breakfast

 A bird was flying high above the stadium lights, like a majestic mouse. That night was the busiest night for all the groups and societies at college. They hazed most of the campus flora because in the morning, the groundsmen would just replant everything again. The trees were bursting into flame.

 Arthur didn't like being near burning fires. The heat hurt his sensibilities. The fire reminded him of his friends when they get angry at him. It tempted him to jump into it. He could resist the compulsion to take on the flame for some time, but he knew an impulse would force him to dive in to feel the carnage of its power in his flesh.

 His thoughts were readable by his facial expressions alone. Barely speaking at all, many still knew his insides well. He avoided conflict and craved approval; insecure and weak-lunged, and had a slim nose and broadly arched shoulders (bad posture), and a habit of breathing through his mouth.

 He became panicked when his palms felt like they were blistering, but he felt his cordoroy pants' texture, not blisters. His subconscious could convince himself of anything. He checked his hands again for burn marks then decided to go back inside the dorms for his own safety.

 When he made it to the top of the steps, he had to double-check to make sure it was his floor, because he had lost count, and there was an attic. He peeked out the window and saw there was one more floor, so he took the steps up one more flight, through the hall, down another corridor, and into his room where he flopped on his bed and began dreaming.

 His dream was incredible. It gave him a special purpose, but when he awoke in the morning, he couldn't remember immediately what purpose. He sat very still at his computer and remembered the details of the dream slowly. The significance was astounding, he could see, but the dream's importance didn't match his ability to recall it.

 He took a shower, sublimely spitting the water into the drain, and pissing and waiting until the color of it disappeared. He pulled the knob to "cold", then off, dried himself, and put his clothes back on.

 At breakfast, a girl's breakfast triggered a flood of memories about his dream. He remembered vividly a round plate of food.

 "Symbolizing Earth," he said. "And the food in it, the pork sausage and beef stroganoff--that was the humans and animals, respectively. But what of the drink in this incredible dream? What meaning did my mind imbue within the ochre of my OJ? I can recall the intensity of its flavor."

 He remembered the red-orange fires of the night before and how when he played in fire, it made him piss the bed. He thought that is what the glass of OJ meant-that he had nearly pissed the bed.

 He was sick and left the cafeteria with no breakfast, being satisfied at least that he remembered his dream.