White Walls

White walls, linoleum floors, slick mattresses. Room number two-hundred and ten. You enter through the front door; it’s a heavy slab of wood on a set of well-oiled hinges. On your left is a lounge, a simple set of couches and a thermostat, with ample room for a television set, though there is none. On your right is a kitchen counter with four wooden bar-stools, an unplugged microwave and a fridge whose mechanical hum is quieter than the scratching of pencils against paper. If you continue to the right, you come across the bathroom, a set of two sinks and two doors, one to the shower, one to the toilet.

There are three large doorways before you, at the back wall. Two doors lead to two identical single rooms, the third is a double. There is a dresser in each, along with a bed and a desk. Each room holds its own impersonal touch, waiting to be adorned with posters and pictures and cork-boards, though only for a semester. Then its inhabitants will leave it, as they always do.

The lights flicker on and off at the motion of a hand, an accommodation meant either to preserve energy or to alert your roommates of your entrance. You walk to the back left corner of the room, to the small, round table and its four accompanying chairs. Another thermostat sits behind you, perhaps set to high, but it doesn’t matter- you’re not the one paying the electricity bill. You are a renter, a temporary resident, an abandoner. You will leave one day, and the dorm will be impersonal once more, awaiting posters and pictures and cork-boards.