Irina Bernebring Journiette

Keeping my new rule.

It’s night. 02.10. The house is quiet. All that can be heard it the sound of frenetic typing from room 301A. Occasionally distracted by music escaping the frat-party next door. Or shouts from the Rosa Parks house, located across the narrow walkway. Or by gossip whispered between the two night-owls sitting back to back, in front of copies of exact same desks and computers. It’s hot, inside, outside. We are both studying. In the middle of the night – as usual. “Oh, my God, he is so stupid”, Jean shouts, interrupting my train of thought. Back to reading legal documents, intertwining analysis of Jeans love-life and writing on a non-fictional story for another class, at the same time trying to portray my reality here. In five hours I have a swim practice, at the break of dawn. We will probably stay up for another hour or two, when the computers turn off, study-mode is deactivated and life-philosophical mode is turned on. In the dark, hot night, we lay in copies of the exact same bed, in opposite ends of the room, trying to figure out what to do next. Then I’m going to fall asleep, Jean still awake, processing our abstract conversations. Then when I wake up at 6.30 to change into my swimsuit and walk to practice she will already be gone. We’ll spend the day separated. Then night will fall, once again, and we’ll rendezvous in room 301A for our nightly study and discussion sessions. Just as we do, every night.