Etourdi

Etourdi
By Dave Teifel

Sitting in Love Library at SDSU thinking about topics to write for my creative writing class, I noticed the disturbed and confused face of a girl whom I recognized as a classmate doing the same assignment.

At the table next to her sat a guy asleep using a copy of War and Peace as a pillow. He is my roommate. He says it’s too long to read but the thickness keeps his head and neck from getting sore.

From behind I hear the last of a drink traveling through a straw. I turn to see who is slurping, only to notice a "No Eating or Drinking" sign attached to the booth hiding the person. My cousin George slurped a lot.

I noticed a Japanese guy with short legs and a long torso, swiftly walk by taking a seat next to my roommate. Withdrawing computer readouts from his pack, he scrawled on them using a Pascal manual for reference. He is an exchange student from Japan who lives in my dorm, Toltec Hall. I’ve tried to teach him to say broom. He say boom.

A blonde male wearing Top-Siders, Bermuda shorts, and a La Coste shirt is talking to a large breasted, dark haired, 4 foot 10 inch Jewish girl between a row of shelved books. He talks, she giggles. She talks, he laughs. They continue looking. My roommate is sleeping on the book they need.

Looking at my classmate again, she is writing in a hurry keeping her train of thought. She doesn’t blink. I look at my blank notebook paper in front of me. I don’t blink. The clock shows two hours before closing time. The paper is due early the next morning and I haven’t picked a topic to write about. The girl looks up from her paper to notice a disturbed and confused face of a guy she recognized from her creative writing class. That guy is me.