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It wasn't easy for Robert to suddenly move his family far from the East Coast to a Midwestern lakeside town. Transfering to a new university, buying a new house or even a new sweater, he has to buy it when he realizes that his favorite sweater can't withstand the inhumanly cold weather of this isthmus town.
And it's not easy adjusting to getting to know new people. Especially for someone who isn't good at talking like Rosie…
“My name is Harry, Harry Crosby,” the little man greeted. He wore a small name tag on his chest that said Croz with a Z, looking strange. “You can call me Croz. But it's a cross with a "Z"
“Robert Rosenthal… you can call me Rosie,” the taller man greeted back. A hand reached out to catch and answer. Also written on the chest is Rosie's name.
“Nice to meet you, Rosie. I will be your buddy to make you become familiar with Wisconsin.” Big brown eyes seemed to bulge out and look at him, sparkling. A smile and little sharp fangs traced his lips as it moved back and forth. “Our city isn't very big, but I'm sure you'll like it.”
He did not reply with a voice, but reflected his feelings through his actions, nodding his head without hesitation. Then, in the blink of an eye, the hand that had been touching before suddenly withdrew and a pocket-sized figure expertly turned around and grabbed a pamphlet introducing the university.
"Thank you…"
"Let's take you for a walk around our campus."
The geography of New York, especially in Brooklyn where Rosie grew up, is mostly estuary flatland. The air was cool enough, but because there were many buildings overhead, there was no way for the wind to pass through to cool us easily. Not to mention whether he had reached a plateau or not. Aside from the stairs of commercial buildings in various residences and office buildings. He almost never had his knees hurt from climbing up stairs.
But not here…
“This is Bascom Hill,” Croz said in a clear, almost faint voice. No matter how the man looks, he can tell that he’s tired, but it just doesn't show on his face. “It is said that if you study for four years and climb every day, you will reach the Himalayas.”
“Himalayan?” he gasped.
Nodding and smiling, “Yes, Himalaya” – “A test for every Badger who enters the school. Especially law students like you at the Law Building in the middle of the hill.” Having said that, he pointed towards a rectangular brick-colored building with a sign clearly indicating the School of Law.
“Who thought of this…”
"I don't know, but it's crazy. The view is beautiful, too."
Really weird person
“This one is the Memorial Library and the Wisconsin Historical Society.”
“It looks… old.”
“Of course, especially the Historical Society and the Red Gym over there. Older than the Civil War.”
"Oh…"
“By the way, I still don't know what fields you study in.”
“I am in the Faculty of Arts, majoring in English. But I studied for a master's degree, so I became your buddy.” After completing a complete walk around the state university for more than two hours, the little buddy decided to take him on a walk up the mountain and down the creek. They don't care about the knee joints of newcomers whether they come with proper shoes or not. The two ended up at Dottie's, which was just a few blocks from the city's state street and had established itself as the burger capital.
“Oh…” Rosie replied. “Is it hard?”
“A lot” – “That's why I have to find free time to do something meaningful that isn't a thesis.”
“There seems to be a lot of things to do here.”
“Sure, it was a lot, but I mostly hang out in my dorm reading other people's papers.” The local expertly ordered a burger and fried cheese curds. “Sometimes I freak out and walk from the Memorial Union to Picnic Point because I just want to walk.”
“Picnic Point?”
“A sandy headland on Lake Mendota,” he gulped down a drink of water. “A four-mile walk to clear your head was really worth it.”
“Walking up and down Bascom Hill is exhausting already,” Rosie laughed. “And you have another route to take to clear your mind?”
“Oh… I have many more, Rosie. I walked from Bascom Hill to City Hall and back.” That small smile appeared again. “Sometimes City Hall Picnic Point if I get too crazy.”
“I hear you often go crazy, Croz.”
“Oh, the dissertation has done so much more to me, Rosie.”
As more than a month has passed, the weather has begun to cool down in line with the fall foliage season, preparing to smell the pumpkin and cinnamon as it usually does. The smell of books mixed with hot coffee permeated the Historical Society Library. It's crowded with students suffering from mid-term exams and too much caffeine for their daily battles over letters day to day.
Normally, he is not a person who revises books because he always memorizes everything so as not to waste time working during the day. But now that he didn't have to work extra, Rosie was starting to have more time than he knew what to do with. Everything then turns to reviewing additional study content.
The green mercury lantern is unique, as if it came out of the time when the manifest of destiny that led Americans to spread and colonize the west. Every element in the building creates a well-balanced atmosphere, from the ceiling to the carpeted floors. And then the eye-catching part…
“Croz.”
“Oh, hey Rosie.” Crosby’s hair was messy and had a disheveled mustache, a sign that he didn't take care of himself lately, causing that lively buddy to go crazy and disappear to nowhere. Only the remains of a master's degree hunter were left in front of him. “Come to read a book?”
Nodding, "I'm so free that I have nothing to do..."
“I really want something like that.”
“I thought you had finished your exams.”
“Thesis doesn't choose the day to attack you, Rosie.”
“That's true.”
“Let's go do something stupid.”
He doesn't know how it went from being too free to read a book to walking more than five miles to sit on the beach at Picnic Point. The water is clear and the temperature is cold enough to make you die. The beach is white, the sand is fine and irritating to the skin. There was not even a trace of the late afternoon sun to be seen. There was only a raging wind that caused the hair of both small and large people to flutter back and forth without stopping until their noses were completely red.
It's a day not suitable for sitting stupidly on the beach.
“You must have lost your mind…” Rosie moaned.
"We're the ones who lost their minds…" Crosby laughed. "If you weren't insane, you wouldn't have followed me."
“Who knew that you would take a walk all the way to this beach?”
“I think I told you before that when I lose my mind, I walk without paying attention to the distance.”
“I thought we'd be a little gentler when people came along.”
"I'm a mean person, in case you don't know."
“Now I know.”
Not everyone knows the student's whereabouts, especially for students who transfer in the middle of the course and disappear from one place to another, causing some information to be missing, but not the credits. A knock on the door on a cold night from the lake breeze on either side rang unexpectedly as Rosie was playing his favorite jazz album.
“Hey Rosie.”
“Hi Croz…” Crosby's disheveled appearance remained the same. If he had to add more, it would probably be dark circles under his eyes that were worrisome. “Aren't you going to sleep?”
“Let's go walk to City Hall.”
Rosie wanted to refuse but...
“I must have lost my mind.”
“You didn't lose your mind two times in a row, if you don't have a thesis to write about.” Handing hot tea in a cylindrical thermos to “Caffeine.”
“If you get too addicted to it, it won't be good.”
“I'm more afraid of getting an F.”
The atmosphere around City Hall at night was much more beautiful than Rosie had imagined. But it wouldn't be a good idea to go out alone in the middle of the night like this, even if you were a young man.
Lately, his buddy seems to be having a mental breakdown often in the late afternoon to the middle of the night. Rosie will come across Crosby with a disheveled head, a bushy mustache, a sweater with his shoulder bag and tea cylinders are regularly found in various libraries. Each day is almost unique. At the same time, he kept changing his places to kill time.
Because of too much idleness, he becomes so inattentive to the desires of the other men that it becomes a habit to follow Croz’s crazy mind while walking along the path to clear the mind of a petty master's degree hunter.
And then one day at Picnic Point Beach on a moonless night.
lips,
light touch,
and the wind blows.
The coldness was mind-blowing.
A ticklish kiss from a beard mite.
Of Crosby and Rosie snuggling together.
“We have lost our minds.”
“Insane people don't kiss each other.”
I want to stop it right here.
But it's so hard to deny that he likes it.
Aurora Borealis – The red northern lights are visible only in a few places in the Americas. But Wisconsin appears to be benefiting from that by being one of the northernmost states in the United States.
No one knows when these northern lights will occur. They just wait for it to happen.
“Is that free grilled cheese?” Crosby gestured towards the sorority diner. “I'm hungry.”
“I didn't bring any money.”
“Then let's run in and snatch it.”
Crosby must be crazy.
But Rosie was crazy and ran with Croz anyway.
The weather is cold. Clothes were thin, long-sleeved pajamas, unprepared. The next thing he knew, he was running along the road next to the lake.
“You are crazy.”
“We're both crazy.”
The Northern Lights are best seen at the water's edge. Amidst the vast, dark mass of the cloudless night, accompanied by the phenomenon of a solar storm, the new guy could clearly see it with his eyes. A red-green light like silk adorned the sky, along with star gems inviting admiration. The sky was so beautiful that he forgot for a moment how cold and torturous it had been from the lake breeze.
Flashing light glowing like a string of lights A thrill like touching a piece of cloth through your fingertips.
“If you wish on a shooting star, our dreams will come true, right?”
“I don't know…” — “Try.”
“Um… If there really is a next life, I wish I was born as a woman.”
"Why"
“So I can marry you.”
Rosie didn't know what to answer.
But please let that wish would come true for once as well…