Gil’s room is just down the hall from the land­ing. The hinged door is closed, but loud, tinny music from a crys­tal leaks out. He can feel a headache form­ing in his skull already.

He pushes open his door. His two room­mates are both there, sprawled through­out the small room.

Aku is lying on his bed, in his under­wear, nod­ding to the crys­tal music and drum­ming his fin­gers on the desk.

Hal­parun­tiyas is busy fan­ning him­self by the win­dow, also in his under­wear.

Gil closes the door behind him. After a few moments, Shara—Aku’s girlfriend—peeks up from behind Aku’s bed, where she had evi­dently dived to the floor. She is wear­ing a dress.

Gil doesn’t par­tic­u­larly like his room­mates. He can stand them largely because they tend to ignore him, and because he only has three weeks before he never sees them again.

He tries to relax on his thin, hard bed. A wooden ceil­ing fan slug­gishly revolves, half­heart­edly push­ing the dead, swel­ter­ing air around.

Back • Next