Well, this has been a fairly stressful week. Most colleges had registration, and here at Marist I had mine Tuesday morning. Never. A. Fun. Thing. But good news! I got no classes I needed, and it looks like I’ll be graduating in 2089!

Don’t worry, I’ll send you an e-vite.

Anyway, with registration, two papers, being sick, a statistics test this afternoon (P.S. I literally do not know the difference between statistics and Mandarin Chinese, send help), and keeping my overall mental sanity for the most part in check, it’s a miracle I’m even blogging right now.

*allotted time for you to take your moment*

Schmidt happens.

But alas, I’m on the homestretch to Thanksgiving Break, which means sleeping, family, and eating so much home cooked food that I’m forced to unbutton my pants. That’s what I call a vacation.

So, since I was too lazy to actually think of something insightful/full of crap to blog about, I’ve written up a short excerpt inspired by my creative writing class. Enjoy, and please, save the judgement for your overbearing, opinionated drunk relatives this Thanksgiving.

All Night

He sips his coffee. Slightly burnt but it’ll do. He wasn’t expecting much. He was just happy to find a rest stop open so late at night. The taste is bitter but hot and nutty, enough to keep him awake. It’s comforting. He lets the coffee fall down his throat and instantly warm his body, burning his tongue slightly. He’s so cold the pain is almost satisfying. He puts the car in drive and merges onto the freeway. In the distance, he sees nothing but night and occasional headlights. Another car is so rare the blinding beam makes him jump every time. Someone flashes their high beams at him, bringing him back to reality. His mind drifts, but he is awake. Alert enough to drive. And so that’s what he does.

A few miles past the rest stop, he sees it. The woman on the side of the highway. The red sedan, the flat tire. She looks freezing, lost, unsure of her next move. He wonder’s if she has a spare. She blows hot air into her hands, rubs them together, and bends down at the rim. By now it’s started to snow. She’s helpless, but he is unfazed. Just as quickly as he approached, he passes the woman, leaving her and her flat tire long behind. He can change a tire in five minutes, but he doesn’t stop. A year ago he would’ve stopped, but now, he watches the red sedan fade into his sideview mirror, until it’s just him, the highway, and the night once again.

He remembers the red sedan, and he remembers it. He remembers it so vividly, it keeps him from looking back. He can’t stop because he can’t look back. He refuses to look back. He refuses to think about her.

The cherry paint job of the woman’s sedan makes him think about spring. It’s a different car, but somehow it makes him long for the way the air felt on his cheeks the day she pulled up and told him to get in.

He remembers the song playing, and he thinks about the way she sounded when she sang along, or the way the world looked as it sped by the car window. It’s a blur, but yet he’s never had such a vivid memory. He keeps driving.

He thinks about her nose, red and itchy from allergies, always turned down. He thinks about her eyes as she focused on the road, and he thinks about the way it smelled when it started raining. He suddenly remembers the snow, and puts on his windshield wipers. He keeps driving.

He thinks about her laugh. He’s thinking about her. Headlights flash as he realizes he’s been thinking about her. He comes back to reality. He takes another sip of his coffee. It’s ice cold. He suddenly realizes he’s driven all night.