Dating Father Time's Daughter (Book 1)

Chapter 34: Ikenga

Parents' Weekend was the unofficial indicator of a college student's final transition into university life. After nearly two months of relocation and separation from friends and family, this weekend offered freshmen the chance to flaunt their new found social and academic capital. The bird returning to the nest to flex its strengthened wings and decorated plumage.

Inertia turned away from the Parents' Weekend flier on her lap and inspected the ostentatiously orange seats of the subway car. Orange seemed like such an odd color for public transportation. Something more neutral like a gray or a blue would have looked more appropriate.

Such a trivial thought was only possible because of the uncharacteristically empty subway. She expected several more passengers, but there were only a handful of riders. The number was so low that everyone had three seats between them. This literally left plenty of space for contemplation and observation.

The temperature was steadily declining each week as winter finally announced its arrival. Inertia tucked her thumb into the sleeve of her powdered-blue Columbia sweatshirt and took inventory of the trash that littered the subway car. Soda cans, brown paper bags, pencils, candy wrappers, and other garbage made the subway floor its home.

She ran her eyes across the flier again and laughed internally. The stock photos of parents eagerly greeting their baby-faced freshman only reminded Inertia of how paradoxical this weekend was for her. The parents were supposed to visit their kids on campus. Instead, she was visiting her parents back home.

Finances explained the paradox. There was no feasible way her family was going to visit her at Columbia. Work wasn't an issue since the majority of the events occurred on the weekend; however, the costs of train tickets, hotel rooms, and restaurants made their attendance an impossibility.

These moments painfully reminded Inertia of how different she was from her peers. While they easily fronted the costs of this weekend, she had to get creative. Economics would not stop her from enjoying the event. But innovation was no cure for isolation. The students in her dorm would forge stronger relationships over the weekend as their parents bonded with their friends' parents. This reality dulled Inertia's mood because she would return to the dorm even more of a foreigner than she already was.

A foreigner to the country, a foreigner to Columbia, and now a foreigner to her own dorm.

The sound of feet and bags shuffling grew around her as passengers prepared to exit. Inertia folded the flier into successively smaller squares and shoved it deep into her bookbag. She pinched a single dread that fell over her face and rejoiced at how close she was to her family and friends.

Inertia called Joe earlier in the week and invited him to her home for the festivities. She also asked Joe to forward her invitation to Pixie and Sheep. For once, they should get together for fun rather than training.

The robotic voice of the subway announcer filled the car. As people scrambled out of the opening doors, Inertia gathered her suitcase and followed behind them. It was the start of a much-deserved break.

***

Joe stood in front of a two story Victorian style home and feared that he was going to have a heart attack the second he rang the doorbell. Pixie had warned him to steer- clear of Inertia, but he couldn't ghost his best-friend. Goosebumps bubbled over his neck as he feared that Pixie would leap out of the bushes and catch him in the act of betrayal.

Sheep stared up at Joe and then at the turquoise-colored paint of the home's window frames and roof structure of the portico. The colors clashed with the white and brown plaster of the house. Sheep reasoned that someone tried to give an old house "new-life" and failed.