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original_lavi) wrote2007-08-30 08:27 pm
Joseph the Observer (previously "What If," but that's trite)
I like Joseph's morbid, cynical sense of humor. And I really like how I did the ending.
The first week of college was finished at Delmar University, ushering in the first weekend, and Joseph was wandering through the halls of his dorm. It was Saturday morning, and he didn’t think more than two or three other people were awake in the entire dorm. There had been a large party last night – Joseph had actually dropped in on it briefly himself. Of course not everyone had been to it, but even those who hadn’t had been up for some other reason – studying, for those types who studied on Friday nights, or calling their friends/parents back at home (for those types who called their parents late Friday nights), or just sleeping in now anyway, regardless of how early they had been to bed. It was regarded as highly unnatural to actually be up, completely washed and dressed, and walking about at seven a.m. on a Saturday morning.
Joseph, being a considerate boy, was not stomping about the halls as he went, but stepping as lightly as he could. His hands were shoved into his loose jeans, and he occasionally had to shake his head to get his brown hair out of his eyes; he hadn’t cut it since graduating from high school a few months ago.
The silence through the halls was completely thorough. Not the sound of a television, radio, voices on the phone, slam of a drawer, sink or shower running in the bathroom…. He could almost be the only living person in the building. As he went past the silent walls and doors, he appreciated the soft scuffing sound his shoes made on the carpet.
Pushing open a door, Joseph entered the main lobby of his dorm hall. Here with his parents, a week ago, he had signed in and picked up his room key, mailbox lock combination, and other sundry things that went along with moving in. His mother had been uneasy with his room and bathroom (into which she had taken one quick step in to glance around, when she thought neither he nor his father was looking), though his father repeatedly told her it wasn’t any worse than the typical dorm room. Joseph had only shared her dislike of the communal bathroom (the idea of sharing relieving and cleansing space with what, half a dozen other typical males, could never be attractive); he found his living space quite satisfactory. Small, not much privacy, sure; but it was so interesting, much more interesting than his room at home. He lay on his bed at night and wondered about who had slept here before him; if they had insomnia, how many times they had sex here (reminding himself again he had just bought these sheets and blankets), if any of them had ever dared to cry here from homesickness. He wondered what sorts of restricted items had been hidden in the bottom of drawers in which he now folded his socks.
Joseph often liked to wonder like this, and he was finding great material and inspiration on a college campus. As he had gone down the halls this morning, he had looked at each door and imagined each sort of person that lived in there. Perhaps here was an Honors student, who had not left his room last night, and his roommate was just a quiet computer nerd; next door were two boys suffering from hangovers; then there was another who hadn’t even come back yet from the party; and (because surely he wasn’t the only one conscious in the entire building) another studious-nerd sort, who was awake and reading in bed.
Now, on a broader scope: here was a boy who would go back home before the month was over, roommate to the one who would be their student body president senior year. Here was the one who would become their star basketball player, and go on to the NBA; next door was a boy who would be elected, decades later, a senator of Congress. Here was a boy who was only here because his parents wanted him to go to college and had forced him to apply, and his roommate was one who had worked himself to the bone for the entirety of his senior year so he could get enough scholarships to pay his first year’s tuition, and his father had hardly lifted a finger because he didn’t think college was that important. Perhaps here was a boy who would have to be taken to the hospital after the next party, and here was another who would be expelled second semester for cheating. Joseph got onto the second floor, which was for girls: there could be a girl who was ever so shy in high school, and who would become known next year as a slut; there was the girl who would break Joseph’s own roommate’s heart, two years from now; there might be a girl who was raped on campus and would never tell a soul; there might be a girl who was a lesbian and would never tell her roommates; and there might be a girl to whom Joseph would lose his virginity.
The last thought was startling, even for him, and so he had turned down the next staircase he came to, gone through the door, and so re-entered the silent, empty lobby.
Weak morning sunlight filtered through the dusty windows. Ambling over to the nearest glass pane, Joseph peered out onto the grounds, which were also deserted as much as he could see. He was bored. Breakfast didn’t even open for another hour, which he found ridiculous (way to make the slightest effort to encourage students to have good hours), and there was a limit to how much even he could stare at closed, silent doors and imagine the occupants behind them. Perhaps he should have just stayed in bed himself, like everyone else. Actually tried not to wake up this early.
Joseph turned and leaned his back against the wall, his boredom inspiring him to even wilder and more daring ideas than normal. What prevented him from finding a way to the rooftop of the residence hall, right now, and stepping off the edge? Apart from the fact that he wasn’t suicidal, of course – but if he were, if there were someone else who were. What stopped them from doing that anytime they pleased? He could, and imagine how the university and city and even the nation would be in an uproar. The college’s reputation splattered (just as the sidewalk would be), potential students saying, “Oh, that’s where that boy killed himself after he’d only been there a week,” his freshman class already thrown into confusion and dismay. The concept that he had that much power in his ability right now, to affect so much and so many for so long – it was really quite staggering, if one could properly grasp it. And Joseph could. He wondered, then, how anyone could ever feel unimportant or completely powerless to change anything, as long as there was a tall building nearby, or some other dramatic and simple means of catching attention. Of course, one couldn’t really stick around afterward to enjoy the results, but that was the price.
But there might be some other way…what about those students who work at the technology center of the college. If they stick around, year after year, imagine what they might be able to do by their senior year. What they could wipe out, or change a single number or decimal place, and what it might cause. Imagine that. The power of simple, blind, easy, natural trust – most of the workers there were honest and well-intentioned, of course, but what if there were just one who wasn’t…one who had been embittered, somehow, by an unfair grade on an exam, or the refusal of a scholarship. Or if the same had been done to a friend or girlfriend of his. Then how easy and tempting it might be to go in – a simple click or key – and how much damage? A whole drive, wiped clean? A number in some sort of budget report…Joseph couldn’t properly imagine, he wasn’t familiar enough with such things to know the potential. But he was quite sure there were many possibilities. And then what? He might be caught, he might not be. Either way, he could definitely watch the consequences. Might not be as big as the first scenario, unless he did it in a way that was ingenious enough to catch national attention, but it would probably serve his purpose of revenge quite adequately. And then, outside of that – imagine the procedures that would have to be implemented, everything that would have to be changed to attempt to make sure it could not happen again. How possibly every student-worker in the technology center would be put on leave, perhaps indefinitely, how no new ones could be hired, for how many years?
It was the thought of those innocent, humble student-workers of the future, who would be refused a job, that made Joseph decide the idea was utterly inhumane.
He paced around the room slowly, to the windows opposite where he was. They had a wider view of the central lawns of the campus. The lawns were in pretty decent shape, uniformly green and soft-looking, and there was a nice variety of trees, not too many either…and still, not a soul walking any of the sidewalks, not a door opening or closing, nothing moving but –
Joseph froze, staring, then moved closer to press his forehead against the glass. Did he really see what he thought he saw –
There, sitting under a tree not too far from his dorm, was the figure of a girl sitting Indian-style, a book in her lap and a half-eaten apple in her hand. Distantly, in a small part of his mind, Joseph wondered where she had gotten the apple. The rest of his mind was wondering if he was in love.
It was, of course, the first ridiculous, dramatic, not even serious reaction, born of his boredom and current mindset of sensational thoughts. Really, though – another person, not only awake but dressed and, even more than him, outside – choosing to be outside to do her reading. Joseph did wonder (but not seriously) if he were hallucinating.
She bent her arm, which had been outstretched across her calf, to lean her elbow on her knee and brush a piece of her hair back with her other hand, before turning the page. He wondered what she was reading, and where he might buy the book. And how he could find out.
Ah, there it was. The idea, more ridiculous and previously unthinkable than anything else of which he had thought this morning, that he somehow go out, to her, and – do something, anything. Catch her attention just by walking past, or saying something to her. Interacting at all. It wasn’t how he worked. Joseph observed, he was an observer, and observers didn’t interact or interfere. That ruined the objectivity of the observation, to at least some (objectionable) extent.
But…well, recently, since he had left high school, he had been wondering what he was going to do with his life. Not in any absurd career-wise aspect (really, how ridiculous), but rather how he planned to live and have relationships and enjoy things. He enjoyed observing, certainly, but…did he want to do it forever? And at high school he had had more of a reason – he hadn’t respected his classmates there much at all, he certainly wasn’t interested in doing anything more than observing. Here, however – it was a new setting, certainly a wider range of people, some of which he was almost certainly bound to respect and like. Did he want to go on observing, detached as the practice was? He knew how to observe; the practice was essentially mastered. What was to say that he wouldn’t get bored of it in another year, and wistful that he hadn’t changed when he first arrived at college, started off making impressions differently?
And now all the possibilities spread before him, tumbling one after another as quickly as he had learned to invent and envision them: he could go out there and she would resent him for interrupting her reading, he could not be her type at all, she could be a lesbian, she could have a boyfriend at home (but who said he was interested in dating her, anyway), she could not be anything like what she seemed or he thought (maybe she was outside because – she had a boyfriend in another country, and had to get up early to call him and go outside not to disturb anyone, and oh that so weak for Joseph’s experience), she could be reading her engineering text.
(There were other possibilities too. She could smile at him, they could talk, they might date and fall in love or simply become great friends, he could help her nights when she was hurt by something or someone and crying, they could go on past college and email, if they moved apart. She could be reading The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.)
Joseph pushed open the lobby door, and he stepped outside into the morning air.