One Fool's Heart

[Rank 1]

     The small room reeks of wet fabric and mould.

     The steady rumble of the washing machine puts you in a lazy, tired state; the words on the page in front of you merge into a blurry line, the letters shifting and eating each other. Squeezing a study session between your last class and the shitty part-time job at the Wilton Hotel buffet as a way of killing time until your laundry's ready wasn't one of your brightest ideas, but it's the only open window to catch up with a much needed study session.

     You'd probably execute it a lot better, were it not for the dim light in the room withholding any possibility to actually see what's in front of you, and the sound of buzzing cicadas drilling into your head and stopping you from thinking. Everything would be a lot easier if you could do your laundry in your dormitory, but well ... you don't feel necessarily responsible for contacting the janitor each time they break.

      It's past 10pm. The small, red numbers on the washer tell you with very lacking interest there are still 13 minutes left before you can buzz off. The night is calm, somewhere outside a cat hisses, and despite it all, you feel strangely at peace. Maybe it's because you're alone and no one's talking. Maybe it's because it's the first time today you can sit and think about nothing at all. Someone tugged your brain into a cozy blanket and accidentally left it there even though there's all kinds of stuff you should rather focus on. "Well, a break is important," no one says, because actually, you really can't afford it, so you slap your brain awake and look back at the page, only to have your eyes fix midway on something else in front of you.

     In the doorway of the tiny, cramped Laundromat is a tall guy standing, a wash basket in his arms. Behind round glasses, dark eyes scan the room for a free machine, before they land on you, and he just remains there for a moment as if he needs your permission to enter. You give him a lazy wave, and eventually his legs move and he decides to take the machine farthest away from you, loading it with wrinkled clothes. "Stupid dormitory washers, right? You see the janitor all the time on his break, but when does he actually fix something," you open the conversation, happy to have something to distract your mind after unsuccessfully convincing yourself to continue studying. He throws a quick glance your way, then nods.

     Settling back, your eyes scan the page and the yellow marked sentences, but they don't make any sense to you. Cognitive processes involved in the updating of current task goals, in their shielding against irrelevant information and action tendencies, and in the dynamic switching between goals or foci of attention* ... Sure. Whatever. You yield, snap the magazine shut and shift your focus back on the guy. He's lanky with slumped shoulders (it's such a bad posture you can feel your grandma— may her not so gentle soul rest in peace, claw at her grave to get out and smack him over the head), and a mop of curly, black hair that's probably never made acquaintance with a comb. Judging from how he avoids looking at you, he seems like the shy, nerdy type unable to start a conversation with a girl because all he knows are the 2D models of young, pretty girls in his video games. At least he washes his own clothes and doesn't live with his mom. Or maybe he does and he's just starting to look after himself. You stop with your shameless prejudices as he finally manages to look up at you, considering you with reserved but palpable interest until his eyes fall on the magazine on your lap.

     You wave it in his direction like a leaflet. "Really boring, if you ask me. But our professor swears the Advances in Cognitive Psychology has the best articles in the field."

     He keeps staring at you, and you realize he's probably giving two shits about whatever you were reading.

     "You're a first year?" you ask, shifting the conversation back to him, because people like to talk about themselves. "I promise, college doesn't suck later as much as at the beginning." What a blatant lie, shame on you, your family and your non-existent cow.