:00 PM

What resources did he have at his disposal? Nothing, or so it seemed. Perhaps he just wasn’t seeing things in the right light. He had some old clothes, maybe he could damage them and go as a homeless guy —that’s a bit too insensitive though isn’t it. That thought had the spirit of a good idea however, it was just missing some pieces in order to be complete.

The young man thought and thought. Maybe he could enlist the help of others? After all he did live on a floor with many other men much like himself. It was conceivable that at least one of them was more prepared for tonight than him. Time was running thin, to the extent where it trumped the young man’s social inhibitions. He swung open his door confidently and strutted out into the hallway. At first searching for doors left ajar and then for doors which he seemed to remember had male occupants.⁵¹

The young man came up to one door which bore the inscription of a name which was usually male. He knocked quickly…. no answer. Then he knocked again, still nothing. Next, the young man went one door over to a door with no markings. He knocked and knocked again. Not the faintest stir came from within.⁵²

Finally, the young man had found another appropriate wooden door, he readied his fist for knocking. Then three raps fell in quick succession. A startle came from the room and after a couple of seconds, footsteps came towards the door. Then, a peripherally familiar boy who wore a smiling face appeared.

The young man fearlessly posed a question: “Hey how are you man?” His interlocutor was apprehensive. “I’m alright, what’s going on?” “That’s good, yea, I was just wondering if you were going anywhere tonight?” The boy debated internally whether to tell the truth or not. “Yes I am.” “Cool, me as well… you see I need a costume though.” The boy, still beyond the threshold of the door, then understood perfectly and dropped his perplexed demeanor.

The young man continued: “So I was wondering if you perhaps had an extra costume?” “Hmm, I wish I did, but I really don’t, sorry man.” A glum look grew on the young man’s face upon hearing this. There was a brief silence as the boy thought and the young man wished for a deliverance. In a strange dash of brotherly love for a comrade at arms, the boy proclaimed: “I have an idea:⁵³ you can go as a zombie.” “Sure, but what’s the costume?” “I have some ashes from my cigarettes, just rub it on your face it will be great!” The boy beamed with hilarity.

The young man was somewhat unsure, but he seemed to come around to understanding that he was quite out of options should he refuse. “Sure, why not. Where’s the ashtray?” The boy went into his room and retrieved it. When he came back to the door, he walked past the young man towards the shared bathroom. “Come on, follow me.” The young man did just so and joined the boy in front of the mirror of the shared bathroom.

“Alright, now just gather some with your fingers and disfigure your face.” “Do what to my face?” “Disfigure it, smear the ash all over, make yourself look like a zombie.” So the young man did just as he was instructed and after some thorough but deliberate smearing, he began to look quite the same. “Good job, you look great, can I get a photo of you?” The young man scrunched his eyebrows. “Sure.” He smiled slightly and looked at the camera as the boy took a quick photo.

The boy gleamed as he did so and laughed when he snapped his picture. “Thanks so much man.” “No worries, thank you for saving my night. Where are you headed anyways?” “Oh, just a house party with my friends.” The boy began to walk back to his room. “That’s cool, what are you going as?” “A bunny, I have a full costume man!” “That's cool, well, have a good night and thanks again.”

As the boy entered his room again, the young man was able to notice that there were seven candles by the boys’ window. This seemed strange to him for some reason. He rarely spoke with the other students on his floor and therefore had barely talked to this boy prior. In fact it may have been the first time they spoke. “Not that it matters anyways,” thought the young man as he returned to his room.

As soon as he could, he checked the time on his phone and realised it was already eleven forty five. Perfect timing, he would arrive just in time if he left immediately. The young man hoped his costume wouldn’t wear off as he made his way swiftly down the stairs and out of his dormitory.

* * *

The moon couldn’t have been smiling for it was dark and darker still. Thankfully the artificial luminescence of the streetlights beared down hard as ever upon the pavement. They were reminiscent of sun rays in a sense.⁵⁴

The young man was walking along at a hurried pace. As he moved from the main campus towards the town, the lurkers of the dark became increasingly prevalent. The young man hardly had the mind to spare for such frivolous things however. The art of the party occupied his mind.

Somehow he knew where he was going —as if guided by a spirit⁵⁵— and scarcely had need to check his phone for directions. He was camouflaged in the horde, it was a feeling which felt no different from his every day commutes. The soot on his face made him one with the night.

In about fifteen minutes the young man had been delivered. He stood in front of a house, on a street named “River Rd.” and an oil lamp went out on the porch.

12:00 AM

With some degree of nervousness he entered the lampless house hoping dearly that the party goers would enjoy his costume. Inside he was greeted with bright faces and dim lighting. “Hey man you’re…” The young man looked at him in anticipation. “Oh damn, I swear I knew it.” “Don’t worry about it man. How are you?” “I’m well sorry, I mean thanks. Please come in and have a beer!”

It was clear that the party had only just begun because most of the participants were still on their feet. The young man searched around and gained many ambiguous greetings from his classmates. He was looking to see if the second girlfriend had arrived yet. And after clearing the entire house it seemed that she was yet to come.

Having completed a tour of the house, the young man had the advantage of gleaming the faces of all the current attendants. Thankfully there were no ghouls too dreadful to warrant distress in attendance. Most costumes were well done, many wore masks and many had faces worse than masks.

By this time he had finished his first beer, therefore the young man made his way back to the fridge and took another beer. Then he made his way over to a person whom he called a friend and began to have a chat. “Long time no see, how are you?” “Oh wow man, yea it’s been forever. I’m well though.” “Yea man what have you been up to recently?” “Oh just school work, you know, the engineering schedule is packed.” As they talked, the party moved around them, gradually getting lower to the ground —some had begun to lounge on the couch.

“That sucks.” “Well yea, it isn’t that bad, I’m surviving you know.” “I know what you mean.”⁵⁶ What passed for music in those circles was now playing quite loud, as most of the attendees had arrived. It occurred to the young man to text the second girlfriend.

“Hi, are you at the party?” She began to type a response before he closed the messenger. “Yea, wya?” “I’m in the big room w the couch.” “coming.”

After a surprisingly short time, a golden woman arrived. It was curious that somehow the young man had missed her entrance as her costume made her the center of every room she was in.

The second girlfriend moved towards the young man through the now crowded room. As she got closer, the young man could see that she was wearing hardly any clothing and was painted completely golden. The young man was awestricken by what he mistook to be beauty.

“It's nice to see you, who are you dressed as?” “Oh, nobody, I’m just golden, I’m myself.” The young man uttered: “You’re very beautiful.”⁵⁷ “Thanks. You look alot like yourself.” “Very funny.” The second girlfriend looked confused. “Whatever, let's drink.” The young man was much of the same mind as he had almost finished his third beer by now.

The darkened one and the brightened one squeezed through the crowd towards the table on which various bottles of hard liquor and plastic cups stood in moderate disarray. The girlfriend liked fruit flavoured vodka and the young man liked coke and rum.⁵⁸ They took as they pleased, it was a party among close friends after all —yet somehow no one knew the host.

The uncoupled pair moved away towards some miraculously unoccupied chairs. They sat and sipped eagerly, occasionally looking each other in the eyes. Indeed the young man wished to drink of her, but she was not quite sure of anything. Before sooner became later the burdens of life seemed to grow light and the eyelids heavy. Many had fallen to sleep already. A horrible thought entered the young man’s mind: “perhaps it was spiked!” For never before had drink made him fall into darkness so swiftly.

However, it was already much too late and as the young man looked over to the second girlfriend once more, he found that she had already been taken by slumber. Then his eyelids shut their last, the world was consumed by darkness and all was put to ease.

1:00 AM

The young man dreamt of nothing and awoke with a start. He looked around himself only to figure that nothing had changed. Except curiously he was the first to rouse and all about him the partygoers were sleeping. Perhaps the evil man behind all this had greatly miscalculated, or perhaps the joke was yet to come. Regardless, the young man looked over his shoulder to his golden girlfriend to see that she was as asleep as the rest.

He decided it would be best to awaken her. The young man moved her shoulder gently and her eyelids slowly peered open. “Hey… hey wake up.” The young man whispered anxiously. To his surprise, the girlfriend was not alarmed in the least as she took in the scene which surrounded them. Perhaps she thought she was in a dream. Or maybe he was in a dream himself.

Worried that he was currently asleep at the party and dreaming, the young man quickly pinched himself but the pain was as sharp as ever. In fact, all his senses seemed normal other than that he was slightly drowsy. Relieved he wasn’t doing something embarrassing he calmly began to speak with the second girlfriend a second time: “Do you know what’s going on here?” “Hmm, what’s going on I don’t know. This place is hot, I’d like to go for a walk.”

Somewhat baffled, the young man replied “Are you okay? Something has clearly happened here, everyone has been put to sleep.” “Merely the effect of the night isn’t it?” She replied unfazed. And the young man supposed she could be right, people normally sleep at night after all.⁵⁹

The young man hadn’t been to any party where something like this had happened before though. He wasn’t quite sure what to think, had everyone gone mad?

The second girlfriend began to rise from the chair she was sleeping in and head vaguely over to the table where all the alcohol was. She grabbed a bottle and held it out towards the young man, “would you like some?” He got up swiftly and moved over to the second girlfriend, “put that down, now’s not the time for drinking.” “Since when do you care? … fine, let’s go for a walk then.”

She walked over to the front door and opened it carelessly, no light entered the house upon her doing so, therefore it couldn’t have been long after midnight. Feeling very much that there wasn’t much to do, the young man followed her reluctantly. “Maybe this is some kind of messed up dream after all.” thought the young man. No danger was imminent and something attention-holding appeared to be happening. As he went to follow the second girlfriend he muttered “who cares anyways.”

* * *

As the young man left the house, the second girlfriend had already started down the sidewalk. Outside the moon was even darker, it seemed as if it was dying, giving off its last bits of energy deep into that drowsy night. It could have just been very overcast, but there was not one cloud in the sky and the weak face of the moon appeared unobstructed.

The young man hurried down the sidewalk to catch up to her and walk alongside her. The world was silent and not a soul stirred, the second girlfriend’s every footstep sounded like a drumbeat. As he caught up with her, he realised that he had already lost his sense of direction and looking all around himself found that they were the only ones out at this hour.

The young man pulled out his phone to find that it was dead —which made no sense given that it wasn’t on that low of a battery last he checked. “Where are we?” He asked innocently. “Earth obviously.” She blankly replied.

The young man wasn’t amused and was also unaware that the second girlfriend had developed such a bad sense of humour. “Where are we going then?” He interrogated —now clearly annoyed. “I’m not quite sure, I just needed a walk… some fresh air. Doesn’t it feel nice out here.” In truth it was cold and dreadful. A sense of awe began to fall upon the young man. He wondered: “What time is it?”

2:00 AM

Worried, aimless and undistracted the young man was forced to think as he walked alongside the sleepwalking girlfriend. He lamented his philosophy paper: that five percent deduction for lateness is so miserable. He thought of how his grade would change now and how he would have to work around that.

Then all of a sudden, as they were crossing the middle of an empty intersection it hit him: his thesis was wrong. But just as he was about to come up with something truly brilliant, he spotted an ominous, ill-clad figure walking down the middle of the street straight towards them.

As she came closer it became obvious who it was and she began to shout out, far louder than was appropriate, “oh it's you… its you, its you, its you!” As he heard her voice, it became all too blatant to bear: it was the first girlfriend.

The second girlfriend seemed to return to her regular self. “Oh, and who might this be?” The young man did not respond. “I’m his girlfriend, who are you?” “Oh… I’m his second girlfriend.” She delivered the line with unnatural poise.

Both women turned to face the young man, he had nothing to say, but the look on his face betrayed it all. The girlfriend’s face was shattered, tears streamed forth from her eyes in enraged confusion. Once more she fell to the ground at the heels of the second girlfriend. She herself had nothing to say, she was a golden statue, standing there still and attempting to determine her next move.

The game was up, now there was only one place to go. The young man had nothing to say, he simply walked away defeated. The two girlfriends looked on in disbelief. They couldn’t comprehend that what they were watching was even a remote possibility.

As the young man’s feet led him to a sure destination, the moon lost its light and lay dead in the sky. Then the stars began to fall. The young man was running now, for there was very little time. Over the horizon he began to see the tip of the hill.

As he reached the street with the entrance to the park on the other end he broke into a sprint. Everything seemed to be ending, he knew not why he was running, but it was sure he was running from something… perhaps everything. His apathy had been transformed into a flight with the urgency of death.

The young man crossed the threshold of the park and continued to jog towards the peak of the hill. A cloud descended over all the land, lightning struck the trees and trumpets sounded. Panting and almost out of energy, the young man stumbled up the path to the top of the hill.

The cloud subsumed him as he got close to the top, far from the street lights he was in pure darkness. He collapsed on the dirt path, surrounded by darkness and mist.

After some time, the storm passed and the young man could see the path to the top of the hill clearly now. There was also a brightness that gradually pierced the clouds, a light. The young man got back on his feet and walked the final steps to the peak of the hill. As he looked behind himself there was nothing and the whole world beyond the peak of the hill had been swallowed up into air.

Then the light spoke with him. And told him many fearful things, the young man explained every last word he had said. Then in a lull of silence, after hours of trial, he asked himself: “What’s going on? Where am I?” Then followed a great pause. “Are you not the son of a man and woman?” The young man didn’t know how to reply but the light already knew what his answer would be. He continued, “Indeed I am also the son… and your father.” Then the young man was made to understand it all. It is unclear whether he was forgiven.

And the young man was sent away, along with all the other creatures of the earth. Yet the sun rose again that next day, to a barren planet.

After all, it seemed that more things were the same than had changed.

SPACE ADDED SO YOU DON’T ACCIDENTALLY SPOIL THE ENDING WHEN READING FOOTNOTES.

1. Fascinating the work of these young minds isn’t it?

2. Which is the reaction that two and half standard deviations from the mean in both directions of the student body have when encountering such a thing —and also the culturally accepted practice.

3. There were enough students enrolled in the class to easily fill the lecture hall.

4. Utilitarianism (1861) - John Stuart Mill

5. But what really does anyways?

6. Not much usually changes with these types.

7. This is also how dogs work.

8. Because I don’t drink them.

9. Which is not to say that his choices usually are of consequence.

10. Having conversations with much outward laughter and many inward cries.

11. Which is not to say that he wasn’t literally rotting.

12. This addition to the cafeteria could only be explained by some sort of previous administration of the cafeteria or alternatively inhabitants of an alien civilization. It was astonishingly the only thought out and wise decision regarding the organization of the place.

13. Because the current administration didn’t understand economics they would always produce an equal amount of the desserts even though the consumers had indicated a discrepancy in demand.

14. Imagine if you will though: That your life had little to no purpose —which is the prevailing opinion in the west. You just sat around and ate grass all day waiting for an end to it all. Sometimes however some people milked your utters for a while and you felt quite good afterwards. Perhaps a bit exhausted but that’s all in a day's work. So you could get some solace and pleasure from knowing you were useful and meant something to someone. That you had a point to existing. Then one day they just stopped, and you’re left to wonder “what did I do wrong? Do they hate me?” You might even fall into some kind of dark depression and lose the will to carry on. It's really no way to live is it? Naturally cows can’t think and don’t have these problems. But if you’re stupid enough to imagine ethical frameworks for animals why can’t you let them have existential crises as well?

15. A relation to assuage the horrible dread that comes with not understanding anything about life at all in an age with no role models.

16. This is standard procedure.

17. This is a really bad guess

18. It's another unanswerable question regarding the behaviour of others.

19. Which is where the truth comes from: the literature.

20. Not that he had any knowledge of the consequences. Merely the idea of drawing the disappointment of his professors made him nervous.

21. The most relevant factor to keep track of and maintain to ensure future success in life.

22. This is also standard procedure.

23. Whom the young man had not contacted in weeks. The relationship was circumstantial for both of them.

24. This was an attitude reminiscent of that of the average university bureaucrat immediately preceding a lunch break.

25. This marks one of the only times in which the young man had been in concurrence with nature.

26. Naturally it was imperative to leverage any potential advantage which could induce a woman into being willing to sleep with him.

27. When she did go to the gym, she only ran on the treadmill and did squats while thinking about all the men that were looking at her (admittedly some couldn’t help it.)

28. The waiter was an inexperienced student and peer of the young man. No one cared however, as society has lost its standard for service —despite this the norm of tipping twenty percent persists.

29. She belonged to a type of women who could only order salads in public, for fear of looking fat.

30. A pepsi is four dollars (what a fucking robbery.)

31. It’s impossible for a modern youth to say “please” or “thank you.”

32. Interestingly enough, despite many fast food chains having figured out that this exchange is meaningless and installing ordering machines in their locations, they also permit customers to order vocally still. Someone at upper management must be sentimental.

33. It was fairly below his eye line as the modern relationship does not permit that the fairer sex be less than a foot smaller than her escort.

34. Whatever she had been doing, it was certainly not this. Not that the young man realised or cared in the slightest.

35. See note 27

36. Barring the unspecified gender bathroom —which also had a disabled symbol on it.

37. If you tip below this amount there will be consequences (although no one has ever tried.)

38. Both of them had almost never walked in the park late at night before but had rather fallen in love with the idea of doing so by consuming internet content which romanticised the experience.

39. As is always the case with all directionless people, the only objects of their dreams are terror and dread.

40. It must have been the college education which led his reasoning skills to be so sharp.

41. For some reason the original password she had entered was “Saturncixtycix.”

42. In truth, if she had wished to resist him, she likely would have succeeded as the young man was quite physically weak.

43. As it turns out this manoeuvre had been spurred on and plotted out with the help of one of her friends. This friend had told her that she was certain the young man was cheating on her. Further, she had been convinced that it was the proper thing to do for a young woman to routinely inspect her man’s phone and generally gain informational dominance over his life. The events which had just unfolded were planned meticulously. Naturally however, the girlfriend had not the emotional stability to carry them out to completion.

44. A common trait of women.

45. Here are the contents of the young man’s daydream which happened to occur at night: The sun was out and the dirt was dry. He was still wet, but it was not water which his clothes were soiled with. All around him were many friends with many chins. Somehow he knew that he had nothing to his name. Somehow he knew that everything was all very wrong. Although the star in the sky which illumined the rest looked down upon him. Being a man who was naturally led, he felt it natural that this star would be an appropriate guide. Or at least the only guide that would bring him out of his state of lack. Though it occupied him for some minutes of minutiae, these wanderings of the mind were once more overpowered by the present concerns. They would never enter the mind of the young man again.

46. Despite the fact that he had been to her house many times before and walked back to his dorm from there many times before.

47. A B- is just good enough to retain a GPA that is amenable to showing face at family gatherings.

48. Somehow permanently embedded into the grimy white tiling no matter how many times they are cleaned —which were few.

49. And it doesn’t really clean your hands anyways because you have to touch the door knob.

50. So he can put off working on it until eleven pm tomorrow.

51. All the dormitories were co-ed because separating men and women is sexist and would imply there’s something different between them —also gender doesn’t exist.

52. As it turns out, both the rooms were occupied. However, their inhabitants were so adept at antisocial behaviour that they were able to remain completely silent and avoid human interaction completely.

53. It was not an emphatic proclamation but more so a tentative one.

54. Especially to those who are not astute observers.

55. Or a demon perhaps.

56. The young man in fact did not know what he meant because he was a liberal arts student and had almost no work.

57. He enjoyed her cleavage.

58. They both had a peasant’s taste in alcohol.

59. This is actually a true statement.