You make plans for the day

Inside, you move with purpose to the kitchen, throwing open the door to your fridge looking for something to eat. You’re shocked at just how hungry you are, moving on autopilot, scanning the shelves, much emptier than you remember them being.

The bright packaging of the bag of frozen tamales in the freezer catches your eye, and you seize it, plating one, putting it in the microwave, and hitting the start button. The microwave whirs, and you stare glumbly into the microwave, far too impatient. You sigh, sacking the pantry of the last couple of protein bars, swallowing them. You rummage through the fridge again and pull out your quart carton of orange juice, and rinse the protein bars down your gullet with the whole carton in one go, topping it off with a relieved sigh.

Your ears perk up when the microwave beeps. You pull the steaming hot tamale out and set it on the kitchen table to cool. You restrain yourself as best you can, counting to one hundred before attacking the hot tamale. It still burns your tongue as you bite into it, but it’s too delicious and you are too hungry to stop yourself now. You’re hardly done with the first one when the second tamale is in the microwave, and then the third. Usually one of them would count as a full meal for you, but now, they struggle to fill you up.

It isn’t until you’ve scarfed down the fourth and final tamale in the bag that you finally feel satiated, leaning back in your chair and giving out a satisfied little burp to an empty apartment.

You look out the glass sliding door to your little balcony at the sky, the browning leaves on the trees, and at a group of students walking past, chatting among themselves. You close your eyes and sigh again, thinking that you’re quite content with how the day has gone so far. After the rip-roaring few days you had, and college being just an inherently stressful place, you’re very happy to have spent this Saturday morning emptying your balls and eating a second breakfast.

Your mind begins to wander forwards to the coming afternoon and evening.

“Choices, choices,” you muse. It would be nice to go out, either try your luck with getting into a school or greek party last minute or else hit the Olde Town Bar. You grin wolfishly, wondering if you might just get lucky twice in one day with Vernius’s blessings upon you. There’s no way you'd get that lucky, of course, but in your youthful exuberance you can’t help but entertain the thought.

You cross your legs and put your hands behind your head, leaning back in your seat and balancing your chair. The bar would certainly be easier to get into then trying to get into a school or greek party while stag.

“Hum,” you grumble. You’d hardly gotten to go partying since you got to university, and although you were no expert on the idiosyncratic and complex social system that governed it, you knew one thing from overheard conversations. That if you wanted to get into a party for sure, either you had to bring girls, bring booze, or be invited, and ideally all three. You haven’t been invited to anything. But you can certainly buy some cheap dime store liquor. And you certainly know a few women that you can ask to go to a party tonight. Your eyes flick to the note on your kitchen table where the note from Alice had been and stand up.

“Oh hell,” you say, and walk into your room, remembering that you’ve been phoneless this whole time. It takes a moment, but you find the note with her phone number folded up in the shorts where you had tossed them yesterday.

You unfold the paper and walk over to your desk, opening your phone. You notice the time instantly. It is 9:50 already. You blink, wondering where all the time went. Surely, you and the jogger weren’t going at it for that long in the park.

Then you notice that you have several new messages from Kathrine, Louise, and Mark. The last one surprises you and you immediately go to open it.

Mark: Hey! Just wanted to let you know that we made it to the lake!

Mark: Hope you feel better soon!

Your eye flick to the picture that he has sent you, a selfie of him, tall and angular, contrasting with the short and portly Benny in front of a beautiful woodland lake and smiling.

YOU: Cool! And yes, feeling much better now

You shoot him back a quick text and move on to the next new messages, from Kathrine.

Kathrine: Are you here today?

And then this morning,

Kathrine: Are you still alive?

Kathrine: Let me know when you’re up, still worried about you.

Kathrine: Also Louise told me to tell you to text her back about lunch tomorrow

You start typing your reply.

YOU: Still alive, just got back from a walk

And send it off. Then you open Louise’s messages to you.

Louise: Heard that you got hurt, hope you feel better soon!

Louise: Hey do you want a ride tomorrow for lunch?

Louise: I’m already picking Kathrine up, so just let me know your plans

You start typing.

YOU: Yeah, I’d like a ride, just let me know when you’re on your way so I will be ready.

And hit send.

Finally, with a heavy sigh you pop Alice’s number into your phone and write up a message.

YOU: This is John, I am still alive

And send it. You think for a moment, tapping your finger against your phone, then open Marcy’s contact.

YOU: Hey Marcy, you know about any parties happening tonight in town?

And send that message off too. You put down your phone and stretch, and decide that if you are going out tonight, you probably ought to get grocery shopping and anything else that you want to get done before the evening rolls around. You wander into the bathroom to relieve yourself, a little surprised that you didn’t need to immediately after sex, as is per the usual. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror as you're washing your hands and blink hard.

Your hair sticking out at random angles. Your neck rubbed a little raw. Your sweatshirt and sweatpants look gross and very dirty, like you’ve been sleeping in the woods or something. You certainly look the part of somebody who was sowing their wild oats this morning. You sniff your armpit and you certainly smell the part too. You breathe into your cupped hand and shiver. And to top it all off you were tongue kissing that pretty woman jogger after having forgotten to brush your teeth for a whole day, not that she seemed to mind. Yikes.

You make a point to quickly brush your teeth on the spot. Then you go through the motions of washing your face, taking a shower, everything you need to do this morning to be in tip-top fighting and fucking shape in the evening.