Searching for Purpose (Twenty One Pilots)

4. A Cold Shower

The sun was just starting to set when Tyler reached the campus. From what he saw while driving by, it was huge. Bigger than any of the pictures from their website made it seem. If he was going to be honest with himself, Tyler felt intimidated by the size of it. He was used to small towns with small buildings and smiling faces that knew more about him when he was a kid than he remembered himself.

“But that’s why you had to leave. They knew you but they didn't know you,” Tyler whispered to himself as he pulled into the parking lot of a hotel a few blocks from his college. The school wasn’t officially open until tomorrow, which meant another night of hiding in a hotel room and trying not to let any of his thoughts get to him.

“Change of scenery,” he muttered as he parked and climbed out of his car, backpack already slung over his shoulder.

“It’ll do you some good,” he said as he walked through the spinning hotel door. This kind of door was his favorite. As a kid he’d run around and around in the spinning door at the mall when his mom would take him. He got extremely frustrated once, when his brother had told him he couldn’t slam the door. That comment, of course, led to eventual tears and many apologies directed towards the management of the department store. Apparently people didn’t like it when you tried to slam their revolving doors and accidentally broke it in the process.

Tyler didn’t go to that mall a lot anymore.

“Maybe now you can find….find…it,” Tyler mumbled to himself, still caught up in his own thoughts.

“If ‘it’ is a room for the night, I can help you there. Other than that, you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

Tyler looked up from the floor and blushed at the realization that someone had heard him talking to himself.

“Yeah, a room would be great.”

The guy behind the desk smiled and handed Tyler something to sign. He had brown hair, most of it hidden by a red beanie, which Tyler was pretty sure was against the dress code, and a navy blue shirt with the name of the hotel embroidered on it. Tyler thought he must be around the same age, or at least just out of college. The guy’s name tag read “Mark”.

“Thanks,” Tyler said as Mark handed him his room key.

“Sure thing,” Mark smiled. “Say, are you going to college here? Well, not here here. Here is a hotel. But like, here as in the city?”

Tyler nodded his head. “Yeah, it’s my first year.”

“That’s cool. I go there, too. It’s my last year though. Also my last night working here. Can’t wait to leave,” Mark said. Tyler liked him. He was nice.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. Got to get to campus early and everything. Have a nice night,” Mark paused and looked down at the sheet that Tyler had signed, “Tyler Joseph. Maybe I’ll see you around campus.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tyler smiled back.

He turned away from the desk and walked towards the elevator, heading up to the fourth floor. When he got to his room, the walk being void of any sounds coming from behind doors, Tyler set his bag down and sat on the edge of his bed.

“I think I might have just made an aquaintence” he mumbled as he got a pair of pajamas out of his bag. “I think.”

Tyler spent at least an hour in the shower. He didn’t mean to, not really. It just kind of happened. He was washing his hair, humming some show tune, when a word popped into his head. It was a normal word. One that people used all of the time, or at least felt. See, this word was also an emotion. A very intense emotion that some people had the privilege to experience multiple times a day. Tyler wasn’t one of those people.

Happiness.

What was happiness, Tyler thought. Listening to your favourite song is happiness, but how do you know that that makes you happy. Is happiness a naturally occurring thing, or is it learned at an early age? Is it something you pick up from those around you? Like, if you were to see children running around a field and playing tag, laughing and smiling, would you believe that to be happiness because that is what they perceive it to be? Are they only doing it and enjoying it because they know they should? Is tag really that fun?

No, tag isn’t that fun, Tyler thought, well, at least not for him. Basketball was fun. Or was it? Did he only enjoy it because it could’ve gotten him somewhere? Because people told him he was good? Because he was good? Why did it make him happy? Was he happy now? Had he ever really been happy?

Was anyone ever really happy?

Yes. His parents were happy. His sister was happy. He was pretty sure the dog that lived across the street from his grandparents was happy. Everyone was happy it seemed. Everyone, except for him. Tyler wasn’t happy, and that was something he couldn’t understand.

It was only when the water became unbearably cold that Tyler finally snapped out of his thoughts and climbed out of the shower. He got dressed and pulled out his phone, sending a quick text to his mom telling her that he got to the hotel alright and saying not to bother calling him tomorrow. His excuse was that he knew he was going to be tired, but really Tyler wanted to be on his own. That’s what college was all about, after all. Plus, if he freaked out, he didn't want her to know.

His mother replied with a simple “okay, sleep well!” and he plugged his phone in for the night.

He turned on the TV and started watching something about aliens and pyramids, but all he could focus on was ignoring the rumbling in his stomach. He hadn’t stopped for lunch today, and for once, he was regretting skipping the meal.

Tyler ended up grabbing a water and bag of chips from the vending machine at the end of the hall. It wasn’t the best but he hadn’t felt like exploring the new city just yet. Not on his first night here, and definitely not at night. Anything could happen and he wasn’t one to push his luck. Plus, it was dark out. Tyler didn’t like the dark. The dark meant night and night meant being alone and being alone wasn't something Tyler was very fond of these days.

When the chips were gone and his water was empty, Tyler headed to bed, deciding that for once he was going to try and sleep like a normal person and not spend the last few hours of the day and the first few hours of the next online. He might as get some good night’s sleep now before classes started because who knew how much work he would have once they did.

As his eyes drifted closed, Tyler thought about what had been racing through his mind while he was in the shower. He knew that everyone was happy. He knew that he wasn’t. He also knew that the fact that he wasn’t happy was not something he was okay with. That, and he had to do something about it.