CALVIN

twenty-two: the happy pill

"I was talking to my cousin on Skype the other day. It got me wondering if girls ever poop."

"Pretty sure they do," said Nikita. "Girls' houses have toilets."

"Yeah, but that could just be a cover-up."

"Who would want to cover up the fact that they shit?"

"Um, I don't know, do you go around telling everyone that you just torpedoed your breakfast into the toilet?"

"Look, girls are basically like guys, except they have boobs. They shit. End of story."

"I don't know," continued Denis, skeptically. "I've never seen it for myself."

"I guess you have a point there."

"My guess is that the extra energy from their food is stored in their boobs, and then at the end of the month they lactate it out their nipples."

"Denis, why the fuck."

We walked into the library, so they had to continue in whispers.

"If you think about it, girls probably don't have assholes at all."

"Dude, have you ever watched porn?"

"Yeah, duh?"

"You've never seen a girl's asshole?"

"Oh, you're right. You're right. Yeah, they have assholes."

"Actually - holy shit - " Nikita put a palm to his head as he shouldered off his bag onto the table, as if remembering something important, " - I remember this video I watched, where a girl shat into a cup."

"Oh, that two-girls-one-cup thing?"

"No, it's another one."

"Are you sure it wasn't movie magic?"

Nikita thought about his.

 The library was a long, clean, bright place situated above the dining hall, with glass doors leading off onto a section of the roof. As I opened my laptop at the table we'd chosen, I spotted Ms Vecoli out on the roof, holding a phone to her ear, puffs of breath coming out of her mouth as she talked.

" - I'm just saying, a guy could have pooped into a tube and, with the right angle, they could have made it look like the girl was shitting into the cup."

"I'll be right back," I said, standing up. I opened the glass door and slid out into the cold, grey day. Ms Vecoli was just finishing up on the phone; she said goodbye and slipped it into her coat pocket.

"Elias."

"Hi," I said. Then immediately regretted my decision to come out here. "I... I, uh, how are you?"

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

"Yeah, I just..." I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Are you sure?"

I looked out at the rolling fields dotted with bare trees and frost, looked back at her. "There's this, um.... Do you think there's a point? To... to being here. To saving ourselves. To... making things right, in the world."

"I don't know," she said. "Do you think there's a point?"

I looked at her blankly. "I... I don't know."

"Maybe that's something you should find out."

"I thought... maybe... you'd have an answer. Because you've been through a lot," I added quickly, "and you've lived longer than I have. Not that you're old, because you're not. You're still very, very young. But you're wise, that's what I mean."