NOTE: Despite the date in which the story takes place, I promise you that this story was literally just completed, and sent to K. Hughes in accordance with the last bit of instructions.

January 24th, 2007.

8:59 AM. Sleeping contently on his standard dormitory bed with nothing but the warmest of comforters lies a boy with golden-brown shaggy hair wildly strewn about his head. His face, tan in spite of the winter that presses onward in the world outside, wears no expression. Under this mask of lifelessness, his mind has placed him in a state of lucid dreaming, where he commands control over the world before him due to an awareness of the world’s lack of reality. When immersed in such a deeply sleeping state, no one has enough rationality or logic left to do anything productive within a dream in which they have complete control. The synesthetic spectacle that he sees in his lucid dream world represents a swirling mixture of key modulations and starry-night swirls of chromaticism; a world where the dominant senses synthesize into a spectacular mix of aural vision and visual hearing. Meanwhile, in the peaceful dorm room outside of his dream reality, currently bathed in an inescapable shadow by the darkening shades, one can only see in various hues of blue and black that obscure any present details, with exception of the distinct neon red numbers of the alarm clock. The numbers stare down ominously on the boy as he continues to dream, taking advantage of its lucidity, unaware of the world that surrounds him.

9:00 AM. Filling the room in an instant from the tinny alarm clock speakers comes a repetitive obnoxious sound, reminiscent of the notoriously loud Seceda Bugs that would emerge every decade or so to rule the boy’s hometown for a week with their annoyance. The fact that this crude means of taking him from his sleep rings out in precisely rhythmic periods acts as the sole comforting factor for the boy in such an irritating situation. As with anything else of this nature that he observes, the distinct rhythm of the sound sends some part of his mind into a wonderful intrigue. He believes that if it exists and changes or interacts in one form or another with the environment, it will have rhythm. When one views the world with this in mind, suddenly everything operates on rhythm. Alarm clocks. Foot steps. Raindrops. Heartbeats. Every morning, he finds himself waking to an inherently metronomic world. One could argue that anything will contain rhythm if you listen hard enough, but the boy wonders, why would someone not want that? The boy often takes peculiar notice of the constant presence of rhythm throughout daily life; whereas, other people would pass off these patterns as inconsequential. Sleepily hobbling out of his bed, the boy puts an end to the sound that insults his ears, and a welcoming silence falls over the room.

9:01 AM. Only four hours of sleep. The more the boy sleeps, the more details that he feels he might have missed. In spite of the self-fulfilled insomnia, a heightened sense of awareness that seldom emerges in anyone flows through his veins in an abnormally amplified mixture of sound and vision. Grabbing his thick black-rimmed glasses, the boy drags his heavy body to the darkening shades that shower the room in shadow. With a quick tug, the shades fly up, and sunlight floods into the room. The room sings with color as the light that pours in from the outside overtakes the dark blue sepia tone that was obscuring all detail. Putting on his characteristically bold glasses, he takes a look out of his window at no point in particular, concentrating on what he hears rather than what he sees. A surprisingly harmonious mix of nature and machine enters his ears. Birds sing to the chugging of passing cars. Wind howls over the sound of his dormitory building’s main doors unlocking below. An ever-welcomed and completely natural smile adorns his face as he gathers various texts of different colors and sizes. As he places the familiar headphones over his ears, he notes a strange observation of his that this day will possess an objective uniqueness when compared to all other days; a thought not unusual for him to have at the beginning of a day. The initial chords of the first song of his day ring and echo throughout his head, and in that moment, the heaviness that plagued his now awoken body becomes drained to a feathery lightness in an instant, as all the subtleties in the music carry him out the door.

12:53 PM. Pushing through thick sheets of snow, the fact that a massive amount of something miniscule can change an environment to an incredible degree flies into his head; as if this group of miniscule objects represents one massive entity, similar to people. A gleam of curiosity graces his eyes as he ponders the fact that people never see the particular, but only the general picture. People may see a single light traveling along a string of bulbs, but they never see each individual bulb lighting up on their own. People view snow as a constant onslaught of a massive cold white substance, but the boy considers the fact that every single snowflake has its individual path between the cloud and the earth; always independent of the snowflakes around them. Taking the slightest of glances upwards into the path of a myriad of snowflakes, the boy ponders, smiling warmly. The snow does not even seem real as it falls; little bits of paper melt on his face. Riddled with dark blots lies the campus amassed in a wintry white. The dark blots represent the buildings in which students of all kinds learn eagerly, or perhaps, with just as much contention, do not learn at all. Beauteous music pours out of his headphones and into his yearning ears. Fading out with impeccable timing, the music floats away behind him as the boy enters the building that contains his next class.

1:59 PM. Contained in a building caught amidst the shower of snow lies a long hallway. Doors decorate both sides of the hallway. Room 103. 104. 105. Sitting on one side of the hallway, leaning against the wall, a girl with characteristically short hair and no real relation to the boy with the shaggy hair seemingly waits for someone outside of one of the doors. He strides past the girl. Her face wears a mask of pure contentment and a hint of anticipation, her eyes fixed and focused on no spot in particular, with exception of a momentary glance of acknowledgement in his direction. The boy with the shaggy hair and thick glasses sits contently a bit further down the hall, in the same position, along the same wall, waiting contently beside a door. Through the simple concept of sitting and waiting in such a manner, their lives become parallel. It does not matter who or what they wait for; the observable action of simply waiting in such an exactly similar way signifies the idea that two humans can have an exactly similar experience. Wonders of how many other lives parallel one another at that same moment fly through the boy's head, as well as wonders of how much their lives parallel on a deeper, unobservable level. The looming silence that was filling the hallway becomes broken as the students that have just been relieved from their class pour out of the door next to the boy, and a river of idle and nonsensical conversation floods the length of the hallway. As the boy stands to enter the now empty classroom, the lines skew.

3:46 PM. The professor-in-training shares his thoughts about the boy’s writing, as he had prompted the teacher to do after class. In the end, the pseudo-professor considerately suggests that the boy should consider English as a major. He shrugs indifferently. Once again, the boy places the familiar headphones on his head as he exits the room and then the building, pressing the fairly worn play button on his jet-black mp3 player. He has become the maestro; each of his steps become the lively gestures of a conductor's baton as the instruments and layers of the song each take their respective entrances with notable grace. Cue keyboard. On the way back to his dorm, he stops by the library and picks up some hot chocolate. A gradual crescendo excites his ears while clever lyrical witticisms excite his mind. The boy takes a mental note that, strangely enough, it seems everyone has been holding doors for him today. Cue vocals. He smiles and makes his way through a falling wall of snowflakes as a light breeze presses on his face. The pulsating rhythm drives him forward within a vehicle of clever rhymes that tell a clichéd story about the supposed futility of love. Sipping contently on his chocolate drink, he feels the distinctly warm liquid flowing down into him, nourishing his cold body as it pushes onward. Cue guitar. A warm body pushes through the harsh cold; a spot of bright orange animated through a bleak grayish blue.

4:01 PM. A painting hangs on the wall opposite to the door of the boy’s dorm. The colors and paints that lie on the surface of the painting actually move and animate. The painting portrays a world filled with life; each organism living completely individualistically, with only some aware of how much in common their lives have and the effect their lives have on one another’s. In the painting, you can look down and see each individual making their ways down the sidewalk. Right now, an eager and relentless sheet of snow falls down upon them. Sometimes, the blistering sun beats down onto the people. Sometimes rain falls. Sometimes nothing. People smile to themselves for reasons unbeknownst to the viewer of the painting. Others frown for similarly unknown reasons. Regardless of the experession that they display, everyone has a secret. A girl warmly dressed with a white parka and torn blue jeans grasps the hand of a taller boy with a beard wearing a black beanie and a dark work jacket. Several people, some with determined destinations and some with no particular agenda in mind, turn the street corner and quickly fade from sight. Others carry their conversation into the angular building that ominously looms over the street below; an immobile colossus among the animated populace. All the while, the snow falls.

4:02 PM. The boy with the thick glasses enters his dorm. To the boy, it seems ages have passed since the shades gracefully flew up and allowed sunlight to fill the room and once again give it color and detail. The colors have since saturated; as the sun hides itself and prepares for descent behind the clouds that loom over the horizon, a slight blue sepia tone once again paints the somber atmosphere of the room. Taking a seat at his homely desk, he readjusts the small book that he had placed under one of the chairs’ legs to remedy the fact that one of the legs was half an inch shorter than the rest. The screen of the laptop softly emits an illuminating glow upon the ebony keys that lay systematically about the computer’s silvery-grey body. Nothing adorns the face of the screen but a solitary archaic A, bordered by the various software icons, most of which have gone untouched for months. With a few button clicks, an empty text box appears on the screen, and the boy takes a moment to think about the words that will eventually fill the now auspiciously still emptiness of the box. He prompts himself to type as the song playing in his headphones fades out. He takes note of the feeling that the worn keys have attained from countless hours of use as he types, "January 24th, 2007." Before continuing, the boy takes the slightest of moments to reflect, and wonders to himself how some people can refuse to believe that life can be beautiful.