There was also the daily challenge he faced every morning. Still feeling the wait of sleep pressing down on him, he lifted his heavy head and glanced over at the other bed in the room. He dropped his head and rolled over, smiling to himself. Greg was still asleep, taking the pressure off of Charlie to wake up, too. It was really an unfair competition as Charlie had class at 9:30 and Greg's wasn't until noon, but the competition still took place.
After having gladly lost the race, Charlie got into the shower after Greg was finished. They used different showers, as the bathrooms had been split into the one for tall people and the one for short people, but they still showered at different times as the hot water heater could not handle both of them at once. Everyone else was either already off to school or Ben was possibly still asleep.
Today was a tie day. Greg once made the mistake of asking what the occasion was for a tie. There was never an occasion, Charlie just liked ties.
He slipped on his BYU jacket, as the color came close to matching his corduroys, and threaded his headphone cord through the sleeve to his iPod watch. He smiled to himself as the music began to dance beautifully against his eardrums, glad that he had not made the mistake of getting Beats by Dr. Dre. Beats were a fraction of the quality of his Grados and his Grados were a fraction of the price of the Beats. They also served as excellent ear muffs for his large, floppy audio receptors that had helped him obtain nicknames such as Dumbo or Spock as child. All of those names had been endowed upon him by his loving sister, usually while she messed with his ears, which did little to reduce their elasticity.
The walk went as well as always. Charlie especially enjoyed the sight of the words poooooooop and Gullible! written on the ceiling of the tunnel he trekked through on the way to the Tanner as Sufjan Stevens serenaded him on such topics as zombies and the death of a lover to bone cancer. His heart was gripped tightly by the emotions involved in Sufjan's voice, his self-composed music, and the thought of losing his Juli to death. Sure, he was reading The Book Thief, a book about World War II told from the perspective of death, and had thus gained quite the sympathetic view of the feared thief of souls, but losing Juli in any form was frightening.
His thoughts were cut short by his arrival in his classroom. The numbers and aggravating formulas of finance were thrown at him, much like a one-sided game of dodgeball where he was duct taped to the wall. Mentally bruised and battered, Charlie hiked the endless staircase up and out of the Tanner, unconsciously ignoring the invisible Stormtroopers Juli swore she saw lining the walls.
New Testament was interesting, as always. He enjoyed the enthusiasm Camille Fonk Olson brought to the table each day. He readily ate each ball of information hurled at him, each of which easily explained the often misunderstood words of Paul which had often made him uneasy while in the Midwest.
The best thing about his research class was his teacher. His doughy, childlike professor, who could not pronounce "th" and studied sexual abuse, droned on about scientific designs and cracked excessively dry jokes which Charlie soaked up with his humor sponge. After class, he briefly discussed the current study him and his group partners were conducting.
Writing in psychology was always fantastic, but mostly because he always got great advice from his teacher. She was a head shorter than him and weighed far less, but was somehow packed full of the weightless substances of wisdom and love. She would pour out compliments on his head about his writing style and humor, and graciously speak to and counsel him on his current indecisiveness on his future. He did not, however, enjoy coming to a daily conclusion that he truly did not understand the English language as much as he thought he did, yet still stored every tidbit he could for future reference.
Homeward bound, he hooked up to his expensive earmuffs once more and listened patiently while Colin Meloy recounted the Hazards of Love. He loved the story which was unwoven into his auditory system and directly to his heart, but knew full and well that the benefits truly outweighed any of the hazards. He cared very little for the time it took for him to reach his apartment, as this was the least important section of his day.
After scavenging his apartment for some morsels of food, he ate while enjoying this day's unwinding distraction. Sometimes it was an app game on his Kindle Fire, other times it was Youtube, but today he allowed himself to be sucked into the Netflixed show of two dorky men who scientifically debunked myths. Once his snack and unwinding was complete, he whiled away the next couple hours doing homework.
Then Juli came home, and it all got better. He met her as soon as he could and spent the rest of the afternoon in bliss. Recounting what they did is of little consequence. It could have been a movie, shopping, or homework. The activity didn't matter. He was with her and that's all that mattered to him.
A few hours later he was forced to say goodbye to her for the second time in one day. They embraced and mutually agreed, either verbally or internally, that they very much awaited the day when nightly partings were unnecessary.
Lying in bed that night, Charlie hugged his second pillow tightly, knowing all too well that it was a pathetic substitute for Juli. He soon succumbed to sleep, where he once more made his astral journey to dreamland to be with Juli again.
