Hotel California
Title: Hotel California
Fandom: None (Hey look, an original!)
Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG
Warnings: Possibly triggering content.
Notes: None
Summary: There is truth in even 70s rock. A college student and a dining hall.
The dining hall was not meant to be an imposing building, red brick, with pleasant picnic tables out front for hanging out or eating during nice days, or when you just needed a smoke. Still, she avoided it like the plague, despite the fact that she had a meal plan. She would have been pleased if she never had to step foot in the place again--the orientation weekend had been bad enough.
However, friends were perceptive creatures and despite her shaking and tears, one had remained stalwart that she had to accompany her to the dining hall. She approached it with trepidation, her hands stuffed in her pockets to hide the way they were shaking with horror.
The line reminded her of sheep being lead to the slaughter, standing unworried as they chatted, and moving forward like one huge, undulating being. Her hands trembled as she handed the woman her ID, and when she tried to take it back, the flimsy plastic seemed to fly from her hand and land on the floor, pausing the snake behind her, the body of frightening, jaded students, a creature insatiable, with too many eyes and mouths.
Her anxiety did not die down once she was inside. It was like an uncomfortable stage, with too-bright stage lights and no wings or exits. "Exuent, pursued by a bear." She managed to joke to her friend in a whisper, who looked at her oddly.
She looked away, but the florescent lights and heat lamps burned her eyes as she seemed to enter the lines for food. Nothing was simple. Everything looked almost institutional, and there were so many eyes, so many people, so many voices buzzing like bees that the college radio tried to cover them. it didn't.
The voices buzzed and though it disgusted her, she got flatware and silverware, making her way to the table her friend had chosen like a dog with it's tail between it's legs. Unsweetened tea was easy to get, and she fell into an odd silence as she sat there, picking at her food, hearing nothing but the buzz of the voices, covered by the switch from Kansas to the Eagles, and momentarily the hum becomes louder, and she wonders if it's all in her head or whether it is real.
she glances up at her friend between chapping her tater tots into tiny infinitesimal potato bits, and wonders if it would be possible to run. Almost as if reading her thoughts, there was a hand on her wrist, stiling her, and the contact made her shiver.
She tries to focus on the music instead of the mass of people, needy, hungry people' or the food, which seemed less safe than most things she could imagine. Even the tea seemed to curdle and toss in her stomach.
Finally, after it had been judged by the friend with the cool eyes, that it had been enough (Too much says her mind, her body, her entire being. It was entirely too much. The lights add you know, mass does not disappear under scrutiny, you are too much, you are week...
The music continues over the speakers, and it becomes almost a litany, letting the lyrics replace the mantra her mind is chanting, replacing the usual prayers of regret and aspirations for penance that can never be forgotten.
At some point, numbly, she left, half a muffin in crumbs still on her plate as she dropped it off in the plate-dropoff area, and then got out of there as soon as possible, her mind crying out in protest.
After returning to the safe haven of her dorm room, she lay on the carpet doing leg lifts and silently rebuking herself. She had work to be doing. Still, it was more orderly, calm, when she had done her exercises, if not fixed.
After that, they might have called each other friends, but she never trusted that well-meaning girl in her room, staying far out of the hell of the dining halls, and in the cool safety of her dorm, with her textbooks, homework, papers--and more importantly--light strawberry yogurt, boxed matzo and white rice.
Fandom: None (Hey look, an original!)
Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG
Warnings: Possibly triggering content.
Notes: None
Summary: There is truth in even 70s rock. A college student and a dining hall.
The dining hall was not meant to be an imposing building, red brick, with pleasant picnic tables out front for hanging out or eating during nice days, or when you just needed a smoke. Still, she avoided it like the plague, despite the fact that she had a meal plan. She would have been pleased if she never had to step foot in the place again--the orientation weekend had been bad enough.
However, friends were perceptive creatures and despite her shaking and tears, one had remained stalwart that she had to accompany her to the dining hall. She approached it with trepidation, her hands stuffed in her pockets to hide the way they were shaking with horror.
The line reminded her of sheep being lead to the slaughter, standing unworried as they chatted, and moving forward like one huge, undulating being. Her hands trembled as she handed the woman her ID, and when she tried to take it back, the flimsy plastic seemed to fly from her hand and land on the floor, pausing the snake behind her, the body of frightening, jaded students, a creature insatiable, with too many eyes and mouths.
Her anxiety did not die down once she was inside. It was like an uncomfortable stage, with too-bright stage lights and no wings or exits. "Exuent, pursued by a bear." She managed to joke to her friend in a whisper, who looked at her oddly.
She looked away, but the florescent lights and heat lamps burned her eyes as she seemed to enter the lines for food. Nothing was simple. Everything looked almost institutional, and there were so many eyes, so many people, so many voices buzzing like bees that the college radio tried to cover them. it didn't.
The voices buzzed and though it disgusted her, she got flatware and silverware, making her way to the table her friend had chosen like a dog with it's tail between it's legs. Unsweetened tea was easy to get, and she fell into an odd silence as she sat there, picking at her food, hearing nothing but the buzz of the voices, covered by the switch from Kansas to the Eagles, and momentarily the hum becomes louder, and she wonders if it's all in her head or whether it is real.
she glances up at her friend between chapping her tater tots into tiny infinitesimal potato bits, and wonders if it would be possible to run. Almost as if reading her thoughts, there was a hand on her wrist, stiling her, and the contact made her shiver.
She tries to focus on the music instead of the mass of people, needy, hungry people' or the food, which seemed less safe than most things she could imagine. Even the tea seemed to curdle and toss in her stomach.
Finally, after it had been judged by the friend with the cool eyes, that it had been enough (Too much says her mind, her body, her entire being. It was entirely too much. The lights add you know, mass does not disappear under scrutiny, you are too much, you are week...
The music continues over the speakers, and it becomes almost a litany, letting the lyrics replace the mantra her mind is chanting, replacing the usual prayers of regret and aspirations for penance that can never be forgotten.
At some point, numbly, she left, half a muffin in crumbs still on her plate as she dropped it off in the plate-dropoff area, and then got out of there as soon as possible, her mind crying out in protest.
After returning to the safe haven of her dorm room, she lay on the carpet doing leg lifts and silently rebuking herself. She had work to be doing. Still, it was more orderly, calm, when she had done her exercises, if not fixed.
After that, they might have called each other friends, but she never trusted that well-meaning girl in her room, staying far out of the hell of the dining halls, and in the cool safety of her dorm, with her textbooks, homework, papers--and more importantly--light strawberry yogurt, boxed matzo and white rice.