Transition

At around three in the afternoon, after a long period of highway driving, we made it to Gaiman College. I had been here twice before for tours and scholarship attempts, but there had been practically no one around before (it was dead-cold Winter at that time). Now, kids were popping up like rabbits all over the place, clogging the rail-thin road with adolescents and bumbling adults that had no clue what they were doing. Cars filling both sides of the one-way street, our car barely inching through, tall sorority/fraternity buildings of modest size on either side and doing little to block the sun, a corner up ahead with my dorm building on the right and presumably all the other dorm buildings, and everything gray and brown; strange for predominant colors.

There's a lot of tedium involved in the set-up of getting your dorm room, setting up the broadband connection, taking to the R.A., attending a few little meeting things around campus for new students and family of new students; I won't bother describing them all for you, I just want you to know they occurred.

The sky was bordering dusk when it was time for the goodbyes. There were six bags, two huge plastic bins, and a bran' spankin' new mini-fridge, all loaded with stuff, all sitting around on the floor, and loud music was playing from the lounge area just five feet down from my door. I guessed the other kids were already well-acquainted by now; well, I suppose we were no longer kids, but not yet adults.

"Well, this is it." My mom's way of saying, "Oh God, here it comes, I don't wanna cry when I say goodbye." I knew how she felt, but for me, separation and feeling were always distant, time-delayed. "Don't worry, I won't go cryin' all over you." Yeah right, Mom. I know you better than that.

She hugged me tight. I would be getting used to those hugs for the rest of college. It was the same kind every time, like she thought I'd never come home. I guess that reflects a bit of irony on the future-or rather, my present-but that's neither here or there…

Claire was already sniffling, trying to pretend her eyes weren't starting to water. She had an image to preserve, after all. There was no way she'd let herself start crying in front of me, so she game me a big hug before trying to hurry out of my new "home."

I walked them back to the car. I want to say I felt some sort of deep sorrow, a feeling like total abandonment and fear, like the end of the world or my life; but I didn't. I felt nothing. It's my defense mechanism: if I don't know how to feel, then I feel nothing and internalize everything like I'm doing now. Everything is preserved in textual memory. I recall the images but cannot recall feeling anything at all. I went back to my room, sat on the edge of my bed, and did nothing for a while. I just sat there, feeling nothing, waiting for the so-called separation anxiety to set in, but it didn't. There was no great feeling of liberation, either, like my supposed floormates were expressing out in the lounge, mingling and talking and flirting together like they were all old friends. The TV blared and the music raged and the sofas squeaked, but I could not tell if they were faking it or honestly apathetic. I suppose I'll never really know…

Since this is a detailed account and not just some fancy novel, I suppose I should give you a detailed list and examination of all the "characters" I met soon after this event, shouldn't I? Most of them were never really important in my life, but a thorough narrative is best, I suppose. Besides, if I don't record them here, who's to say any of them will ever be remembered? Maybe they're all dead by now, or lost, or finding new lives for themselves; we can never know these things for certain, and it is mortality that frightens us.

Thirty minutes after I was left all alone, a floor meeting was announced. I and maybe a couple other girls (this was an all-girls floor of a co-ed building, second floor) joined the klaxons of noise in the lounge, which actually looked like crap now that I got a good look at it; the two sofas looked like rejects from a yard sale, or perhaps they'd simply been partied on too much, who's to say? Our R.A. (that's "residential aide"), Chelsea Walker, announced herself and brought the meeting to order by turning off the blaring TV and waving out the few males that were hanging around. I barely ever encountered Chelsea outside of the floor meetings we would have that year, but the one thing that has always stuck in my mind was her "Jamaicanness." I know stereotypes are usually bad, but remember, they have to have a base truth to them to get started anyway, and Chelsea was the bona fide stereotype; she had the dreadlocks, she had the rainbow-colored clothes (especially the hat), and she had the pure Jamaican accent. What can I say? She was Jamaican.

I know I don't remember all the girls, but I remember most; only first-years were on campus for the first week, for orientation classes and events, before the return students would be arriving. I'll just make quick descriptions of the girls I remember, the ones that don't matter much, anyway:

Briana Lambert: the punk from Vermont. By "punk," I mean the stereotype, not the attitude. She had the numerous piercings in every conceivable part of her body (I've always wondered about the dangers between magnets and heavily pierced faces), she wore the punk band shirt (almost all black), she was fairly pale and almost overweight, and she seemed completely apathetic to absolutely anything anybody could say. It would only be a few weeks before I'd see here with a sort of improvised mohawk; it's better if I don't explain.

Regina Getzelman: the girl who would be "floor bitch." The typical jock, arrogant, full of herself, tall, athletic, bleach-blond hair in a ponytail, and a shirt that read "Badger City Playoffs 2004." I wouldn't be the only one avoiding her at all costs over the next several months.

Paige McBride: possibly the only girl quieter than me. Small, glasses, wavy red hair, tan skin, physically small; she looked kinda White, but she might have been partially of Asian descent. All we ever learned about her was that she was from New Orleans and into animal care.

And then there was Sherry; Sherry Byron. I took an instant dislike to her. I don't know if it was the mesh shirt that practically threw her cleavage at the public or that face with a disdain for anything not male and willing to fuck her. Her hair was dark blond back then, very short, and she'd pull it behind her thrice-pierced ears as a nervous gesture. Her eyes were amber, her skin was tan, and she was strong; I could see her muscles in the skin-tightness of her outfit. That sort of physique on any other girl would have turned me on rather quickly, but Sherry, no, not then. I expected trouble, and I knew it would be coming in no time.

Chelsea droned on a bit about floor and campus policy, the sort of things she was obliged to tell us about, then finally reminded us about classes tomorrow before leaving us to do as we pleased. I felt like I was in summer camp.

I went back to my room and proceeded to put everything in its place. Or rather, I put away maybe three bags of stuff-mostly clothes and books and video games-before deciding, screw it, I'm tired and I have a class at 8 in the morning. I stripped off my ratty jeans, my smelly socks, and my solid-blue T-shirt before wandering over to the mirror hanging on the door that led to the closet between my room and my neighbor's (she who I eventually realized to be Sherry). I stood there a good while, staring at myself in nothing but my panties and my body sheathe, and wondered, Am I an adult now? Am I different? What now?

That muscle on Sherry may have been sexy, but that didn't mean I was a push-over. I did some stretches, then finally yawned and undid the latch between my breasts, letting the body sheathe drop to the thin carpet floor.

It was a gift from Claire, something she and I designed together, this body sheathe. The straps go across my chest, between my breasts, and back around to the main sheathe, which is small enough to mostly hide in the small of my back. This is what held my custom epee, which I named Ragnarok. It's my protection, the weapon I keep with me at all times. I had my reasons, but back then was not the time to think about them. I hung the sheathe from the little coat hook off in the corner of my room, turned off the lights, and spent two hours trying to fall asleep.