Miracle Girl Part III

 

          No way.  There's no way.  I step aside to let her out of the bathroom, scrambling frantically to think of something to say that will keep her here a little longer.

          "What kind of contacts do you wear?"  I ask.

          She laughs.  "I don't wear contacts."

          The answer takes me aback.  "Then why are your eyes purple?"

          The girl shrugs.  "It's just the way I was born.  Some genetic defect, or something."

          I bet she gets questions like this all the time.  I feel a bit bad about making a big deal out of it now but my mind is still wrapped up in trying to come up with a strategy.  One thing's for sure, I can't let this opportunity slide through the cracks.

          "What's your major?"  I ask, then realize that that's probably one of the weirdest things to ask someone after just helping them escape a locked bathroom.  She looks at me strangely but rolls with it.

          "English."

          Suddenly I can't think of anything else to say.  My mind locks up like a vault and suddenly I'm back at the apartments, standing in front of Mara's door, watching my window of opportunity slowly shrivel up and die.  There's only one thing I can think of that could possibly save the situation, but the words are stuck in my throat.  The girl thanks us and starts to walk away and with a burst of willpower I force them out of my mouth:

          "Would you like to come with me to the Arts Festival next Thursday?"

          She stops and swivels around slowly.  She's smiling with some mixture of humor, but it's a genuine, sincere smile.  "Sure.  Do you want my number?

          I fumble around in my pocket for my phone and slide it open with far less grace than I could have hoped.  My hands are trembling slightly.  The guy who pushed the cart out of the way is still looking on.  I wish he would leave.

          "208-247-1187"

          I punch in the number and then I'm turning to go, my mind still whirling at a hundred miles an hour.

          "What's your name?" she asks.  I spin back around, blood rushing to my face.  I just asked this girl on a date and I don't even know her name!

          "Nick.  What's yours?"

          "Mercedes."  She smiles again and her purple eyes gleam and suddenly I don't feel awkward anymore.  We both turn and walk down the hallway in opposite directions.

 

 

          Two days later finds me waiting next to a light pole on the south end of campus.  I can't seem to stop my fingers from drumming on the concrete base of the light pole, but other than that I don't feel too nervous.  I run through my plan again in my head.  I'm still not 100% sure what I'm doing, but it's clear to me that the only way forward for me lies straight through the middle of this situation, so I'm going to take it by the horns.

          I resist the urge to check my watch again to see how much time has gone by.  It was two minutes past the time she said she'd be here the last time I looked.  I'm not upset that she isn't here exactly on time, but I do notice.

          "Hey."

          I turn and there she is, swathed in darkness, the radiant glow from the streetlight falling like a halo to the crow of her head, cascading from there down the strands of her hair and splaying off with glowing tendrils into the night, making her profile shine with an ethereal aura.  She seems so much like a character from a fantasy movie that sometimes I have difficulty believing that she's more than a figment of one of my daydreams.  Seeing her in the flesh makes me feel the miracle of it all over again.

          We have to believe that not only do miracles happen but that they will happen to us.

          Well, I did, and look where I am now.

          "How are you?"  I answer back.

          "Great!  I just got done with my last midterm."  We turn toward the Dayton Center, where the Arts Festival is.  I'm a bit surprised at how cheerful she sounds.  Maybe she doesn't need as much help as I thought after all.

          "Tell me about yourself."  I say as we walk.  "Where are you from?   What's your story?"

          "I'm from Wisconsin, on the east side by the Michigan border.  Two brothers, one sister.  I just kind of ended up here because tuition was cheap enough for me to afford."

          "Are you glad you're here?"

          "It's alright, I guess."

          "I sense some hesitation in there."

          Mercedes shrugs and smiles a bit but doesn't comment further.  "How about you?"

          "I've always wanted to come here.  They have a decent pre-med program and that's all I ever wanted to do."

          "At least you'll end up doing something useful with your life.  I don't have any idea what I'm going to do with English."

          We push through the doors of the Dayton Center and head down the long hallway by the food court to the Exhibition Room.  My thoughts are focused and intense.  I have to make this more than a what-is-the-color-or-your-toothbrush sort of date if I'm going to have any chance of turning this sociology assignment into reality.   I dig down deep into my mental faculties to find something that will pierce her guard.

          "What makes you special?"  She half-laughs at the question and I feel kind of silly, but I still look on in hopes that she's going to answer it.

          "What do you mean?"

          "I mean, if you had to describe yourself in one word, what would it be?"

          She cocks her head thoughtfully.  "Inconsistent."

          "Why?”

          "I can never settle on anything.  I change my mind all the time."

          I smile back.  "I have a sister that way, too.  Does your family bug you about it a lot?"

          "My family hasn't really been...I don't know...Oh, look!  They have Picasso here!"  We've just entered the Exhibit Room.  Mercedes goes off for a while on how much she likes cubism and how different it is from other kinds of art.  It takes a few seconds for me to grasp that Mercedes has just changed the subject.  The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes.  After all, who in their right mind actually likes cubism?  Mercedes doesn't seem nearly as excited about anything else at the Festival, which confirms my suspicions.  I need to find a way to get more information without coming off as too obtrusive.

          A few minutes later I bring up my family again, but this time she doesn't bite, so I go off on impressionistic painting for awhile, then make a sharp turn in the conversation and ask:  "Who do you talk to when you need to get something off your chest?"

          Mercedes doesn't answer for a minute and I almost think she hasn't heard when she says:

            "I'm not really close to anybody."

          She has to be lying .  No one doesn't have anybody close to them.  It just comes along with being human.

          "Not even your sister?"  I prod further.  "Isn't that what sisters are for, to be there for each other?"

          And just like that, Mercedes shuts down.  It isn't so much anything that she says as it is a door that I see swing shut behind her eyes.

          "No.  Not her either."

 

         

          After we both get tired of the Arts Festival I ask if I can walk her home and she says yes.  The conversation is pleasant, but something is missing that was there before.

          "Did I say something to upset you?"  I ask.

          She looks confused.  "No..."

          "Oh, well...I just..."  I feel heat rising into my face.  "Never mind."

          "Do you know what word I would use to  describe you?"  Mercedes asks.

          "What?"

          "Unconfident." 

          I feel like she just hit me, but the part that stings is the matter-of-fact, non-condescending way in which she says it, the fact that the only reason why she brings it up is because she sees that it's true, not because she's trying to be mean.

          "Um...well...I guess so..." I say, proving her point exactly.

          "Well, this is my stop."

          I look up and think there's some mistake.  The blue gray buildings that we're standing in front of are all too familiar.

          "I live here."  I say dumbly.

          "I know,"  says Mercedes.  She spins around , her hair splaying out in an arc behind her.  And just like that she's gone, disappearing into the depths of the stairwell, slipping silently up the steps towards apartment 26.

Part IV will be posted on Thursday.

Miracle Girl Part II

 

         I know from the outset that my plan is crazy.  It's not the kind of thing you catch yourself coming up with when you're thinking straight.  I recognize that even as I stare out over the mass of college students, wondering what's possessing me to try this.  My determination is so fiery, I'm scared it's suddenly going to shoot off sparks and burn somebody.

          Miracles happen when you make them happen.  There are more than 30,000 students that go to school here.  That makes the chances of running into any one person who isn't in any of your classes two days in a row close to nil.  Which means that if this final project is going down the way I want it to go down, I'm going to have to do something to straighten out the odds.  That's why I'm out on campus a couple hours before my first class, standing self-consciously in the middle of the most-passed-through part of the university, jumping at the slightest glimpse of blonde hair.  I figured out that if several hundred people pass me every thirty minutes or so, at the worst it should take just under 40 hours of this to find her.  Luckily the purple-eye-girl's hair is long, straight and very light blond, so that makes it easy to rule out a majority of passersby without having to chase all of them down.  I still feel like I've missed her half a dozen times, though, even when my mind tells me there's absolutely no chance that she was as short as that curly-haired should-have-been-a-fashion-model that's disappearing into the distance.

          I tough it out for about an hour until I'm so sick of just standing there that I can't take it anymore and head to class early.  The class is Anatomy, which up to this point has been the biggest threat to my dream of becoming a heart surgeon.  I need good grades to get into med school and honestly, some nights when I'm trying to pound the names of knee ligaments into my sorry skull, I wonder if it's all worth it.  But then I remind myself that it's the only thing I've ever wanted to do with my life and that usually gives me the drive to push through the next assignment. 

          So here I am, sliding into my usual seat three rows back, trying not to think about my score on the last pop quiz.  The kid next to me, Jarren, shoots me a questioning look, but I shake my head.  He's has been working on a way to swindle test questions from the TA's.  What scares me the most about it is that he's offered to let me help him several times.  I can't bring myself to say yes, but I haven't turned him in, either.  The possibility hangs between us in a tantalizing mist, becoming ever more tempting as the semester progresses.  If he asks me again, I'm not sure that I won't give in.  I turn back towards the teacher, Dr. Orozco, trying with all my might not to cast another glance sideways.

          Besides the grades, the other reason why Anatomy elicits more of my attention than my other classes is because Lydia, a high school friend and, more to the point, one of Mara's roommates, is in the class as well.  She sits down one row behind me and my willpower only lasts about thirty seconds before I find myself swiveling around in my seat to talk to her.

          "She still hasn't said anything about you," she says before I even get the words out.  "I think you just need to ask her out again and see what she says."

          I turn back around, feeling monotony swarm over me like a persistent disease.  Life is disgustingly uneventful as always.  I'm already itching to get away, and class hasn't even started yet.

          I'm the second or third person out the door when the bell rings, walking as quickly as I can to the other side of campus.  It's occurred to me that if Miracle Girl normally studies in the library, it might be easier to catch her there than anywhere else.  I wander around the fourth floor for a few minutes, trying to remember exactly where I was yesterday before recognizing a shelf of Swedish manuscripts that leads me over to the group of tables I'd been sitting at.  I scan the faces of everyone in the near vicinity with a quick sweep of the eye.  She's not here.  My heart plummets, even though I recognized this as the most likely outcome from the get-go.  I sit down and pull out my homework but find that I'm too distracted to pay any attention to it.  I while the time away staring between the lines of a Shakespearean tragedy  until it's time for my next class.

          Have I just now become this apathetic about the day-to-day sequence of living?  Or has my life always been this dull?  The rest of the day drags by at a snail's pace, even during breaks between classes when I spend most of the time hurriedly scanning the faces of those around me, looking for Miracle Girl.  To punish myself for slacking off earlier I hit the books extra hard as soon as I'm done with classes.  I check all of my answers twice.  After all, a single test question could make the difference between a B- and a C+ in the class, and how would I get into medical school then?

          That night I log onto the student directory.  I don't know the girl's name, but each entry has a picture next to it so I click through them one by one, starting alphabetically.  I can go through an entry every few seconds, but there are so many of them that it's easy to get overwhelmed.  As much as I hate to admit it, my enthusiasm for the project is beginning to wane.  How can I ever expect to find her again?  Is it really even that important?

          After half an hour of it I'm starting to feel like a stalker, so I click out of the website and roll back onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling.  What I'm doing is ridiculous.  I should just give it up and become one of those students that Dr. Blinns was talking about that skates by on the final project just to get it over with.  I could talk about how I changed my roommates lives by keeping the apartment clean or something.

          A buzz next to my head interrupts my train of thought.  I glance over at my nightstand and see that Matt has just texted me.  Call of Duty?

          I text back a quick yes and reach for my jacket.

 

 

          "What's new?"  Matt asks as he demolishes me for the seventh time in a row.

          Oh, you know, I'm trying to find a girl that I don't even know so I can change her life.  Not that she even needs it, as far as I know.

          Thinking of it like that makes it seem even stupider that I had ever seriously considered doing it in the first place. 

          "I don't know what my sociology professor is thinking.  The final project for the class is to change somebody's life.  What kind of final project is that?"
          Matt lowers the game controller and looks at me quizzically.

          ”Change their life?  Like how?  Like being a positive role model?"

          "I don't even know.  I don't know how he  expects us to come up with anything."

          I'm expecting Matt to jump to my side and start bagging on him too, but instead he thinks thoughtfully for a moment and then says, "You know, for me, the people who have changed my life the most helped me see the good things that were already a part of me.  Maybe you could try something like that."

          I stare back at him.  "How would I do that?"

          Matt shrugs.  "I don't think there's one cut and dried way of doing it.  I think it comes down to watching someone carefully until you can see what makes them special, and then trying to bring it out of them more.  So maybe you could pick someone that doesn't know how amazing they are and help them see it better."

          My thoughts jump immediately to Mara but I know instantly that she isn't the one.  She knows exactly  how amazing she is.  Maybe I could find someone like that, though, since it seems like Miracle Girl is out of the question.

          "Maybe..." I say, turning back toward the screen.  I'm going to have to think about this one.

 

          I'm a big fan of college sporting events.  They're my main outlet for stress.  There's just something liberating about getting lost in someone else's world that makes you forget  the sting of your own.  This time it's Paul, one of my other roommates, who I've dragged along with me.  Dragged is an overstatement of course, but clearly I'm the more sports-driven out of the two of us.  Especially when it comes to men's volleyball.

          "I don't know, it just seems like a girl's sport," he says, looking on doubtfully as number 16 steps up to the line to serve.

          "You have no idea," I tell him.  "In a few minutes they'll be pounding that ball hard enough to break bones."

          One of the reasons why I have such a vested interest in volleyball in particular is that I happen to know that Mara goes to every game, and I also know from an inside source (a.k.a. Lydia) that she usually comes a little late and sits in the left-had section.  In fact, I'm on a mission tonight.  To show myself that I can do what I put my mind to, I'm going to ask her out face to face.  I'm determined this time.  Nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention.

          Scree!  The whistle shrieks, and number 16 sends the ball spiraling over the net.  I catch a glimpse of Mara slipping through a door on the far side of the gymnasium and my heart leaps.  It's game time.

          I get up and slide past Paul to the end of the row.  Paul pulls in his legs so I can get by without commenting.  He already knows what this is about.  I square my shoulders and head down the cement stairs toward Mara, measuring my steps carefully so that we'll arrive at the bottom of the bleachers at the same time.  A girl with blond hair steps out onto the stairway in front of me, forcing me to slow down.  What was it with these girls with blond hair, lately?  From behind, she almost even looks a bit like the girl I saw in the library, if you turned your head the right way.  I try to move past her, but there isn't enough room so I have to keep going slowly.  Down on the floor, Mara is getting close to where the leftmost row of stairs starts.  If I don't get there quick, this is going to get very awkward extremely fast because I'll have to squeeze past a whole row of people to talk to her.  If only this girl in front of me would speed up.

          My honesty gene kicks in again and I realize that somewhere in my brain I think it might actually be the girl from the library, even though I know that's impossible, right?  Actually, that ring on her right hand looks a little familiar...

          "Taryn!" someone calls out from the row beside us.  The girl turns her head and I see instantly that it isn't her.  Brown eyes.  I curse my own gullibility.  Stupid miracles.

          I finally reach the bottom of the stairs, but by now Mara is sitting down, surrounded by a group of friends, and my heart fails me.  My only chance is to grab a seat somewhere in the vicinity and hope she gets up to use the bathroom or something during the second or third set.  It's a long shot, but it's all I got.  I spy an empty spot two or three rows down from her next to a nerdy-looking kid with glasses.  I climb the stairs quickly and claim it, training my eyes back on what is sure to be the longest volleyball game I have ever watched.

          It turns out that my bladder reaches its limits before Mara's does, partway through the second set.  I make my way out of the gymnasium as quickly as I can manage, wanting to be gone for as short a time as possible. 

          There's a loud thumping noise as I turn the corner onto the main hallway outside the gymnasium.  It takes me a minute to realize that it's coming from the women's restroom.  There's a maintenance cart directly in front of the door, probably left there by a careless janitor.

          "Do you need help?"  I call out.

          "Yes!" comes the muffled reply. 

          I lean my shoulder up against the cool metal of the cart and push with all my might, but the cart's heavy and it barely budges.

          "How long have you been stuck in there?"

          "Not long.  What's wrong with the door?"
          "There's just something in front of it."  I give the cart another push, but to no avail.

          "I got it."  I turn to see some guy that looks remotely like Arnold Schwarzenegger walking swiftly toward us.  He takes my place and, with what looks like about fourth of the effort I exerted, easily pushes the cart out of the way.  Feeling like a weakling, I swallow my pride and pull open the door.

          The first thing I see is blond hair.

          SERIOUSLY?  I scream in my mind at the Powers That Be.  Can you PLEASE quit toying wi-

          And that's when I see her eyes.
 

Part III to come on Monday, June 30

Miracle Girl Part I

 

 

 

To my sister:  the one who wandered into my life for three days, changed me forever, and then wandered back

 out again, as it should be; who I will both pray for and thank God for throughout my life;

 who thinks more like I do than any mortal I have ever met.

You know who you are.

 

 

 

Author's Note:  The following is the first part of a fictional story that portrays the truth as I know it.  It is not intended to be symbolic.  Rather, it illustrates how real principles can operate in everyday contexts.  none of the characters represent real people.  However, the events of my own transformation while writing this story are in some instances both unintentionally and uncannily similar to those of the main character. 

 

 

 

          Kingdom, Class, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species.  I look up from my notes, tapping the end of my pencil against the front of my binder pensively, struggling to think of a way to pound the information deeper into my skull.  Kangaroos Catch Polliwogs On Freeways Going South.  No.  I don't really like that one.  I'd never remember it.  Killing Cat Philanthropists Obviously Facilitates Good Sense.  Still no.  Too weird.  Maybe I should trash the whole mnemonic device thing and just memorize them as they stand.  I stare absentmindedly at the cluster of tables a few feet away from where I sit, next to the European language collection on the fourth floor of the university library. I feel slightly off kilter.  Scratching the back of my head, I exert all the faculties of my mind to bring my thoughts back into focus.  I succeed marginally, but my attention is still scattered about like so much dry alfalfa on a windy day.  Then I see her.

          She's sitting on one of the far tables on the right, long blond hair tucked behind her ears, laptop kicked up onto one leg that's pulled into herself on the chair while the other stretches out beneath her under the table.  Her left hand sputters over the keyboard, the other dangles limply over the back of the chair.  She's alone and she doesn't care.  She's staring right at me.

          She has purple eyes.  That's striking just by itself, but there's also a deep, dark sadness to them that takes me slightly off guard.  Our irises crash in an exploding kaleidoscope of awkward mental flinches and we both retreat hastily back to wherever it was we came from.  I wonder briefly what kind of contacts she wears to get that kind of color.  Then I finally remember that Phylum comes before Class, not after, and absorb myself back into studying.  A few minutes later I get up and leave.

          The school routine settles so deeply into my bones that I don't even have the strength to fight it.  It crawls through my veins like an amoeba, draining life from my every thought.  I enter the Northwest door of the building affectionately called "The Frigate" for some long-forgotten reason that is probably still hiding six feet under with the remains of alumni of centuries past.  My hand hits the railing at the same spot that it always does.  My feet thud from one stair to the other in a steady rhythm, leading me slowly downward, down into the miry depths of my own normality.  I take eleven more steps down the hallway and reach for the door handle without looking.  Everyone is already there, but I don't bother to check my watch.  I'm always exactly two minutes early.

          Professor Blinns is at the front, running a bent index finger over his notes for the day's lecture.  I crack open a purple notebook and fish around in my backpack for a pen.  Beside the whiteboard, the teacher fixes his gaze on the class.  I wonder he's going to come up with this time.

          "You are dead."  His arm flashes across the board in quick, swift strokes.  D-E-A-D.  "You're passive and inert.  You have no life of your own."  He sets the marker down.  "Prove me wrong."

          My mind's turned on but my heart's turned off.  To me he's just one of those egoistic professors that spout out their opinion every chance he gets because he can.  I just hope I can remember what he says for the test.

          Up front, one of the more headstrong students raises his hand to answer the professor's question.  "We're breathing, aren't we?"

          "Are you?"  Asks the professor.  "For what purpose?"

          "To survive."

          "That's circular thinking.  The idea that we breathe because we live does not prove that we live because we breathe.  Unfortunately that kind of logic doesn't exist outside novels or our judicial system.  Other thoughts?"

          The class sputters with laughter and another student raises his hand.  "I think, therefore I am."

          "Do you?"  He returns. "When was the last time you made a decision that directly contradicted everything that society predisposes you to think?  Who is doing the thinking?  You?  Or the society?  How are you any more alive than the organizations that create us?"

          I'm more interested than normal.  There's something different about the way Professor Blinns is talking that I haven't seen before, something I can't quite put my finger on.

          The man walks back up to the board and draws a big sweeping curve with a large hump in the middle that flattens out quickly to either side.  He draws line down the middle for the average, with two marks on either side.  I recognize it from Statistics as a bell curve.  About 95% of the variation for a particular trait in a given population will tend to fall into the large portion of the graph, with about 5% on the outskirts.

          "Where are you on this graph?"  From the whispered comments around me, I can tell that I'm not the only one who's seen it before.  Professor Blinns continues.  "Some people spend their whole lives in the center section.  This is average.  This is acceptable.  This will get you a decent job and a boring life.  But then what?  Why does it even matter?  If you ceased to exist at this very moment and everyone else forgot about you, would you have had any effect on this world at all?"

          Out of the blue, something strikes a chord.  I'm not sure what it is, but it speaks to me in a different way than a lecture has before.  Maybe it's because suddenly he isn't just lecturing any more.  Something fiery sparkles behind the man's eyes and I realize what it is about his argument that's new to me in a university setting.  His words aren't coming from his textbook, but from his heart.  It doesn't make what he's saying any different, but it does change how I feel about it.

          He turns and jabs a finger at the graph, at the top 2.5% outside of the highest hash mark.  "These are the ones that really get it.  These are the ones that change people instead of being changed by them.  These are the ones who are truly alive."  He swivels sharply to face the students.  "How many of you believe in miracles?"  A half a dozen of the class raise their hands tentatively.

          "How many of you have seen one?"  The hands drop.

          "I heard a joke once about Statisticians.  They believe that improbable things happen but never to them.  It messes up all their models.  The opposite should be true of us.  We have a propensity to think of the ideal as unattainable when in reality." He taps the top 2.5% once more.  "It happens all the time.  But the trick is that we have to be the ones to start the process.  We have to choose to be the outliers of humanity.  We must defy the consensus.  In short, we must become the miracle that we want to see in our lives.  We have to believe that not only do miracles happen but that they will happen to us.  That they will happen because of us."

          For the final project of this class you will change the life of another human being.  I expect a 500-word paper outlining what you did, what miracles you saw, and how you are different for having completed this assignment."

          Some of you will try to skate by with the minimum but if you do, you do yourself a disservice.  This isn't about a school assignment at all; it's about your lives, and your willingness to claim your ultimate potential or to be content with mediocrity.  That is all for today.  You may leave early." 

          I stay seated a few seconds longer and the echo of the emotion behind his words crashes over me like a wave.  Despite my initial misgivings about the man, something about what he said strikes me deep.  Something you don't see every day.

          I push back through the door I came through just a half an hour before and the dazzling pre-sunset glow of the sky, the warm breeze brushing over the skin of my face, and the memory of the melancholy purple-eyed girl in the library blowing through me like a friendly hurricane, invading my every human sense.  I'm so entranced by the moment, which stands in such sparkling contrast to the atmosphere of my mind right before class started, and yet so in-line with Professor Blinns' train of thought, although I can't really identify why, that it catches me completely off-guard.

  Miracle.  The half-whispered thought escapes my mind before I can stop it.  I pull my backpack up higher on my back and start walking.

 

 

          Back at the apartment, I find two of my roommates are already there.  That's unusual for them.  Highly unusual, in fact.  I've never seen them back so early.

          "Are you going to do it now?"  asks Brandon.  He doesn't have to explain further.  My insides go all tingly.

          "I'm not sure this is a good idea.  She hasn't exactly been giving me the most positive of signals..."

          "Come on, man!  You can't make decisions like that based on what you see on the outside.  Everyone reacts differently.  For all you know she could be waiting for you to call right now."

          "And the first date wasn't amazing..."

          ”And what were you expecting, something out of movies?  Real life doesn't work like that.  It isn't perfect."

          The comment throws me off-kilter and for an instant I wonder if he somehow heard about Dr. Blinn's off-the-wall lecture, before remembering that that is impossible.  Quite the coincidence, though.  Brandon uses my silence as an opportunity to pull out his phone and proffer it towards me.  My spirit's willing, but my flesh is weak.

          "I'll call her tonight.  She might be in class right now."

          Brandon cocks an eyebrow but backs off, phone still clasped tight in his hand.  "Don't wait too long.  You don't want this one to slip away."

          I glide down the hallway to my room, trying to make myself believe I'm not retreating.  The problem is that I have the annoying tendency of being spectacularly honest with myself, so it doesn't take long to give that one up.  I do really want another date with her.  Tonight, I decide.  Brandon is right, I 'm not about to let this girl slide away.

          My conscience satiated, I tug my filled-to-overflowing trash bin out from under my desk and head back outside.

          The sunset is in full bloom now, and I have to squint and turn my head sideways to keep it from getting in my eyes.  A tangy barbeque smell wafts toward me from somewhere over by apartment 9.  Girls' voices clatter on in the distance.  One of them even sounds a little like her voice, and for a second I pretend that it is, but I quickly shake the thought off.  She's just getting in my head, that's all.  There's no way she would actually...

          "And then she was like--Oh, hi Nick!"  It's her.  My insides freeze over.

          "Hey, Mara."  Her friend glances down at her watch and jerks back in surprise.

          "How is it 3 o'clock already?  I'm going to be late for work!"  She scurries off, leaving the two of us alone.  Coincidences never cease.

          "What are you up to?"

          "Oh, I just happened to be looking out the window and saw Sarah outside.  I couldn't believe it at first.  I haven't seen her since grade school."  She smiles at me and I try not to stare too hard.  "How about you?"

          "I was just taking out the trash."  It's the perfect opportunity.  I don't have any excuse not to take it.  I have to ask her.  Now.  I will my lips to form the required words but they won't budge, so I stall for time.  "How did your calc test go?"

          "Pretty well.  I think I messed up the derivative of arccosine, but I thought it was going to be a lot worse."

          "That's good."  My frozen insides start to crack under the strain.  Ask her now! I scream at myself.  Now!  "Anything else new?"

          "No, not really."  We stand there a few more seconds until the silence rots and turns awkward.

          "Well, I'd better get inside," she says.  "I have a lot of homework to get done."

          I nod dumbly as she ducks inside the door.  I am a total failure. How did I let that happen?  I turn back toward the dumpster behind our apartments.  I'm not one to commit to things very easily, but when I do I always follow through.  Always.  Except this time.  Except when my whole future could be riding on what I do with a few seconds.  I know, it's melodramatic of me to think that way, but that's just how I am.

          I'm knocking loose a lonely scrap of paper that's stuck to the bottom of my trash bucket when a line from the day's lecture comes back to me, suddenly, and without introduction.

          This isn't about a school assignment at all; it's about your lives, and your willingness to claim your ultimate potential or be content with mediocrity.

          It's exactly the same as I'd heard it before, except now it's accompanied by a new question.  Am I mediocre?  I give the trash can a particularly hard bang and the loose piece of paper disconnects from it, gliding gently downward to settle on a pair of worn-out shoes at the bottom of the dumpster.  What have I ever done with my life to prove otherwise?

          The question disturbs me.  Not because it isn't valid, or because I don't really want to know the answer, but because I can't think of anything.  Not a single thing.

 

 

          I think about it the rest of the day.

          I think about it as I slowly pummel my way through a large stack of homework that my Intro to Physical Sciences professor gave me and an even larger stack that I gave myself to stay on target for the test.  I think about it as I chow down on the heaping plate of spaghetti that I make myself for dinner.  Around nine o'clock I slide out of a second attempt by Brandon to get me to call Mara decide to head to bed early.  When I get there, however, the question I asked myself at the dumpster drives sleep from my mind.  I lay there, staring at the wall, until my other roommate, Porter, flicks the lights out and I can't see the painted sheetrock in front of my face any more.  Why do I care so much about the answer to that question?

          Finally I can't take it anymore and I'm up out of bed, fumbling around on the floor for my sneakers.  I find them beside my nightstand and put them on.  I know deep inside that what I'm doing is idiosyncratic to the nth degree, but no one's watching me right now so I find I don't care.

          The front door opens, then closes, and I'm outside once more, staring up at the dark sky.  The light is on in apartment 26, but other than that there are no signs of life to be found.  I wander off a hundred yards or so, just far enough away that no one will be able to see me if they look out the window.  I tilt my head back and gaze up at the stars.  They fill the air with such depth that I see more clearly than ever before the shallowness of my own existence.  Who am I? I think to myself.  How is it that I've been living on this planet for 21 years and never once, not ONCE have I ever done anything of any lasting significance?  Art projects and video games don't quite cut it.  I've spent so much time living from day to day that that's all I've ever had to show for it:  another day lived.

          When is that going to change?

          We have to choose to be the outliers of humanity.  In short, we must become the miracle that we want in our lives.

          It starts with me.  When do I decide to become the miracle I want in my life?  How do I even start?  Then I remember the girl with the golden hair and those sad, dark violet eyes.  An idea sticks in my head.  I don't know where I'm going with this, but I have to feel like there's something to it.  Caught between the stars and the twinkling radiance of my own idealistic imaginings, this is a night for only the most peripheral attachment to the physical world.  For dreams, not for pragmatics.  I reach out with my mind into the far expanse of eternity.  I want change the world.  To change a life.  I reach back inside myself and find something I've never seen before; it's exhilarating, and it propels me to make the last, long leap of faith.  I don't know who the girl in the library was.  I've never seen her before in my life.  In fact, there's no reason I should ever see her again.  But I will.  With a surge of determination like a tidal wave I promise myself.  I will find the girl with the violet eyes.  I will feel her pain learn her story.  I will walk in her shoes and become her friend.  I will dream her dreams and find her potential.  And then I will change her life forever.

Stay tuned for Part II on Thursday!