Life is an Open Door

A Strange World

"Solitude matters, and for some people,

  it's the air they  breathe."

~ Susan Cain

Students blast  from the doors of the law building and into the quad, like a buckshot from a rifle. It's Halloween weekend- zombie makeup and drooling  vampire bites are already  painted on some of them , witch hats bob above the crowds, as candy wrappers  sift down from the clusters of people to blow in the wind like Autumn leaves.

Ernest can't get away from them fast enough. He's hurrying out of a test he knows he did well on,  despite what his professor call his "troubles at home" when she offered Ernest an extension. 

His mother had been sick for as long as he could remember- or at least since the 16 years since his own unfortunate birth. Her death had been a long time coming, and it was not enough to make him choke on a mere ethics test.

He observes rest of his classmates look revoltingly happy as they buzz on for their plans for the weekend.

"Ernie!"

Ernest closes his eyes for  a brief moment to give himself a little privacy to roll his eyes, before turning around. There is only one person on this entire campus, professors included, whom he holds any positive regard for, and the peon shouting at him is certainly not the one; Ray never bellows across the quad, like a cow in a field.

"Hey,  Ernie-"

"Ernest." 

"-Okay Ernest, are you going to be there tonight?"

"No," he says to Percy Newell, a new pledge in Ray's fraternity."Be where?"

"The ZBT Halloween party of course !" Percy is two years older than Ernest, yet nothing would ever broadcast the fact. Percy's  wearing pajama bottoms and a Harvard hoodie, while Ernest is dressed with all the fastidiousness of someone used wearing a uniform- he had been in and out of private and prep schools his whole life, and even out of shirt and tie, he's buttoned up and belted. There are enough lawyers and future politicians in their pre-law classes for  Percy to stand out, at least in manner of dress.  Some people are a part of the herd no matter what, and some people always stand out.

"I can't go," Ernest says. First of all, he wasn't officially invited and besides:" I have a funeral to attend." Everything in the courtyard behind Percy was in a bright, dying autumnal rapture. The ivy growing up the face of the law library bleeds scarlet at the tips. Most of the trees are already half bare, but the ground below is covered in firework bursts of orange and yellow leaves, like confetti at a celebration.

"Yeah? That's cool, which house is doing a funeral theme?"

"My house", Ernest says snippily, and he waits for Percy to begin saying, "Yeah? Where'd you pledge?" before cutting him off with, "My mother died, you simpleton."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that, man" Percy blinks at Ernest beneath a red Harvard University baseball cap, -he's only been a student here for  a few months, but he's already wearing the school colours like he belongs. He probably does belong here, feels it all the way to his bones and never questions it. Ernest came here following Ray, and for what?Ray wants to find his own friends, and be a Zeta Beta Tau, and drinks so much, he C- minuses his way through every class. Ernest has never really felt any allegiance to this school.

He turns to walk away from Percy, uninterested in the dimwitted fallout,  when the guy calls out to him, "Hey, you don't have to be mean about it though! My grandma died last year, I know how it is. Seriously, you shouldn't alienate your friends!"

Ernest casts a withered glance over his shoulder and continues to walk a swift clip back to his dorm room. Ernest doesn't have any friends. No one but Ray can even pretend to tolerate him, and he too is starting to slip away. Ray, who is the only person Ernest considers is as smart as himself. Ray, who knew Ernest's mother, and used to charm her into a smile when she couldn't even muster the strength to get out of bed.

Ernest's headed home to New York tonight, so he can be there for the funeral tomorrow. Stepping from the afternoon chill, back into his dorm room- a double that's occupied by a single since Ray moved to the ZBT house- Ernest slumps on his soldier stiff chir to wallow. His bags are packed, the airline tickets printed, laying there on his heaviest winter coat; both items accented by the long cashmere scarf his mother  got him last Christmas. Ray never gets over the fact that Ernest refers to its colour as canary yellow, like she did, instead of plain old yellow. Everytime he wears it, Ray makes a crack about sending it first into a coal mine.

Right now, Ernest wonders if it's just the right length to hang himself.