Begun: September 28, 2004 Finished: October 2004 Author: Kara Windof

Author's Note: I originally started writing this as a plot bunny, but a week later after my Inquiry and Expression teacher told us about an assignment where we had to write a "creative nonfiction" story about an incident from our first two months of college, I figured hey, let's kill two birds with one stone. So this was actually submitted as an assignment, which my teach' unsurprisingly had very few comments on (she's not too helpful when it comes to writing papers.) Nonetheless, here is an edited and updated version of that story.

No One Is A Mystery Anymore

"Oh my God, I can't believe he's doing it again." Natalie rolled her eyes as the trio of girls walked past the picnic table.

"He needs to take it down a few decibels." Georgia drawled, sarcasm lacing her voice. "He's not as good as he thinks he is."

"He needs to just go away! He's out here all the time." The brunette continued, "Playing that guitar right outside our window. It's so annoying!" Georgia laughed as Natalie continued to downplay the talent of the young adult across the field.

I didn't know who he was. At least, I didn't know what his name was. The extent of my knowledge of the junior who serenaded our hall every other evening with his music was that he was in his third year of college, and that he was obsessed with all-things-rock.

Currently he was crooning his own acoustic version of MEST's "Jaded", distinctly out of key, and probably a little louder than most students in the neighborhood would have liked, my two roommates included.

I laughed at their haughtiness, for the most part to save face, but also because a small part of me agreed with them. The more prominent part of me, however, was cringing inwardly at their condescending tone, because I couldn't believe the people I hung out with every day could judge a stranger so quickly, as I'd already perceived Natalie and Georgia had.

Yes, our private performer could probably learn to tone it down, to respect the wishes of our dormitory hall and offer up some peace and quiet, but it wasn't as if he was out there every day, and he certainly wasn't trying to annoy people, as far as I could perceive.

"I'm jaded, stupid, and reckless/Not sorry, and I'll never regret/These years spent, so faded and reckless."

I knew the song, quite well. I'd never given a terrible amount of thought to it, but I guess I'd always figured that not many people had heard of it, so what was the use? Perhaps Georgia and Natalie hadn't heard "Jaded" before either, but I don't think that mattered. They still would gripe like gossipy school girls if the junior back on the picnic bench strumming his guitar was singing an N*SYNC song they'd danced to a thousand times in their junior high years.

He butchered a high note and Natalie and Georgia came close to falling down on the sidewalk with laughter. I glanced at them, then desperately at the junior to our backs, hoping he wasn't looking. He wasn't. Still playing idly, he was completely oblivious to my companions' teasing.

Inwardly I wanted to say something retaliatory, but what was I trying to prove? I stopped myself from saying anything heavy, but offered instead, a comment I hoped would come off as insightful and wise, "Well, at least he's not afraid to express himself."

The girls laughed even more, hunched over themselves with mirth. "If that's how he expresses himself, then I'm glad I don't know the real him!" Georgia giggles, and I flinch even more, but try not to show it. I continue following the girls as they move on to new subjects, most likely having to do with the personal business of someone else from our campus.

To be entirely honest, Georgia is not really my roommate. In my campus hall, Natalie and I share a room on the first floor, and Georgia sort of came with the package. We got to know her the first few days of school as incoming freshmen from her own dorm two floors up, and she stuck around to the point where most other freshmen we've met so far and even our own RA are convinced Georgia actually lives on our floor. Our 'third' roommate, a short, forward blonde, can emit quite attractive qualities, such as the ability to never let anyone get her down by being the loudest and most commanding person in the room. But sometimes I perceive that she can be somewhat overwhelming, especially when I realize how different she and I are.

There's little time for pondering, as we head off to our respective classes. I know Georgia will be in the room when I return, and I know I will have forgotten, by then, all the transgressions of this morning, and any negative connotations her words might've had.

It isn't until later in that week that I remember them. The junior is out there again. I'd heard him start up his crooning as I scrubbed the floor of the shower, down on my hands and knees. Natalie is at class, so Georgia is absent as well. I like Georgia, I really do, but she and I don't tend to get on very well without Natalie as a bridge, simply because we have very little in common.

I'd been having trouble finding things 'in common' with everyone, quite frankly. I've never been a very open person, and more often than not I'd wait for others around me to bring friends to me, rather than make them on my own. It wasn't that I disliked people, just that I had a hard time getting to know them on my own terms. I liked them, I just liked them better when they made themselves more emotionally accessible, easier to befriend.

I heard him outside today, singing loudly and still off-key. Sometimes he's out there with two or three others. Sometimes they have guitars of their own, practicing their music, exploring their abilities, their sound, their souls.

I had seen him out there when I'd first gone into the bathroom adjoining our room, intending to complete my weekly housekeeping. He was on the picnic bench outside our hall and today, last I checked at least, he was alone.

I toyed with the thought of closing the window and turning on a CD of my own instead, but something else prevailed in my convictions. I set down the scrubbing brush and walked over to the bathroom window, a small, one foot by two foot aperture. The blue, wooden frame was old and the pane was cloudy and designed to not be able to see through it. I could have pulled down the window to look out, but not wanting to be seen, I pushed it shut until just a crack remained open, and attempted to look out.

I quickly realized this would not be easy, short as I was, and remedied this by climbing up, rather awkwardly, onto the toilet seat, craning my neck to the side to get a proper glimpse of the aspiring rock star out my window. As I stood there, posed gracelessly in the cramped space, one foot placed on either side of the toilet seat, I wondered briefly how bizarre it would look like if Natalie or Georgia were to walk in and discover me there, but I couldn't commit myself to come back down.

As I stood there, I lost awareness of myself. Outside, the junior was singing a new tune, or rather a very old one, depending on how you look at it. The unmistakable words to Bill Withers' "Lean On Me" floated through my window as I crouched there listening, now watching the guitarist at his trade.

It felt so odd, standing there watching the young man play. I'd heard him a dozen times now, just outside the room, shamelessly barreling through a tune like the determined musician he might very well be, not giving a second thought to who was listening or walking by. But here, on this damp afternoon, as I peeked through the screened slat, perched on my bathroom toilet and watched him play to the entire campus and yet to no one at all, it felt like a stolen moment, an experience I should not have been privy to. And yet here I was.

"Lean on me./When you're not strong/And I'll be your friend/I'll help you carry on./For, it won't be long./'Til I'm gonna need/Somebody to lean on."

People could be truly astonishing. We can make snap judgments based on one encounter, and not feel an ounce of regret or remorse. In high school I'd told myself that college would change that. In college, no one would be judged unfairly.

When I first got here a few weeks ago, I'd been completely lost and emotionally out of tune with my former self. This had been welcome at first. I'd wanted a change, needed a change, but here I was, 5 weeks in and still adjusting. People around me seemed content with themselves already. It'd taken Natalie only a few days to fit in, it seemed, and here I was, homeless, restless, and feeling ever-out-of-place, like a square peg trying to fit into a circular hole.

I was mad at myself for this, for not being able to fit in, and for taking so long to find my place. Deep down I knew it was hard for everyone, that I wasn't alone, but somehow this wasn't consoling. I was repeating my high school mistakes, making the same ones I'd made before, and already deemed somewhat of a social outcast by my collegian peers.

But I still felt that inside, I had changed. I was a new, more mature person; I just hid it well. I'd always wanted to fit in, I just had trouble doing so, and now that I was expected to be a 'grown-up' no one would take the time to coax me into that life I wanted. It was up to me to do so.

Adjusting to a new life, making new friends - none of it is expected to be simple. I just wished that people would take the time to get to know me better before I was deemed unapproachable. I felt that if someone would just try to get to know me, they would be pleasantly surprised at what they would find. But that was too hard to do now. No one had the time or felt like taking the effort to get to know those around them.

Instant gratification was the theme of the day. If it wasn't love at first sight, it wasn't meant to be, it seemed more and more. Simply put, no one took the time to get to know one another, opting instead for the easy road out.

As I stared in silent reverie at the figure on the bench, singing his heart out with every verse, reveling that not a single word was being heard, I realized that truly no one really was a mystery anymore. The mystery in people was lost, like my childhood, like my home, like my former life. What I was left with was the here and the now and the immediacy of it all. No time to get to know your world. No time to try. Mystery was tedious, and evidently not worth anyone's time in the end.

I stepped down from the toilet seat carefully and moved to sit on the sink, silently soaking up the words that encroached on the quiet room, absorbing the sounds, allowing myself to truly hear them. The song ended. Blinking, I stood up, and as the boy outside my window launched into another sloppy rendition of the latest modern rock song, I cracked my window open just a few inches wider, picked up the scrubbing brush, and went back to work.