the guy who was my roommate for the shortest period is a timid little dude. he is nineteen, newly graduated from high school, and, it seemed, incorporeal. before things got silly, i saw this little ghost only once when he asked for the internet password. ghost didn't seem to have any friends, and he only ever left his room to a.) answer the door for pizza and b.) have his mom drive him to the sandwich shop his aunt runs. although it is possible to touch the doors to both of our rooms simultaneously, all communication between us was conducted by e-mail and routed through his mother. so whenever ghost wanted to work out a cable package or talk about setting the thermostat he would email her and then she would email me and then i'd knock on his door and we'd complete the circuit.
i felt sad for the guy so one thursday about ten days after he moved in i invited him out. we went over to a friend of mine's place and after a couple of zelda themed cocktails he began to loosen up. on the walk home he told me about himself and the difficulty his girlfriend was facing. her mother was planning to pull her out of high school and move hundreds of miles away, which would as a consequence crush a fragile and tender love (i am against this). i have a mother myself and, being slightly puzzled, was in an empathetic state, so i nodded and made commiserative noises. encouraged, ghost laid out the plan that he and his mother had worked out.
they were gonna drive to his girlfriend's house, wait until her mother left for her weekly bingo night, then take the girl (who is 17) from the residence of her legal guardian and bring her here, where she would live without the landlord's knowledge or consent. and this was all going to happen the next day. ghost said he had decided to come to me because he felt he knew me best (internet password), and he wanted me to help him convince the other roommates. shrewdly, i remained noncommittal.
i woke up the next morning and went to class. gradually, i recalled pieces of the conversation i had had the previous night:
ghost: she'll probably figure out where [the girl] is eventually and try to get in, but if she starts screaming or throwing things we can just call the police.
i: ...
and i realized that i might be party to a crime of some seriousness. i informed the other roommates and decided not to be at home when the train wrecked. instead i went to the library to look up exactly how illegal his plan was. turned out to be a class f felony with a couple misdemeanors tacked on if the girl stayed the night.
sadly for any readers, I did the sensible thing: contacting the landlord and staying at a friend's place friday night. there was a bit of excitement on saturday when ghost and his mother pulled up to the house with a teenage girl and began bringing bags into the house, but that all turned out to be a big anticlimax. so there you have it: no arrests, no property damage, no nothing. just a minute or so of conscious existence that will never be yours again.
i felt sad for the guy so one thursday about ten days after he moved in i invited him out. we went over to a friend of mine's place and after a couple of zelda themed cocktails he began to loosen up. on the walk home he told me about himself and the difficulty his girlfriend was facing. her mother was planning to pull her out of high school and move hundreds of miles away, which would as a consequence crush a fragile and tender love (i am against this). i have a mother myself and, being slightly puzzled, was in an empathetic state, so i nodded and made commiserative noises. encouraged, ghost laid out the plan that he and his mother had worked out.
they were gonna drive to his girlfriend's house, wait until her mother left for her weekly bingo night, then take the girl (who is 17) from the residence of her legal guardian and bring her here, where she would live without the landlord's knowledge or consent. and this was all going to happen the next day. ghost said he had decided to come to me because he felt he knew me best (internet password), and he wanted me to help him convince the other roommates. shrewdly, i remained noncommittal.
i woke up the next morning and went to class. gradually, i recalled pieces of the conversation i had had the previous night:
ghost: she'll probably figure out where [the girl] is eventually and try to get in, but if she starts screaming or throwing things we can just call the police.
i: ...
and i realized that i might be party to a crime of some seriousness. i informed the other roommates and decided not to be at home when the train wrecked. instead i went to the library to look up exactly how illegal his plan was. turned out to be a class f felony with a couple misdemeanors tacked on if the girl stayed the night.
sadly for any readers, I did the sensible thing: contacting the landlord and staying at a friend's place friday night. there was a bit of excitement on saturday when ghost and his mother pulled up to the house with a teenage girl and began bringing bags into the house, but that all turned out to be a big anticlimax. so there you have it: no arrests, no property damage, no nothing. just a minute or so of conscious existence that will never be yours again.
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