Midnight Dustings

I attended a great junior college and had a great time while I was there. I graduated with a 2 year degree and started a new job, trying to apply my new gained knowledge. My brother and some of my closest friends stayed at the college after I left. I would occasionally travel back for a visit and lots of deep discussion about everything. I would spend the night on the couch or on one of the empty beds in their attic apartment.

One night while I was visiting, I was awakened to the sounds of feet creeping up the apartment stairs. Initially I was not concerned because it was common for some of the roommates to come home late. I did get a little concerned when I heard women's whispers, giggles and shushes.

I crawled out of bed and walked toward the voices to investigate. Just as I reached to top of the stairs, a whirlwind of activity erupted in the darkened room at the other end of the hall. Amid the screeches and squeals, several girls bounded toward me in the hall and made a thundering left-hand turn and stumbled quickly down the stairs and into the darkness outside.

The new found silence was deafening as I slowly turned my attention to the room at the end of the hall. I am not sure who turned on the light (it might have been me) but the sight was eerily unsettling. Kneeling silently, on his bed in the now lightened room was my close friend gazing blankly into nothingness. He was kneeling in his underwear, hands hanging loosely from the shoulders. On top of his head was a fluffy mound of white flour resting lightly on top of a wet layer of flour which was oozing off his head on it's journey to the mattress below.

His face, arms and body were covered with a mixture of water and flour. I noticed a large amount of water dripping through his mattress to the floor below. Gradually, he began to tense up and released a mild expletive to his now fully wakened roommates. He slowly turned his head toward me as I stood in the doorway. His eyes were flickering between terror, confusion and anger. I watched his newly created outer covering shift downward as he began to move his arms outward so he could see what was there.

His Perspective (in my words):
I heard something in the darkness. Quiet voices and squeeky floor boards were moving slowly toward me in my darkented bedroom. I pulled my sheet off of me and knealed up in my bed, looking toward the intruder. I opened my mouth to express my query...the world quickly changed.

I felt a bucket of water impact my face, filling my open mouth. Half an instant later, I was it by somthing else, turning the water in my mouth to a gummy clog. The quiet whispers turned into ear piercing screams with thundering feet pounding their retreat on the old wooden floot. I heard the punding feet hit the stairs, and quickly turned to quiet thumps, disappearing into the night. I think I heard the last one stumple and slide down the last few stairs.

The quiet left behind was intense, broken only by the drips and plops of water and clumps of flour hitting the two small lakes of water formed in my matress by my knees. Across the still dark room I heard my roomate ask in a sheepish voice (he was terrified) "Are you...OK"? Anger began to fill my mind causing me to shake slightly in my statuesque position. The ager build gradualy and erupted through my voice in the form of a curse.

Somewhere the light came on. I looked down toward my bed, amazed of the size of the water pools in my bed. I slowly lifed my arms to see the gummy glue that now caked my whole body.

We later found that it was the roommates of a girl he had just began to date. They somehow felt that he had stood her up for some activity. He does not recall having done that, but he has burned into his psychy its powerful results.

I am sure (but don't recall) that I began to chuckle and laugh, but he saw no humor in it at all. The rest of the group began to slip quietly into the room with a similar "what the heck just happened" expression on their faces. My brother later stated that he was not concerned until he heard our friend swear, then he was really scared (this was the first and last time I remember hearing him curse).