After Life

1

An infernal buzzing echoed through the blissful silence of my bedroom, breaking into my subconscious before I was ever really willing to depart from the comfort of my dreams. The sound seemed far away for a moment, slowly becoming louder as I reluctantly came awake. I groaned, burying my face into my pillow deeper, as if it held some refuge from the noise determined to wake me from the first decent sleep I had had in days.

It always seemed to be that way. That just when I was in a wonderful, deep, soothing sleep, that was the moment that my alarm decided 'enough of that, wake your ass up'.

Reaching my arm out blindly, my face still hidden in my pillow, I flailed my hand around in the direction of the irritating sound, looking to silence it. It would have been easier, and probably made more sense, to actually open my eyes and locate the alarm clock with other senses than just touch. Unfortunately, that wasn't something I was willing to concede to just yet. So instead, I felt my way across my night stand, knocking my box of Kleenex onto the floor, almost spilling my bottle of water, and getting tangled in my phone charger before finally finding the clock, and slamming my hand across the top.

Immediately, the room fell back into a calm silence, and I couldn't stop the sigh that escaped me as I snuggled back into my bed.

I hated early mornings. Or mornings in general, if I was being completely honest.

I knew this was a vice, and one that I would have to try and break eventually. I had been reminded more frequently in recent months, as graduation loomed on the horizon, that 'adults' generally had to get up at a decent hour and go to work. Since I would be graduating from college this year, that seemed to be the single event that was determined to throw me head first into this frightening thing called adulthood.

Granted, I was told the same thing when I started college. That I would have to take the classes required of me to complete my degree in photography and imaging at NYU, and that some would begin before the noon hour. This was the case during my freshman year, and more than once I would find myself in the back of the room, chugging coffee to keep myself awake during lecture. But following years found themselves to be easier to adjust, with class schedules easier to build around my particular nocturnal preferences.

Today, however, was the one day in my week in which I had to get up early for class. And of course, it was not a class I could skip. Especially right now, as the end of term was only a few short months away. My senior project class of course had to run at nine in the morning on Thursdays, after I worked late at the bar where I held a part time job as a bartender on Wednesdays. As if getting up at the colon of dawn wasn't hard enough for me.

I took a deep breath, desperate to hide in the comforts of my bed a little longer, I rolled onto my back, my eyes still tightly closed. I relished in the feeling of the mattress below me, the soft sheets against my skin. I loved my bed. My bed and I had an unspoken bond, a mutual understanding. I changed the sheets frequently, and bed provided me with comfort and solace when I needed it. It was mutually beneficial.

Faintly, beyond the solitude of my room, I could hear movement in the kitchen outside my bedroom door. The clinking of dishes, the sliding of chairs at the table. Of course my roommate, Mia, was already up.

I had to get up, before I actually fell back asleep. Then I would really be screwed. Today was the day our final project topics were discussed, and I needed to be there to hear all the details of the requirements. This particular professor was known for giving challenging and varied parameters for final projects, which sounds great to some, but caused havoc and anxiety in others. Depending on the topic, I had a feeling I would be one of the students falling into the latter category.

I loved my educational choice, having a fascination with imagery and photography since I was a young child. My parents had given me an old polaroid camera as a gift when I was ten years old. That was all it took to have me hooked. From that moment on, I could be found running around the yard, taking pictures of bugs, and grass, and bark on trees. I would sneak up on my family and friends, desperately trying to catch them in natural and unguarded states. By the time I turned twelve, my passion for photography was ingrained, and my parents got me my first digital camera. It was a small pocket camera, nothing special, but to me it was the key to something more.