Finding Inspiration

To say that Tamsin Walker was a night owl would be understating it a bit. Nocturnal was a better description of her behavior. She rarely left her small dorm room during the day time. She much preferred to stay in bed, either alone or with company, leaving its warmth and comfort only occasionally to raid her mini fridge for snacks or to lean out of her window and smoke. Once the sun went down and the curtain of night fell though, that's when she functioned best.

She could bash out a three thousand word essay on ancient Greek poetry in a couple of hours and then do whatever the hell she liked for the rest of the night. Most of all though she loved the silence and isolation the night gave her. She could go places and do things she couldn't during the daylight hours and that gave her a thrill she just had to keep on getting. One night, Tamsin had managed to break onto the rooftop terrace of a hotel and go skinny dipping in their pool before watching the sun rise over the city whilst smoking and reading, the warm rays of the sun on her face and a breath of wind in her long blonde hair. She lived for moments like that.

Tonight was going to be far more mundane though. There was going to be no midnight swim or sunrise landscape. Tonight was going to be filled with dirty knickers.

Well, not dirty knickers exclusively but all manner of dirty clothes which needed laundering. It was roughly nine in the evening when she decided to climb out from under her bed covers, avoiding various cans and pizza boxes as she did, and jump in for a quick shower. A few minutes was all it took and she soon returned from her bathroom with a towel loosely wrapped around her with her hair sticking slightly to her damp back. Picking up the canvas sack she was supposed to collect laundry in throughout the week, Tamsin worked her way around the small room picking up discarded pieces of clothing which lay about the place. A sock on her desk, a t-shirt in her bed, a thong that didn't belong to her hanging on the door handle.

Throwing the filled sack by the door, Tamsin rooted through the wardrobe for some clean things to wear. She decided simply on a dark maroon lace skirt and a Rolling Stones t-shirt which was well-worn and faded with a few frayed holes beginning to appear. Slipping on her boots, she picked up her book, keys, lighter and cigarettes before shrugging on her cropped leather jacket - the one piece of clothing she really cared about - and heading out the door.

Outside the block the night air was warm and still. This was why Tamsin loved the night. It was the peacefulness of it. OK, so there were some rowdy parties happening and couples making out in doorways but on the whole she liked being able to hear the wind in the trees and far off revelry. She paused on the pavement by her neighbouring block and lit up her first cigarette of the night. Exhaling the smoke, she followed its journey up and watched it blow away on the slight breeze in the air to be lost amongst the stars. Another reason why she loved the night was because there was no queue for the washers.

And that's how she found the laundry room that night. Empty and silent. Smiling to herself she took another drag on her cigarette and tipped her clothes into the drum of the nearest washer. She jumped up onto a dryer and sat on top of it, her back against the wall, one leg resting on top and the other swinging freely off of it. The droning monotony of the spinning clothes made it easy for her to read and absorb the words on the page. She was lost in the text until the bong went off to signal the end of the cycle and she quickly moved the, now wet, clothes to the dryer next to her perch before losing herself again.

A small cloud of smoke had formed above her when there was a loud crash as someone kicked their way through the door. Tamsin barely looked up from her book but could see that a guy had just walked in and had immediately checked her out. Perfect. Just what she wished wouldn't happen. She would have to try and ignore the new comer and get back into her book. There was no way her night was going to be ruined so soon after it had started.