Early Morning Bench Talks
Sunday, September 29th, 03:19 a.m.
It's late.
You live in Clark, and you're on your way back to your room. You'd been up doing whatever it is you do at three a.m. on a Sunday, and you're so ready to pass out in your bed.
You've just walked past the thicket of trees and into Mac Field when you see a flash out of the corner of your eye. It's one of the lights in the rock benches along the new sidewalk cutting across the field. The other lights beam brightly, steady and constant, but this one flickers. Weird.
You stare long enough to realize the light is flashing in a repeating pattern. You know Morse code, because all Grinnellians have a random weird obsession and yours happens to be becoming a master spy. The letters spell out:
J... R... C...
Hmm. You turn and look at the JRC. You see nothing out of the ordinary. There are people studying in the Grill, somebody drawing on the whiteboard of an upstairs conference room, some weird shadowy figure standing alone in D-Hall... wait. That compost bin in the Grill isn't new, is it? Shoot, no, it showed up last semester. You should actually use it some time.
Monday, September 30th, 1:03 a.m.
It's only one a.m. this time, which is pretty cool. Sure, you got kicked out of Kistle and your only two options were sleeping or trying (and failing) to study for a quiz tomorrow morning (today?), but that's besides the point. You're going to bed before two! It's practically unheard of for you.
You enter the North loggia, maneuvering around that bike that's been gathering dust for two semesters. You spot the flashing out of the corner of your eye again. FM should really fix that, you think. Would that even be FM's job? You're not certain. Heh. FM could also stand for Fighter Mom. Or Fantastic Mongeese. Or Fart Nuggets - wait, that doesn't work, nugget doesn't... hmm. Is mongeese even a word? What's the plural for mongoose???
You're very tired.
You approach the light. It looks normal enough, but the bulb hidden behind the frosted glass panel still flickers in the same pattern.
J... R... C...
You turn to look at the JRC again. The shadowy figure from a couple days ago stands by one of the large windows overlooking Mac Field. It occurs to you that there probably shouldn't be anyone in D-Hall right now. Hmm.
Not your problem.
Tuesday, October 1st, 10:54 a.m.
You've been freed from your ten a.m. class and you're headed to D-Hall to get brunch, because who actually gets up early enough to get breakfast? That's crazy talk.
You spot the shadowy figure standing in the salad bar. Not in the space where the D-Hall workers stand. No, that'd be rude. It stands in the counter top, its torso emerging from the space in between the soups that you've never seen another living soul eat from. You're not a huge soup fan, but you do wanna get yourself some of that pumpernickel bread.
You move towards the bread. The figure turns, and it seems to be tracking your movements. It cocks its head as you reach for the white tongs to grab some bread for your to-go box. Because you were raised to be polite, you offer some pumpernickel bread to it. It distorts and distends and makes a horrendous screech before swallowing a nearby first-year.
Not everyone likes pumpernickel, you suppose.
Wednesday, October 2nd, 03:09 a.m.
Three a.m. once again. You were really just procrastinating this time. Not like you weren't procrastinating the other times you've been up this late, but tonight you genuinely could have gone to bed about four hours ago. Ah, well. There's still one thing you have to do before going to bed.
You walk up to the flickering rock bench and click on the flashlight you hunted down this morning. You'd been reviewing Morse code instead of doing your pre-lab for tomorrow (today??), which you know you will eventually hate yourself for but now is not that time.
J... R... C...
Y, THO? you flash back, because you're lazy. The Morse code you studied doesn't have punctuation, though, so really you just said "ytho".
The sequence momentarily pauses. When it resumes, you realize it’s different. Progress?
WHAT.
You imagine there is a question mark at the end of the statement. You decide to use a different tactic.
NAME.
BOB, comes the response. Seems legit.
REALLY, you ask anyways, just in case.
YES.
That's too easy of an answer, which means that as a Grinnellian you are obligated to ask a hard question. You start to respond "WHAT YOU WANT" when Campus Safety drives up to you in a golf cart and asks you why you're flashing lights at the field. You say you're talking to Bob.
"Who's Bob?" the officer asks.
You shrug. He stares at you for a long moment, before asking if you're alright. You respond with an affirmative. He doesn't look convinced, but he drives away anyway.
You try, "WHAT YOU WANT" again, but it takes far too long to flash out and you think you may have messed up a couple of times.
"Bob" doesn't respond. After about five minutes of waiting, you give up and head to Clark.
Friday, October 4th, 06:07 p.m.
You're in D-Hall a couple days later, and you're the only one to notice a very confused first-year get regurgitated up by Bob the Shadowy Figure. The dude is still holding the bowl of soup and cup of coffee he had in his hands when Bob first consumed him, and he looks no different except for the fact that there are rapidly dissolving tendrils of shadow clinging to his limbs.
You'd completely forgotten about him. How long has been? Three days? Four? Was anyone looking for him? You're not sure.
He looks around, bewildered, before his gaze rests on you. He seems to be trying to figure out if whatever happened to him actually happened.
You shrug. This is a hard enough question with no easy answer, so you think you've done your job.
Sunday, October 6th, 10:30 p.m.
There's someone sitting on the bench this time. The person looks up at you as you approach, and you recognize the unfortunate first-year. His eyes are literal pits of shadows. He opens his mouth to speak, and darkness spills out from his lips.
"Ew," you say without thinking.
The mouth closes and twists into a frown, and shoulders rise in a self-conscious hunch. Aw, you feel bad.
"I– sorry. That was rude."
The "first-year" shrugs and doesn't look at you, kicking a nearby rock.
"So, like... are you possessing him, or something? Because he probably has class in the morning."
A frown. The mouth opens tentatively. You hold back the instinct to flinch. A voice like the dish line pulper with a fork stuck in it grates out:
"No... I just copied him..."
"Oh, that's fine, then." It's really not. The dude probably didn’t consent to that. "So, Bob. Have you decided what you want?"
"Yes... prank..."
"Prank? Prank who?"
"Prank... Joe..."
"Joe?"
"J... R... C..."
And then you finally get it, because you remember what Bob is a nickname for.
Robert Noyce wants to prank the Joe Rosenfield Center.
Monday October 7th, 10:57 p.m.
You are in the JRC the day after Noyce's declaration, staring in horrified awe at the mess that used to be the JRC lobby. He had somehow managed to get his hands on the old D-Hall soft-serve ice cream machine, and now? You're up to your thighs in mint-chocolate chip. You watch, numb, as someone from your lab section falls into a sea of vanilla while trying to retrieve her bookbag from the bag racks. She doesn't resurface.
Hovering by the buried reception is Noyce. The shadowy haze that makes up his form spasms sporadically. You think that means he's laughing.
You didn't know it was possible for there to be this much ice cream in one place.
The “prank” disappears after a few hours, but you and the other four students that got caught up in it have been forever altered. So… much… ice cream…
Tuesday, October 8th, 11:15 p.m.
You are in a predicament.
You're in one of the JRC conference rooms and you want to leave, but for some reason you froze as soon as you touched the door handle. You can't move.
You feel... anger? This is odd, because the anger is not yours. You're not mad about anything; if anything you're confused, because why isn't the door opening? Why can't you move?
The anger-that-is-not-yours intensifies alarmingly.
"Mr. Noyce?" you ask, unsure why he'd lock you in a conference room.
You hear a small squeak to your right. You laboriously manage to turn your head to look. One of the dry erase markers is writing on the white board.
"YOUR ICE CREAM???"
"Uh. No. That was Noyce." Talking is hard.
"YOU HELPED?"
"I didn't do anything."
Nothing appears on the board for a long moment. Then:
"You may go."
The door opens on its own, and you can breathe again. You step out into the Wellness Lounge.
Rosenfield apparently didn't find the ice cream very funny.
Friday, October 11th, 11:23 p.m.
It's Nerf or Nothin'.
You're trying hard to stifle your breathing as a group of "humans" approach your hiding spot. You're a "zombie" very early on in a game of Humans Vs. Zombies, and you're hella gonna tag one of these naïve mortals that should be paying more attention to their surroundings. You lunge out of your hiding place as soon as you see the tip of one of their shoes. One of them screams.
He didn't scream at you, though, and you suddenly find yourself... on your back? Staring at the ceiling. What? You blink, lifting your head off of the Noyce Elbow's decades-old carpet as The Orb mows down a second member of the trio of Nerfers. Last you checked, though, The Orb was in the Math commons... and it also wasn't waist-high. It rolls away and zips around the corner towards Kistle, leaving you and three very confused others behind.
"The hell was that?" says The Orb's first victim, lying unmoving on the floor nearby. You stand (painfully) and extend a hand to help him up. He accepts it gratefully. You think he's in your Econ class.
"I told y'all that thing was haunted" The Orb's second target grumbles, inspecting her elbows for damage. You're pretty sure you definitely maybe know her from something you were in at one point. You don't know her name or why you know her.
"Yeah, but you were also drunk off your ass! Forgive us for not believing you," the third student shrills, looking panicked and aiming their blaster down the hallway The Orb disappeared down as if a barrage of foam Nerf darts are going to do anything against a possessed ball of wood.
"Are y'all okay?" you ask.
"Yeah, thanks," the first student says. A thin stream of blood runs down his temple, but he says he's fine so it's probably nothing.
Distant shouts sound from somewhere else in the building, accompanied by blaster fire and an ominous rolling sound. You decide not to head in that direction.
Amusement that doesn't belong to you echoes in your head, and you realize: this was retaliation. Rosenfield is definitely laughing his ghostly ass off somewhere.
That’s it. You’re dealing with this.
Saturday, October 12, 12:04 a.m.
You're at the rock bench where you first met Noyce, because you're going to tell him you're done with... whatever this is. You find him fuming in the form of the first-year he “copied.”
"Joe... Nerf..."
"Yeah, about that–"
"This... means... war..."
“Ok, but–”
“WAR!”
So. This is happening now.
You should have just stayed in bed.
This short story was published in the Fall 2019 issue of The Grinnell Review.