
Cottage Terrace Inn, Room 104
"Come look at this, man. Come see this! You are missing it! You'll never see anything like this again, I guarantee you. Come on!"
The pleas continued. They even turned into threats before long. You ignore them. You continue to hear the gleeful exclamations, the giggles, the other sounds. You make sure your jacket remains all the way over your head. At some point, even though it doesn't minimize the sound at all, the other guys will eventually decide that you are sleeping and leave you alone.
The short trip has turned long and lousy. You caravaned with the other guys who had gone up to participate in some sporting event, thinking it would be a fast and cheap way for you to connect with faculty members of the university where you hope to transfer.
The guys you are dealing with are part of the reason you are hoping to get into a different school.
Everything went smoothly enough until the return trip. The focus and urgency the guys had on the first leg of the trip evaporated before the trip back even started. The Cottage Terrace Inn had only made matters worse by including, or failing to exclude, certain channels from the television in the room.
You now fear that you'll have to walk the rest of the couple hundred miles home. Either that, or it will be an expensive car-for-hire ride, a still too expensive bus ticket, or hope to find someone who just happens to be going that way.
You think about the girl that you met earlier outside the gas station.
There actually were two of them. One girl wore too much makeup and her clothes looked one size too small. The other looked underweight with a sad face. If you are choosing between them based on looks, it would probably be the one with the makeup. If it is based on anything else, you know the sad one is your natural inclination.
Your brief conversation with the sad one has given you reason to think they might be close enough to your town to correct a bad situation, one that seems to be getting worse.
"Hey, Dwight. Dwight? Does your girlfriend ever do this?"
The guys laugh. You sigh under your jacket. You just want to ask them, "Guys, are you sure you can't wait until you get back home to waste all of your time like this?"
I have a job to get back to, I have classwork to get back to. No, I don't have a girlfriend and I don't think I would have one for long if acted like you geniuses.
You decide right then to wake up early the next morning, if you can get any sleep at all, and wait for the girls. They are in a room a couple doors down. Maybe they'll accept the remaining twenty bucks or so that you have left for food in exchange for a ride home.
That one decision relaxes you. As long as you can get out of the nightmare, never-ending trip, you can put up with one last night.
You sit up. The jacket slides down your face into your lap.
"See," one guy says, "I told you he wasn't asleep. Pay up. Come on, I want my money."
"You are right on time, Dwight, this is just starting to heat up."
You ask, "Did anyone hear screaming? Did anyone hear a woman screaming?"
"Uh, yeah," one other guy says. "If you are only hearing it now, you probably really were asleep. So, no, I'm keeping my money right here. Nice try."
An argument ensues. You sigh. Now you really can't hear anything.
You decide to:
or
.
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