//------------------------------//
// I'm Serious 
// Story: Not My Little Diamond 
// by MagerBlutooth 
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Chpt. 4 - I’m Serious

Monday, March 31

Eight hours of sleep, eight glasses of water, one hour of exercise, and about two thousand Calories all in one day. Yep, that was one of the best dreams I’ve had in months. 

Don’t get me wrong. I want to be healthy and all that. I drink as much water as my budget will allow me, I’m always fighting the urge to snack late at night, and I’m a recurring member of my university’s tennischess club. Unfortunately, work takes precedence over everything else, and these thirty-eight minutes of sleep are undead proof that work rules over me like a yardstick. 

As is the norm, I wake up more exhausted than when I went to sleep. I quickly shut off my alarm clock by haphazardly swinging my arms in its general direction, and I sluggishly throw myself out of my bed. Before getting the day started, I double check my memory banks to make sure I’m not forgetting anything important. Thanks to my drowsiness, this task proves to be a bit more difficult than usual, but one relevant thought manages to sneak through.

Today's my exam day. I need a pencil.

As I realize that’s all I have scheduled for today, I believe I feel some confetti explode out of my brain. Exams are the one time I have to put all my studying time to use, and they're probably the most fun I get to have during the school year. Unfortunately, the rest of my body’s too tired to join in on the celebration. I let a huge yawn out of my mouth and groggily meander out into my kitchen to make myself some breakfast. 

Thanks to my extensive culinary training, I manage to create my typical breakfast of cold cereal, hot cereal, medium-temperature cereal, and apple juice. Given how tired I am, I don’t bother pouring a glass of apple juice; I just grab the whole pitcher and impulsively guzzle it down right where I’m standing. 

The second that miracle liquid hits my tongue, my eyes light up, my theme music kicks in, and I suddenly feel like I could run six marathons with an elephant strapped to my back like our dean did that one time on Halloween. 

I know I complain enough to drown a cactus, but my power food is perfection incarnate. Sure, apples aren't really as interesting as spinach or dog treats, but really I’m just glad to have one that’s not unhealthy or disgusting like maple syrup or cinnamon-flavored gum. Plus, what other food can beat the kind of variety that apples offer? Between the juice, the sauce, the butter, the pies, and the scented hand soaps, I’ve got a pretty easily attainable power food going for me.

My family’s all nuts. My dad’s walnuts, my mom’s pistachios, my sister’s peanuts, and I’m allergic. I guess one could say my power food makes me the oddball of the family, but I’d have to respond by laughing maniacally and saying that’s not even close to the only reason. They say that a person’s power food really says something about his personality, but that’s never been scientifically tested, and frankly I think "they" might just be a few limes short of a coconut if you know what I mean.

After taking a seat at the dining room table, I start checking my watch every five seconds just to make absolutely sure I’m not running late. This exam’s worth a good chunk of my final grade, and nothing’s going to stop me from acing it now that I’m wide awake. As my theme tune reaches its final note, I can feel that initial surge of power start to wear off, so I can finally pick up my spoon without snapping it in half. 

Drinking an entire pitcher of apple juice is generally overkill, but given how little energy I’d have without it, the lingering energy boost from it will probably only keep me going long enough to go take my exam and come back. 

That’s going to be problematic if I still want my spare toothbrush and my other one. 

Just then, right as that thought comes to mind, I hear an all-too familiar noise that makes me realize that I need to leave. Now.

The sound is one that could make a hibernating bear fly south for the winter, and yes, I do mean fly south. An army of 300 could play this sound as they marched across the landscape and have our country under their control in five minutes. Heck, I bet it could even stop an impromptu musical number dead in its tracks. It's the one unique sound that signals the approach of the one who defies sense itself. It’s the cry that summons the man who looks at reality with his eyes closed and laughs. 

It’s the dreaded sound of my roommate’s alarm clock. 

I know if he sees me in here, I’ll be looking at another direct slap to the top of my head followed by the same one conversation we have every time we have breakfast together. After all this time, it’s become a sort of bland agony to have to put up with him each morning, and I find it much easier to just leave first and avoid him altogether. 

Fortunately, my roommate has an even more specific morning routine than I do. After he turns off his alarm, he always jumps out of bed, shouts "carpe diem", skims through his dictionary, does twenty-five push-ups while stating a random trivia fact after each one, and then comes out to eat his own breakfast. His routine usually gives me about one or two minutes to leave before he makes his grand appearance. 

"Carpe diem!" I hear from the room behind me, making my pupils shrink to microscopic size.

I still haven’t really touched my breakfast, so I just leave it on the table and grab four pencils out of our pencil mug for my exam. I hastily check my hammerspace again for my wallet and mallet and quietly make my way to my room so I can sneak out through my window. 

Then, just as I pass my roommate’s door, I quickly have to muffle the sound of the exclamation mark that pops out of my head as I see his sinister doorknob begin to turn. 

Sixteen months of perfectly undisturbed morning routine. It was all just a ploy to catch me off guard on this one random nonspecific day. Well played, sir.

I’m forced to zoom back into the kitchen to avoid being seen before he opens the door. Only my roommate can scare me enough to zoom. Only him. 

Oddly enough, I don’t spend any time thinking about what to do next. I just zoom out through the front door to my apartment. I leave an impression of my body right through the middle of it, but I’m much too preoccupied to be embarrassed about that right now. I start to worry that my roommate might have heard the crash, but relief washes over me after a few seconds of complete silence. I continue to make my way away from my presently see-through apartment door and finally drink in the pleasure of successfully escaping my roommate’s clutches as I enter the building’s stairwell.

Crisis averted.

Now that I’ve dodged that cannonball, it's time to walk down stairs. As I head down, I take the opportunity to double check that I have my pencil and my three backup pencils in case something happens to the others. As I confirm that I did indeed grab what I need for my exam, I curiously observe that something about my right hand isn’t right. 

Well, here’s a fresh, new box of socks to find on my doorstep. It’s kind of weird to say, but something’s wrong with my hand, and yet nothing really is. I mean, I’ve still got all four fingers, and my glove is still as white and puffy as ever. It’s got that same rubbery texture, blowing on my thumb makes it inflate, and it makes the same punching sound effect no matter what I slap with it. In almost every way, it's a typical human hand.

However, while nothing about it really gives any indication that something is wrong, I notice that it looks a bit…shinier than usual. Though not quite shiny enough to glow in the dark, my palm, fingers, and opisthenar all seem to radiate this barely noticeable glow that resembles no medical condition I’ve ever seen or heard about before. In addition, I suddenly take note that the BGM of this stairwell sounds strangely ethereal and full of harpsichord this morning. It’s as if something very weird is going on.

Realizing the situation, I quickly check my other hand to see if it shares my right hand’s symptoms. Sure enough, the shine coming from my left hand appears to have the same amount of radiance as my right, both intriguing me at the prospect of a "glowing hand syndrome" and worrying me that I’ll be forced to miss my test to go take a different kind of exam. While continuing to walk down the stairs, I turn to my beloved hobby to try and sprinkle some logic onto this triple scoop of butterscotch madness.

Let me think. For one, there’s the possibility that I’ve been exposed to nuclear radiation; although, the fact that that would make my hands a much brighter greenish color raises some doubt to that theory. There’s also the more likely possibility that this is a prank executed by my roommate even though he has never actually pulled any pranks in the two years I’ve lived with him, at least not ones I’ve noticed, anyway. There’s also the chance of alien intervention, spectral possession, or interdimensional beings trying to communicate through m—no. Never mind. What else could it be?

Soon enough, I reach the bottom of the stairs without any real ideas that accurately explain my abnormal condition. I check a few other parts of my body to make sure that my hands are, in fact, the only thing that’s been affected. I can’t check my face at the moment, but I feel reasonably confident that my hands are all that’s changed after finding nothing else of note. At this point, I’m just hoping that this isn’t some kind of multiple-stage transformation sequence I’ll have to deal with in incrementally humiliating phases. 

Actually, scratch that. That would be amazing.

I begin to make the long march over to the building where my exam is taking place. My psychology class is my earliest and the furthest one from my apartment building, but I’m willing to put up with it since it’s my bread and butter. Come to think of it, it's my whole meal. 

The sun’s starting to come up now, and I can see its eyes peek over the horizon before it pops up to its usual spot in the sky. As always, I’m the only one walking around campus this early, so it gives me a little wink right after popping into position. It’s not polite to ignore the sun, so I give it my usual friendly little wave while trying not to make eye contact. Naturally, the sun’s light starts to wake up everything else despite my desire for just one nice, quiet walk to class. Following the sun’s wake up call, the BGM switches over to something bubblier, and lo and behold doth the noise cometh.

Much like I do, nature adores the BGM. However, unlike me, they spend most of their lives just listening to it and ritualistically bobbing back and forth in its presence, though with all the racket they make in the process, I’m surprised they can even hear it. Today appears to be no different than any other. All the trees are making that "whooping" noise, the butterflies have some weird "bidi bidi" sound going on, and I can’t even properly come up with a word to accurately describe all the clamor coming out of the grass over by the old theatre building.

I’ve tried reasoning with them about it before, but it’s a lost cause. It’s like they’ve got nothing better to do but to stand around and create a bunch of sound effects all day. The most curious aspect of it all though is how unceasingly happy they seem to be about it. No matter where I go, I can always find a tap-dancing frog, a whistling river, or some other part of nature doing absolutely nothing of consequence with either a huge smile across its face or just a pleasant demeanor if it lacks a face. I can’t even fathom how they all can be that consistently happy all the time while accomplishing so little. I swear, if I were a giant boulder or something and didn’t have three hours of homework every night in each subject, I’d be looking for a more meaningful way to spend all that free time.

Regardless, I’ve long since learned how to tune out all the noise while I think, so I don’t let them bother me as I continue on my way. Only about an hour has passed since I walked over to the convenience store, but I notice the weather is surprisingly much colder than before. It's especially weird since winter's been over for ten days now. I consider asking the sun what the deal is, but it seems busy at the moment, and I’d rather not draw its attention. 

I can deal with quite a few of life’s difficulties, but cold weather is not one of them. I was born with orange hair and brown eyes. I was made for the warmer climate. For that reason, I can usually be found outside throughout most of the summer and spring, work schedule and all. Plus, let’s be honest here, hot weather never gave me any kind of cold or flu, it never made icicles start to grow out of my nose, and most importantly, it never felt the need to chat me up. 

Seriously, the colder winds may take more initiative than most other forces of nature with their worker’s union and parliamentary system of government, but they’re the only ones I know that just don’t know how to stop talking, and they always manage to find some poor, hapless loner to…

Oh, no.

Feeling a bit nervous, I speed up my pace a bit. I decide to divert my attention from the drop in temperature to inspect my glowing hands of mystery again and scour my brain again for any reasonable explanation for their current state. 

How did this happen? I’m fairly certain my hands weren’t like this while I was studying. This must have happened sometime when I was out buying my toothbrush. Actually, I suppose this could have happened while I was sleeping or eating breakfast, but I'd sooner believe mailboxes could sing than something like this would happen inside my apartment. I don’t think this is the effect of any kind of liquid I’ve ever seen, and it’s not like something like that would cause—gum.

I just stepped in gum. As if I need this of all things to happen at a time like this. This is just fantastic. Now my foot’s glued to the sidewalk next to a bunch of dancing tulips in the middle of a freak springtime cold spell. Also, it’s kind of weird, but the BGM is still playing a surprisingly upbeat melody as if to taunt me. Personal events are supposed to take musical preference over environmental monotony. 

The way things are going now I’m probably not even going to make it to my exam on time. What else could go wrong?

As the forbidden question crosses my mind, it’s almost immediately answered by a familiar raspy voice that makes me shiver in every sense of the word. Seriously, the BGM couldn’t be more inappropriate right now.

"How’s it going, kid? You got a second?"

I have no seconds. No seconds at all.

"Okay," I casually reply, foolishly encouraging the wind to start a conversation with me.

Even for one of nature’s lackeys, my involuntary smile automatically turns itself on, and my mind turns into a word search puzzle as I try to drum up a response. Naturally, all the words are hidden backwards and diagonally.

The air around me says, "Great, I got called in for an early morning breeze session, and I need someone to talk to."

This is more than a breeze. This is the tundra.

The wind’s presence makes the temperature drop even further as it goes on, "You know, I don’t see too many of you humans out walking around this place. What’s your deal?" 

"I just…like to walk," I quietly say, just trying to parry the question.

"Like to walk, huh? That’s a new one. So why aren’t you walking right now?" the wind asks with almost genuine interest in its voice.

And so it begins…

"I…sep in mub," I say, tilting my head down in shame as the BGM finally changes to something more fitting in the form of a trombone.

"What was that?" the wind asks, sending its cold breath directly into my left ear.

"I ste mm um," I repeat about as loudly as before, though I probably sound even less coherent.

"You’re gonna have to speak up, kid. I don’t have any ears, you know."

Maybe not, but you’re about to make mine fall off, you sweaterknitter.

"I stepped in gum," I say, finally speaking at a normal volume as I tilt my head back up.

The wind starts laughing at me. Let me say that again. The wind starts laughing at me. 

It's not exactly a first for me, but it’s not like going through it more than once makes it any easier. Its shrill laughter makes the frigid cold start biting into me like I’m its primary food source. I honestly can’t tell which is more irritating, the piercing cold or that obnoxious laugh. It sounds like some kind of sound effect I could only hear out of the murkiest swamps the planet has to offer. 

Why did it have to be the North wind? At least the other ones know how to laugh properly.

The wind finally calms down from all its laughter and teases, "Are you trying to tell me you’re stuck? You know there’s an easy way out of that, right?"

"…I know," I uneasily say. 

I can’t believe the wind of all things is telling me this.

"Well, then what are you just standing there like a windmill for? I mean, you can do it, right?" it condescendingly asks.

"Of course I can. I’m human," I assure, almost coming up with all the right words.

"Then why haven’t you yet?" it asks as mockingly as before. "Do you just not want me to be lonely? That’s so precious." 

It follows its remark with another round of torturous laughter, making me shiver and face the ground again.

I really didn’t want it to come to this, but there’s only so much coldness I can take from one collection of air. Besides, it’ll take much too long to get this gum off my shoe the old-fashioned way and still get to my exam on time. It would seem I have no choice. 

Oh well, so much for my New Year’s resolution....





Never before in my life have I been so happy to be no longer talking to someone other than my roommate. Now that I’ve escaped from the grating mockery of nature’s worst, I’m ready for whatever this exam has to fire at me. I wasn’t expecting it, but I’ve managed to arrive at my exam building ten minutes earlier than I originally planned. 

Since I’ve got the extra free time, I decide to take a short detour to the building’s restroom to find out if my face is actually as shiny as my hands. I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry when facing this kind of uncertainty. As I look into the mirror on the bathroom wall, I’m partly relieved and partly disappointed to see my face is as listless as ever. My eyes reveal how little sleep I had gotten last night even with my temporary boost in energy; my nose still has that pimple to the direct right of it that’s really starting to irritate me; my ears seem a bit shinier, but only because they’re still red from all the wind’s laughing; and even my tongue and teeth have nothing discernible to note. In fact, my hands appear to outshine my teeth right now.

I’ll deal with that later today. 

After a few minutes of debating with myself, I decide that I’ll just get my hands examined after I ace the exam. Then I’ll stop by the store again and pick up a spare toothbrush before going back to my apartment for some sleep, maybe two if I have the time. 

Store, doctor, sleep. That’s my plan. 

I make my way to room 413 and take a seat in the front row. I reach a shiny hand into my hammerspace to pull out my notes, and start putting the energy from that apple juice to good use by going over everything that I could possibly need to know for this exam.

I have to say, bizarre skin anomaly notwithstanding, I’m feeling pretty optimistic about today. The BGM's in D minor, I don't have a fever, and when that exam starts in an hour I'll be looking at the most fun I've had in months. What could be more perfect?