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The door slammed shut as Mike stormed out of Stewart Hall, furious with the inability of the university to do anything. The fading light of the fall evening made everything appear longer as the shadows stretched out almost to infinity. Mike was angry because the legitimacy of his degree was in danger and the university seemed totally indisposed to do anything about it. When the MBA scandal broke about a week ago, the only thing Mike wanted was justice, and it didn’t seem that any was forthcoming. The president and the provost had been fired, but that wasn’t justice. Where was the vindication for the students who were busting their asses trying to earn a degree? The university had just forgotten about them. Mike thought that if he went and talked to someone at Stewart Hall, they would at least be able to see some sense in his predicament. They didn’t. They blindly turned him away with more corporate crap and a promise that he knew would amount to nothing. He knew a way to get something done though. He had heard about a meeting on campus, a meeting about people who wanted “something done” and were fed up with the university. That is where he was headed now.
As the sun got progressively lower and lower in the sky the temperature begin to drop into the teens. It was almost winter and the freezing grip of death Mother Nature put on Morgantown every year would soon be descending onto the city. A true American cold, nothing like the winters in Ireland, where the wind was quiet and the cold mild. While the couples would play in the snow and the students would trudge from the library with frost on their eyelashes the city would look beautiful encased in ice, totally numb to the decay that was going on inside its university.
As a few flakes of snow drifted down from the heavens Mike realized that the university wasn’t going to do anything, because they were numb just like everyone else; they didn’t care. Not about the students, not about the faculty, they were too caught up in their own silly worries to give a damn about anyone else. As the realization broke over Mike, he felt the cold for the first time, truly, deep inside his bones, slicing through his skin, and he realized he had to get under some cover from the impending snowstorm.
As Mike walked quickly through the cold air, he accidentally bumped into a passerby, who immediately broke into a sympathetic smile and a genuine reply of apology. Mike, in no mood to interact with anyone at the moment, merely grunted and kept walking, but suddenly didn’t feel as cold as he had a few seconds before. He turned to greet the stranger, but the man had already turned his back and was hurrying along, also trying to arrive someplace warm before the storm hit in full force. Mike went back to his walking, although he was suddenly not as cold. A warm fire seemed to be spreading through his entire body, right up to his fingertips and out of his body, warming the air around him. He realized he wasn’t numb at all, only he couldn’t quite remember why he was so concentrated on the idea of numbness. As he turned back to walk towards his home at the top of High Street, the idea of a hot chocolate appealed to him greatly. As the fire in his soul continued to rage, he walked down the street, away from the quiet solitude of his home and towards the bright lights of the local coffee shop.