When Randy Griffith awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed into a monstrous cockroach in his extra-long twin bed. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bowlike sections. His numerous legs, pathetically frail after skipping leg day, waved feebly before his eyes.
“What’s the matter with me,” he thought. It was no dream. His room, a normal Dobbs room, if always a little on the small side, lay between the four walls. Above the table, on which an unwashed pile of tank tops was spread out (Randy was the typical freshman) hung the poster which he had recently bought at the DUC poster sale. It was a picture of a Walter White. He stood erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer the words “Breaking Bad.”
Randy’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down on the Pit’s metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy. “Why don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness,” he thought. But this was entirely impractical, for he was used to sleeping on his right side, and in his present state he couldn’t get himself into this position. No matter how hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled again onto his back, creating a heavy-handed metaphor for his life.
“Oh God,” he thought, “what a demanding university I’ve chosen! Day in, day out going to PACE and Health 100. The stresses of Emory are much greater than any given state school, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of partying, the worries about fraternity connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing residence hall relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!”
As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste, without being able to make the decision to get out of bed (the alarm clock was indicating exactly quarter to nine) there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the bed.
“Randy!” a voice called (it was his roommate!) “It’s quarter to nine. Shouldn’t you be gone by now?”
“Wait, am I in an extensive Kafka inspired allegorical piece about Emory social life?” asked Randy.
“No,” replied his roommate. “That would be ridiculous.”
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