Nonfiction: "Cornstalk Skyscrapers"

NIA KITCHIN // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE

The world outside furiously rolls along the pane of laminated glass like snapshots on an everlasting film reel. For now, the sequence features an anonymous roadside corn field, but that’s bound to change as we move along the road. The big city up ahead is probably oblivious to the existence of this particular farm land. For the farmer, it’s the entire world. The road rolls beneath the wheels and the story continues. Every last one of my worldly belongings, reduced to a few boxes in a trunk graciously giving way to spacious seating for six. Fail to purge yourself of materialistic possessions and college will do it for you. Force you to set aside all the superficial accolades and practice drowning out your social ineptitude. Is it ironic that this was my takeaway from spending the summer alone and reading the likes of “The Sun Also Rises?” Parking is at a premium on move-in day, but a blend of liquified anticipation and anxiety fills my veins. Upon arrival, my lungs welcome the crisp Milwaukee air and I am born anew; a phoenix on the soon to be frozen plain.

I’m in the orientation check-in line. I think I’ve caught the eye of the redhead across the room. I have to wipe the stars from my eyes when I reach the table. The receptionist greets me with a shivering smile that sends tremors down my spine. Room key: check. Name tag: check. What else could a student need to feel at home? I’m feeling too squirrely to talk to the redheaded girl right now. Once I cool down a bit, I’ll make a move. After all, I’ve got four years on the horizon here.

Classes are underway. The workload is sort of laughable. This is what high school teachers made all those ominous prophecies about? It’s all under control; time to party. The door of the frat house closes with all the pressure of the outside world concentrated inside a 20 by 20-foot basement. The inflated egos of the 40 or so people jam packed within pin me against the wall. Lungs drowned in axe body spray, ears drowned to the sound of “Astroworld,” mouth drowned with a steady flow of stale Budweiser. Cover this basement with soil and put up a headstone and some flowers and nobody would tell the difference, except the police. The heavy fist crashes through the door and the liquidators step inside under the cover of red and blue lights. Time to run. I think I’ve pushed my luck far enough for a while.

Just in time for midterm exams, a plague of terminal joy permeates the sweeping wind of a silver afternoon. Hordes of faceless people skate atop the sidewalk on the way to classes. The spellbound skulls can’t seem to do a thing to detract from their coveted iPhones. Their air pods are an invisible lifeline. The angry mob turns against itself, consumed with the self-inflicted silence that runs in the streets. Any sense of comfort recedes at the sight of my peers. I retreat back to my bedroom. With my hopes, I turn to my own enchanted black rectangle. My pupils dilate, total eclipse of the iris. Blinded by the pixelated light, a pair of claws reach outward and clutch my throat. The lonely crowd outside is about to claim another victim. I sleep away each day in hopes of warding them off.

My dreams are dashed to the shrill yell of the fire alarm as it charges through the dormitory walls into the moonlight coated snowfall. Building protocol calls for students to calmly proceed down the stairs, out the front door and across the street until first responders arrive. The building isn’t burning. If it was I’m not sure I would care. After all, I’m staring down a loaded barrel of four more years here. My neighbor apparently shares my intentions of keeping warm; he ducks through my door before he is spotted in the hall. The unwanted refugee opens his mouth to speak. He’s of the narcissistic variety, so naturally his ice breaker is something to do about his latest Tinder conquest. I let him stay only because his pathetic self-indulgence is sort of amusing and I’m awake now anyway. He yanks out his phone to show me a picture of his most recent swipe. My stomach turns to quicksand and sinks. The lunatic neighbor’s magic crystal rectangle reflects the image of the redhead from orientation. Now that she’s hooked up with that moron down the hall, I feel my feelings disappear. Every time I read into one of these things wrong is more disappointing than the last. He leaves at my demand and I climb back into bed. I should’ve made my move sooner, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I feel like nothing more than the nameless farmer from beyond the rigor mortis heart of the stillborn city.

Caught in the olive rain, the terrible white light blares from the end of the tunnel. As it intensifies, a ventriloquist tugs on the strings from which my limbs hang in the balance. I act out my nightmare to the delight of all. The ventriloquist snips the strings and laughs as I fall onto some stainless-steel table. A surgeon enters to flush my lungs with laughing gas and administrate my daily dose of synthetic cheer. The surgeon removes his mask. I see the faces of high school teachers; I see the face of the redheaded girl; I see the face of God. They look down at me and laugh. The surgeon hums a lullaby and carries me away into the abysmal nothingness.

I awake over the cast of a cold sweat shadow. Maybe that’s what you get for being an atheist at a Catholic school. Maybe that’s what you get for being a Bears fan in Wisconsin. Maybe that’s what you get for agreeing to attend a lousy university. Luckily, I’m in the mood for drastic measures. It takes me a while to dig up my password for the Common Application. It was written on a little slip of paper somewhere under a pile of journal entries and financial aid information. It was next to a packet for the study abroad in Rome summer program. When I decided once and for all I was transferring, I asked the blockheaded program director if I could please have my $500 deposit back, I needed it to pay application fees. His mouth opened and he spewed something about loyalty along with a few streaks of drool. Reluctantly, the he agreed to give me my money back, but not without a threat. “If you ever want to study abroad at this university again, I will personally see to it that your application is denied,” the big turtle-shaped man said. That’s okay, I told him, I think I’d like to go home instead.

One night, a gunshot fired across the street. A man tried to defend himself from being beaten brainless by a homeless man with a brick. His last-ditch effort at self-salvation misfired and he bled out on the steps of a Lutheran church. I of course, was oblivious to all of the madness unfolding outside my window, as was the case with pretty much everything in my campus life these days. There’s no rest for the transfer applicant. Six schools, 10 essays: 850 to 2,000 words apiece, seven letters of recommendation from professors who hate to see you go, 90 percent for an A-, 93 percent for an A, zero room for error, three months before the deadline, one angsty teenage boy. It’s now sometime in March. I submit my soul over the world wide web so the top brass of academia can determine my worth. A matter of life and death dictated by acceptance rates.

You don’t even need to open the envelope they send you in the mail to tell whether you got in or not; size tells you all you need to know. In this case, bigger is better. They like to send a congratulatory poster or folder along with a notice of acceptance. Whereas, all it takes to deliver heart-wrenching rejection is black ink and a white sheet of 8.5 by 11 paper. Of course, after the months of agonizing waiting, simply knowing one way or the other is a sort of relief. I’m no exception. “Ok Computer” monopolizes my playlist: paranoia reigns supreme. I check the mailbox 12 times per day; the white light shines through from the mail room on the other side of the wall. Empty like my spirits. Finally, I start getting fed up. Rampaging up the stairs back to my room empty handed again, I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. It’s a text from my mom back in Virginia, is a picture of a rather large envelope.

I’m in the orientation check-in line. Repeating the “first year experience” unnerves me. I tip-toe on eggshells up to the receptionist when my turn comes. Her smile offers a blanket to my frigid heart. Collecting my room keys and name tag, I return a nervous grin and step outside, a reminder that the sun God can tolerate some college campuses better than others. The southern stretch of the commonwealth state is cozy and green. My heart is completely thawed. New friends aren’t hard to come by. They enjoy eating food, like real people. I had forgotten how it felt to have a few of those around. Tonight, we’re in for a treat: Vietnamese. On the way to the restaurant, my thoughts wander off to that cornfield outside Milwaukee. I wonder how the farmer will navigate the desolate winter once it barrels over his world yet again. Maybe he’s growing soy beans this year.

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