Wednesday is Hump Day and Nothing More

Candy canes and marshmallows, fireflies and fairies, rose petals and rain…

Faces of people I thought I’d never see again…

Teeth falling out, first one, then another, and then two more…

Adult teeth, I’m too old for baby teeth…

My life is ruined…maybe I’ll be reincarnated with extra teeth next time…

Next time…

“Helloooo, Miaaaa. Earth to Mia. I really can’t let you sleep any more than this since the next class is coming in already…”

I woke up with a jolt. Shoot. I hadn’t realized I’d actually fallen asleep during lecture.

“Rache, you should have woken me up.”

“I did try, you know. You’re just impossible.”

My friend sighed as she ran her fingers through her short black hair.

“Here are my notes for this lecture. Do you even remember anything?”

“Um…I now know that if I was in ancient Rome, I’d definitely not want to be the person analyzing animal parts for messages from the gods.”

“What about dream interpreter? Maybe you’d be good at that since you’re always sleeping every time I see you…”

“Yeah, that does sounds cool. I could be okay with that,” I said, ignoring Rachel’s other comment as I took out my phone. Rachel and I had met at a general education biology class our first quarter as freshmen, and I’d probably have flunked out of college by now if it wasn’t for my photos of her extremely detailed notes.

“Do you really find this class this boring?”

“It’s not that it’s boring, it’s just…Yesterday Mia decided that playing video games until 2am was a good idea, when it obviously…wasn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you said last week, too.”

Rachel and I packed our bags and walked out of the air-conditioned lecture hall into the scorching heat. It was already the end of September, which meant it was supposed to be fall already, but it was still this hot, and I fought the urge to run straight back into the building.

“This heat is unnatural, Rache.” I said, fanning myself with my notebook. “It’s downright—”

“Hellish, I know, I know.” Rachel laughed.

“Well, at any rate I have to get to my next class. You are still coming to my Halloween kickback thing, right?” Rachel asked me.

“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it.”

She stared at me for a moment, moving her lips around as if she was smushing around non-existent lipstick.

“Well, if you say so. Don’t forget to come in costume.”

“And of course I’ll bring my famous pumpkin cookies!”

“Sure, sure, see you around.”

We parted ways as we entered the main quad area of campus. I didn’t have another class until the late afternoon, so I decided I’d get lunch at the café nearby. There was something poking around in my mind a bit, but they always said that if it was really that important, you’d definitely remember, so it was probably fine…

When I arrived at the café, the first disappointment I faced was that they had run out of both almond and oat milk. I had a vague feeling that today was not the day to test the limits of my lactose tolerance, however.

The second disappointment was that I had forgotten my wallet and so was unable to even order a sandwich. But maybe that wasn’t so bad, because anyway the other café had better pani—

Oh, shoot.

I raced across the quad towards the opposite side of campus.

***

“Wow, Mia, you’re here!”

“I’m…really sorry I’m late…I…got caught up in something,” I said, trying to play up my breathlessness to hide the fact I had just given a lame non-excuse. Turns out that the important thing I had forgotten was my weekly Wednesday lunch with the friends I had made last year in my freshman year dorm building.

Lori, the unofficial “ringleader” of our group sipped her half-empty iced coffee before waving her hand and saying, “Sorry, that probably sounded sarcastic. We really are happy you’re here, but unfortunately, I have to get to the Daily Phoenix office, and those two have to get to class and office hours I believe.”

Tara and Sasha, my other two dorm friends, just looked at each other sheepishly before nodding.

“You better not forget next week though, Mia. I had something important to announce, you know. Possibly even life-changing.”

“Life-changing?”

“For me, mostly, but you never know, it might be life-changing for you, too.”

The three of them gathered up their backpacks and headed off towards their classrooms and other destinations. Lori’s good-bye smile seemed a little icy, though Tara’s and Sasha’s just seemed awkward, but well, I really had no one else but myself to blame for these kinds of situations.

I still couldn’t help but give a long sigh, though.

I guess I might as well just decide to do better and then go back to my dorm for a nap. Nap meaning “lay in bed playing some mindless merge mobile game until I realize I’m about to be late to class again and have to run out with different colored socks.” Yes, it’s true: at this point, I had absolutely zero lofty expectations for myself.

But it’s good enough, isn’t it? For my average and typical life where nothing strange at all ever happens, who cares if I never get my act together? Arrive late to class, sleep too late, shower, meet up with friends, eat, sleep, call my Mom, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Boring, typical, average life.

I love you, average life, and I never want anything super intense to mess up my boring, calm, average life.

Nope, it’s good to be boring.

Boring is great. Don’t ever want anything to change, nope.

Whenever I felt down, like I did now, I repeated this mantra in my head in an attempt to jinx myself and get the Universe to make something interesting happen to me to shock me out of this boring sameness where everyone, including myself, thought I was unreliable and silly and someone who would never be able to do anything properly.

But, well, I’m already nineteen and the Universe still hasn’t abducted me into outer space, or sent me to a fantasy world to take over the body of a villainess, or even let me have a meet-cute with the love of my life at some cozy little bookstore, so…I guess I should probably give up on all that and just accept that this was my life.

And so, with that acceptance was how I lived the rest of this ridiculous Wednesday until the sleep-deprivation overtook the mental stimulation that I got from scrolling through social media on my phone, forcing me to turn over in bed and finally go to sleep at freaking 2:30am, which wasn’t even that bad for me, but if you compared me to my roommate who had already fallen asleep something like four or five hours ago, you’d see just how much of a mess I am, and I’ll always be a mess and…

And…and…I’m pathetic…and…and…suffocating….

Suffocating…it’s so dark…it’s so hard to breathe…and…it’s…so…

I’m not claustrophobic, no, I’m not, I’m not, but this feeling…how small…can I possibly…

It was such a hot day today, but now it’s so cold, it feels like everything in this whole world…

Silence so loud…is a song lyric…not…

Will I ever be able to...breathe again…never…never…

And then…

I finally fell onto the ground, which was cold and hard and made my skin prickle, and I opened up my eyes, and even though my body was no longer crushed by the darkness, darkness was all I could see, and I wanted to scream, but nothing would come out of my mouth, how ridiculous, was this Hell, where was I, why in the world was this happening, I never asked for this, why, why, why…What did I do to deserve this? I’m flaky and forgetful, and I give up too easily, but I wasn’t a bad person, was I? I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t ask for this…

I squeezed my eyes shut and curled up into myself as tightly as I could.

Well, Universe, I guess you’re probably laughing at me now.