The Puddle

At 0830 it was too dark to read so EKA shut "MATLAB for Engineers" and got lost trying to find the bus stop. It was colder than yesterday and starting to get windy and he wished he'd brought a second coat. Douglass campus is the only one he knew he could get lost on, and nothing looked familiar anymore.

Finally he came to the Puddle, where he knew there was a REXB stop on the other side. Walking around the water he tripped on a low stone bench and dropped the MATLAB book into the Puddle. EKA stopped for a moment. It wasn't such a great book, but he didn't like to just leave garbage in the pond. As he stood there trying to think of a way to fish it out, a person emerged from the site of the book's weird misfortune. In front of EKA was a man with leaves and branches growing from his head, vines winding around his legs dangling into the water. In his arms he carried another person, a man in his twenties who was either sleeping or dead.

EKA, unsure of how to react, stood watching until he saw the bus's luminous windows in the corner of his eye. About to forget MATLAB and head for the bus, EKA noticed that the sleeping cargo was his MATLAB professor Blase.

The three of them stood that way for hours. Buses came and went, the night turned into morning, but no one would find EKA; he never told anyone where he was going and did not carry a cell phone. Even his roommate wouldn't wonder, since Allen always went to bed by midnight and expected EKA to be gone then.

The sun was up now, and both EKA and Blase would have to be in SEC-110 soon for MATLAB lecture. Sensing class would not meet today, EKA took the bus home and went to sleep.