Birkenstocks and the rock music rats had gone cannibal and torn each other to bits. Without knowing what band the rock rats had to listen to, I'm not sure what the study was supposed to prove. All I know is, if I had to listen to Pearl Jam for two weeks solid, I'd eat my roommate too.

Anyway, I knew it was the seventh evening because I had seven marks on the back of my right hand. Six upright marks and one slash sideways to make the seven. I sat there in my own little world with its gray interior and turned the bass up so high I felt it in my butt cheeks. There were strict sound limits in the dorms, especially when students could be practicing, so it was hard to find a place to listen to music. That's irony, baby.

I watched the sun sear a red path behind my dorm building.

Unlike the rest of the academic buildings, which were stately, column-fronted Georgians, the dorms had no pretensions. They were square boxes with a thousand unblinking eyes for windows.

In the car, the music was loud enough that I didn't hear the tapping on my window at first. When I did finally, the face looking in at me surprised me for some reason: round, ordinary, unsure. My roommate, Paul. He was an oboe player. I think the school thought we would get along together because both our instruments had reeds or something, because we certainly didn't have anything else in common. I rolled down the window.

"Do you want fries with that?" I asked.

Paul laughed, way harder than my words had warranted, and then looked proud of his own daring. I think I scared him.

"Dude, that's funny."

"Just one of the services I offer. What's up?"

"I was heading up to the room to work on, you know, the…" -he waved a notebook at me as if it would mean something-"…calculus homework. You still want to work on it?"