Staff Writer Emorie Hayes gradually descends into madness in Wien 937.

A sweet silky blue duvet covers me, licorice-flavored slumber coating my flesh in light, velvet lullaby kisses pressed into my damp skin 

The sheets are a smooth cotton fabric; my friend’s Target factory lavished bedding glides over my skin as I’m doused with the beautiful chemical brain property that is melatonin. 

My dreams are sunny, the future is bright, and general chemistry is the last thing on my mind. 

All is right in the world, with the lackadaisical baby lambs springing around in the cloudosphere that is the rest that has been bestowed upon me. Their coats are fluffy chocolate, the spring in their step affirming my giddiness. Everything has paused. 

I’m immediately thrust into the real world. The baby lambs begin to fall from the sky, their chocolate fluff dissipating along with the Lala Land that my mind created. 

The walls are closing in on me as sweat soaks through my clothing, ‘Columbia University’ yelling from my t-shirt in the heavy heat of Wien 937, the lush dreamscape that I found in my crony ‘ol pals dorm bed. 

The sunlight reflected off of the sharply angled structures of Columbia Law School, thus giving me the joyous gift of intense heat and light shining through the dorm window. 

The screen cracked open, heady heat and mosquito bites rippling up my arms and legs, and the distinct noise of construction and a beguiling alarm hummed throughout my noggin. 

A migraine rings from the left to the right side of my brain, ear-piercing yells of neurons singing to the rest of my body to get up! Do anything but lie down! 

But the bed is so comfortable. 

And if I wake up, I have to be a real person. 

I have to smile when someone asks me what my major will be, and I respond with a smile, the spirit dying behind my eyes, and I utter: “neuroscience.” 

I have to march to my classes and act like I have a clue as to what’s going on, cheesing and nodding at my professor so that maybe the more I keep up this performative front of a top-notch student, maybe one day it’ll be actualized. 

Complaining about midterms or homework with friends as if my brain won’t explode if I read another book of the Iliad or sit through another mind-numbing lecture when the only thing I want to learn about right now is the brain, but I’ll have to settle for Achilles’ passionate fight to stay out of the almighty war of Trojans vs. Achaeans.

I’m swift-footed Achilles, dancing between lies and a silly facade of having everything in control. Yes, I know everything and nothing. I’ll stick out of the war that is the confusion that is my major. Yes, I am brilliant Achilles hiding away in my own tent, the hellish tent that is Wien Hall, but it’s a tent. 

Cherry-colored bites sprinkled my body as I finally emerged from my sweet, blissful rest, a whopping five hours of sleep. 

The most I’ve had the privilege of receiving since I stepped into the sing and dance that is NSOP, muddling in the puddles of the same conversations: What’s your major? What dorm are you living in? Where are you from? 

Yes, tell me all of this, but just know in less than a week’s time I’m going to walk right past you and we’re going to have a good 15 seconds of eye contact, both of us questioning if we should say hello, reaching the deepest pits of our minds for the other’s name, Jessica? Sarah? No wait, that’s my suitemate. No wait, that was a girl I met in my hall. No wait. 

The carpet stings my feet as I jump down from the delightful twin XL, the bottoms of my feet stinging with regret as I wish I hadn’t worn heels the previous night. 

The day is young; the confusion will only grow. 

But I don’t live in Wien, so what the hell!

Wien Hallway via Bwog Archives