nothing is wrong

a very short story

I lived in a house with a few roommates. It was built in the 1920s. That night it started snowing. It was the first snow of the year and everyone was a bit excited. My room had dull yellow stains on the walls, but by college standards it was cozy. A couch and a bed faced each other across the room. A cheap rug covered the floor, and my computer sat near the bed. If I turned on the heater and lit a few candles, it became a warm haven. I heard the TV on in the living room.

I opened the door and called my roommate. He emptied the bong and filled it with fresh water.

We had been friends for just over two years. He would tell a story five times in one day. I didn’t like sharing stories. The only times I’d tell stories were ones I would make up to drunk people.

I grabbed the bong from him.

“What if, like, this is all a dream, dude? And one day you wake up and it turns out you were just then being birthed and no one speaks English. It was all just some weird dream.”

We went upstairs to his room and watched the snow fall against the orange streetlights. We leaned out the window with the bong, took huge hits, and exhaled. His girlfriend brought us hot chocolate.

With our jackets on, we walked away from campus and the girls throwing snowballs. It was dark, and we were both wearing running shoes, our laces frozen. I hadn’t dressed warm enough on purpose. The branches began to reach out over the road. The sounds from campus died down and were replaced with a silence. We reached the park, shivering.

It was late and I was stoned and cold. I wanted to head back to my room.

I repeated the same phrase in my head. Is something wrong? Hundreds of times a day. It’s fine.

The snow started coming down harder. On this street the lights were bright white. I couldn’t feel my toes anymore. My roommate put his arm around my neck for a few seconds and rubbed my back.

I went into my room. I had left the heater on. The room was warm, but the cold would not leave. I lit a cinnamon Ikea candle and crawled into my bed. I was so cold. I could solve it. I pulled my thin blankets against my body, then got up. I stared at myself in the mirror in my boxers.

I had been losing weight. I went to the closet and took the morphine pill I had been saving for a few months. I placed the pill under my tongue and crawled back into bed.

I felt it break up into grainy pieces. A trail of saliva ran from the pool under my tongue down my throat. My stomach was empty. A warm glow.

I woke the next morning at 7:20.

I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. The snow had melted. It was dark and pouring. I rode my bike half a mile to campus. I was wearing an old pair of sneakers and a wool peacoat. My fingers burned. I sat in the chair closest to the door. I felt the morphine and a dehydration headache.

At the break I bought a sixteen-ounce coffee and a pumpkin scone.

I went to the library after my first class. If you went up a few floors, you could disappear into the books. It was quiet up there, with large windows overlooking the rainy black campus. I walked down a row and pulled a book out at random.

I tried a few more until I found one called Letters from Korea. My dad once told me the Korean War was called the forgotten war. The author had asked veterans from the Hawaiian regiment to write about their experiences. I sat and read for a while. Then I got up and wandered.

There was a heater nearby blowing warm air against the window. My appetite was slipping away. I pushed my backpack against the wall and lay down over the vent on the floor.

I woke with vertigo. It had been six minutes. I woke again. Light was dimming outside. By four it would be dark.