𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 | henry winter

𝐯. live forever

❝there is something 

of divinity in you❞

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone'e life when their character is fixed forever; for me, it was that first fall term I spent at Hampden. So many things remain with me from that time, even now: those preferences in clothes and books and even food - acquired then, and largely, I must admit, in adolescent emulation of the rest of the Greek class - have stayed with me through the years. It is easy, even now, for me to remember their daily routines, which subsequently became my own, were like. Regardless of circumstance they lived like clockwork, with surprisingly little of the chaos which to me had always seemed so inherent a part of college life - irregular diet and work habits, trips to the Laundromat at one a.m.

There were certain times of the day or night, even when the world was falling in, when you could always find Henry in the all-night study room of the library, usually by himself although I found at certain times Lily would be his only company, sitting at the desk across form him with a book or wandering the rest of the library aimlessly like a ghost as she whispered the greek declinations under her breath out of habit. Or when Bunny should not even be looked for since he was on his Wednesday date with Marion or his Sunday walk that he usually took alone (much to his chagrin since I'd seen him announce his want for company on these walks with his eyes licking to Lily who would only look at him with a smile then return to her conversation with Camilla on something or other).

(It was all, as I said, clockwork. Not unlike how the Roman Empire continued in a certain fashion. to run itself even when there was no one left to run it and the reason behind it was entirely gone, much of this routine remained intact even during the terrible days after Bunny's death. Up until the very end there was always, always, Sunday-night dinner at Charles and Camilla's, except on the evening of the murder itself when no one much felt like eating and it was postponed until Monday.)

I was surprised by how easily they managed to incorporate me into their cyclical, Byzantine existence. They were all so used to one another that I think they found me refreshing and they were intrigued bye even the most mundane of my habits: by my fondness of mystery novels and my chronic movie going (which oddly enough, Lily joined in on, going with me to the movies once or twice when they showed re-runs of golden Hollywood movies expressing her love for either Marilyn Monroe or Sharon Tate to me as the credits rolled.): by the fact I used disposable razors from the supermarket and cut my own hair instead of going to the barber; even by the fact I read papers and watched the news on television from time to time (a habit which seemed to them an outrageous eccentricity, peculiar to me alone; none of them were the least bit interested in anything that went on in the world, and their ignorance of current events and even recent history was rather astounding. Once, over dinner, Henry was quite startled to learn form me that men had walked on the moon. 

"No," he said, putting down his fork.

"It's true," chorused the rest, who had somehow managed to pick this up along the way.

"I don't believe it."

"Didn't they show it on television?" Lily had said, handing Francis a drink and Camilla a cigarette as she came from the kitchen.

"Yes I saw it." Bunny said.

"How did they get up there, when did this happen?")

They were still overwhelming as a group, and it was on an individual basis that I really got to know them. Because he knew I kept late hours, too, would stop by late with Henry would stop by late on the way to the library with a constant upstanding invite to join them in their studies or general reading time (them meaning Lily and himself who was always at the library before him.) Francis, who was a terrible hypochondriac and refused to go to the doctor alone, frequently dragged me along and it was, oddly enough, during those drives to the allergist in Manchester or the ear-nose-and-throat man in Keene that we became friends. That fall, he had to have a root canal, over about four or five weeks; each Wednesday afternoon he would show up, white faced and silent, at my room and we would go together to a bar in town and drink until his appointment, at three.