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Light leaked in the windows, too much to block out now, even through the shitty little window shade. The clock read 10:34 am, but who knew if it was right anymore. None of their roommates were up yet, it seemed. They could hear one of them snoring, the windows weren’t open yet, and there weren’t any empty coffee mugs they hadn’t seen the night before. The fact that they were considered an early riser amongst their department said a lot. Begrudgingly, they shoved the covers off of them. They shoved their glasses onto their face and stumbled down the crowded hallway, still in their pajamas, carefully stepping around the countless books piled up the walls, and the students collapsed in sleep between them. There were only two times a year when you’d find your classmates put to sleep amidst their activities: early spring and summer, when the air was just warm enough that it seemed to sing you to it, calling you into a sleep you couldn’t resist, and the dead of winter, when the candlelight offered a soft refuge from the biting wind and cold outside. Last night was one of the latter. Something about the peaceful but violent drift of snow from the clouds, the fierce but somehow gentle howl of winter wind, it felt like home. Something about the winter weather and the students of the strange university was alike. Maybe it was the ability to find comfort in chaos, to be home amidst turmoil. Many of the town’s residents would complain every time a snowstorm hit, but not the students of ANS, even after the exhilaration of department vs department snowball fights had long faded.
As they passed the towering book stacks, they grabbed a couple long empty mugs, a few pieces of trash, put a pair of glasses somewhere less likely to be stepped on. They reached the first staircase and slid down the banister, as the stairs were too crowded with sleeping students and their studies to even attempt to navigate the steep spiraling steps. They almost lost their balance on the dismount, but they managed to not fall over, bump into anyone on the ground, or drop any of their cargo. They stepped out from under the alcove of the stairs and onto the small balcony overlooking the main study area. Pipes ran along the walls, ancient notes tucked between the metal and the concrete, waiting for someone daring enough to try to climb up and reach them. So far, no one had succeeded. They’d seen several people try, but it always ended in a frantic call for a professor followed by a school bulletin advising against any “stupidity, impulsivity, poor planning, and general chaos.” No one ever listened. Leaning against the railing in a spot that wasn’t taken by a fellow student or a stack of books, they breathed in the morning scent of old coffee, books, and time. There was so much time in this one room. Centuries of words were revived in this room, in every language imaginable. Words that hadn’t heard themselves spoken in millennia, uttered once again. Every word had a place here. No matter how old or forgotten, someone in this department was willing to let it be heard.
They walked away from the banister, tossing the bits of trash they’d collected in a nearby, nearly overflowing trash can. They’d have to remember to empty it, or remember to tell someone else it needed to be taken out. Knowing themselves, they’d forget the trashcan was even there by the time they reached the main floor of the warehouse. They eased open the stairwell door and tried to close it as quietly as it allowed, shivering at the drop in temperature. The warehouse was usually pretty warm (probably due to the amount of candles they burned, Al’s Grocery was always out of stock of every type and there were always buying wars between the DDL, DLH, DHP, and DCM of whatever was managed to be snatched up), but no one ever thought to heat the stairwells. However, this also meant that there weren’t any students sleeping on these steps. They made their way down the steps and came out in the joint area connecting the study floor and the kitchen. The dishes badly needed doing, but the only thing anyone ever seemed to do was add to the pile. Somehow, though, once a month, they all woke up to find the mugs, bowls, plates, silverware, anything else they’d used in that time washed, dried, and organized. They were organized differently every time, and there was usually a huge argument over whose mug was whose, where someone’s favorite spoon went, if any were missing or added, all made worse by the fact that everyone participating in the arguments was deprived of both sleep and their normal amounts of caffeine. The day of the washing was never the same. It didn’t align with anything the stars did (the DHP majors confirmed it) or follow any type of pattern (the DHS majors verified this one), and no amount of surveillance could ever reveal anything about who (or what) might be being responsible for them. Sometimes there were less mugs than were in the pile the night before, other times the total number was higher than it had been the night before. Other departments had this type of occurrence as well, and none of them could figure out what caused it.
They added the mugs they’d collected in the hall to the mountain next to the sink and opened the cabinet to get four clean ones, taking care to get their friends’ favorite styles. There was always a surplus of mugs, in all types of designs, handle types, size, shape, anything you could imagine, there was probably a mug that suited your taste. They refilled a couple coffee pots and Keurigs, turned them on, and started making morning drinks for their roommates and themself. Black coffee for two of them, one with more sugar and cream than the other, tea for one, and hot chocolate for themselves. They were careful not to make too much noise, as there’d been more than one occasion when they’d found students sleeping in the cupboards. They never said anything to these students, and the students never explained themselves either. That was just Averno’s brand of weird: sometimes you saw weird shit and thought to yourself “yeah makes sense,” and moved on with your day.
When the drinks were made and the kitchen was filled with the smell of new coffee instead of old, they began to carefully make their way back upstairs to their dorm room. When they made it there, they set each of their friends’ drinks where they’d see it when they woke up, then carefully opened the student-installed, elegant glass-paneled doors and stepped onto the outside fire escape. They brought their hot chocolate out with them, their breath and the steam from the drink clouding the frigid air. They were still in their pajamas, but it was worth it to feel the breeze, the snow melting on their arms when it made contact with skin, the frigid air biting into their nose, cheeks, and fingers. With a sketchbook tucked under their arm, hot chocolate in hand, they used the other to steady themself as they climbed the rickety stairs up to the roof. It was a wonder the old metal fire escape hadn’t broken off in one of the many harsh winters it has withstood, and every morning they feared it snapping beneath their feet as they climbed, especially cold ones like these, where they could hear the metal groaning beneath them. Yet something told them that if the stairs did falter, if they did fall, they’d be safe. Something else told them this was the forest’s promise to all its denizens, that it would keep them safe no matter what, and still another part of them told them off for fantasizing. The forest did, however, have a way of sneaking its way into you, digging its roots into you, claiming you as its own. Even living in the general vicinity of it did something to you. Once you met the forest, it was like you gave it a piece of you to inhabit, and it never left. You could take yourself out of the forest, but you couldn’t take the forest out of you. Not that they’d ever met anyone who wanted to, anyway.
As they reached the top of the fire escape, the morning sun burst into their sight. Squinting and shielding their view as they stood up, they could make out the silhouettes of the morning crew, the fellow students who also liked to come up here in the early-for-the-students-at-least mornings and watch the world awaken. They always looked forward to climbing the fire escape each morning because of them. The sense of belonging, the quiet moments where time seemed to cease to exist, the tense understanding between all of them that they were together in this moment, together for these few hours, no matter what was happening in their lives, were precious to all of them. Some people brought handicrafts to keep them in motion, others brought art materials or a notebook and pen, others just sat and watched until they got bored or had classes. They almost never spoke, and when they did, it was usually just to say “hello” or “are you doing alright” in dreamsign. The crew fluctuated in members, depending on how much or little sleep everyone got. Today there weren’t as many as on previous mornings, but that was understandable. One of the departments, they couldn’t remember which, had thrown a party. They’d remember when their acronym showed up in the school bulletin later that week.
The sun was a few inches above the treeline when they sat down on the edge of the warehouse roof with the rest of the morning crew. They set their hot chocolate and sketchbook next to them as they got comfortable, then picked up their hot chocolate and held it in their lap, keeping their hands warm. They almost never used their sketchbook, but they always brought it, just in case they might. The spring and summer mornings were nice, sure, but the winter mornings were their favorite. The sun looked different, friendlier somehow, when the temperature was so low. The sky was already blue, and clouds scooted across the sky. Snow glistened on every surface, a new layer having fallen overnight. You could see the steam coming from the various other dormitories around campus, the other students of ANS slowly waking up. It was a Saturday morning, so no one had classes, which meant that sooner or later, some chaos was bound to break out somewhere.
They heard the crunching of snow behind them as another crew member joined the line of students on the edge of the warehouse. The newcomer didn’t seem to come from the fire escape, so they assumed they had jumped down from the Birdcage. They sat down next to them, humming something haunting and melodic. Somehow, they could have sworn they’d heard it somewhere. Maybe it echoed in the trees, or from the depths of the stairwells in the dead of night…. Or maybe they were just making it up. Still, they almost felt like they could join, if they tried. Then someone in the line of students joined in before they could, in a deep harmony a few octaves down. They could hear where a second harmony would fit in, so they filled it, letting themselves get lost in the music. Slowly, the whole line of students joined one line of music or started their own, collectively humming a strange tune they all felt they’d heard somewhere…. Seconds clashed against each other as thirds and fifths took their places, melodies and harmonies crossed paths and at some point lost their distinctions all together. Every line of notes and rhythms were harmonies to each other, and the collective sound was something unheard, yet also familiar. No one knew where the music was going next, they just let themselves go and it seemed to work. The sound they created was beautiful, but slightly broken as well. Stories unfolded in the spaces between the notes, rising and falling with the dynamics. No one really controlled where they went with the tune, they just let themselves each be taken to a collective unknown destination, together. They could feel their hearts beating in sync with the beat of the song, speeding up and slowing down as they did. The sound was unnatural, but beautiful. It felt very much in its place in a town like Averno.
The mornings when the DHS joined the morning crew were everyone’s favorites.