Daria looked up blearily from her notebook and watched the snowflakes dance outside her window. It was early March, and Boston was recieving a light dusting. The flakes formed hypnotic patterns in the streetlight.
Daria jerked awake, grabbing her desk.
She picked up her coffee cup, half empty, and took a sip. She could barely swallow the vile, cold parody of a drink. She held her nose and drained the cup, forcing herself to swallow, lightly slapping the notebook in front of her as she did.
She didn't want to wake Jane, sleeping off a split shift at the truck stop. She briefly wondered what sort of finals they had a BFAC, then got up to stagger to the kitchen of their apartment.
Like a missile homing in on an Iraqi bunker, her foot caught the table leg right where the big and index toes on her left foot divide. Yes, that should keep me up another minute or so, she thought as she danced silently around the kitchen, biting her hand and grimacing.
She found the coffee machine both empty and off. There was a note: "D, not a good idea to keep this running when empty. Fire hazard. Would have made you a new pot, but you pay even worse than the Hell hole. Love, J."
She tried to supress the hateful invectives about her dear friend running through her mind.
She glanced back at her desk where the books were neatly stacked, the PC humming with a half finished essay on Yeat's symbology, her botony notebook open to half-memorized formulae for the unique cellular alchemies of plant growth and nutrition, and other joys of freshman life.
Joylessly she filled the hopper with Maxwell House Dark Blend, put it in the machine, fed the reservoir with the carafe, turned the machine on, then as the water brewed merrily she desperately tried to remember if she'd used a filter.
She shivered. She felt the vent to see if by some miracle the heat was actually on. The feeble warmth she felt was hardly reassuring.
She leaned on the counter, then started awake as her knees buckled beneath her. Damn, she thought, I can't wait long enough for the coffee to cool down enough to chew. She reached in the drawar to see if Jane had any chocolate covered coffee beans left.
One.
Dammit!
As she chewed the stale treat, her eyes fell on Jane's gym-bag-cum-purse on the chair. She had mentioned needing some form of pick-me-up to help her get through the nights at the truck stop.
Reluctantly she slipped into Jane's room. _______
"Jane?"
"Hm'm'rph?"
"I'm sorry to bother you, but do you have anything in your gym bag to help me stay awake?"
"Ye'mmh-hmm. *Belch.*"
"You mind if I borrow some?"
"G'h'd."
"Huh?"
"Go 'head!" she snapped.
"'Kay. Thanks."
"D'men'sh'n't," she muttered into her pillow. "Pl'ze."
Daria tip-toed out of Jane's room.
Jane rolled over, her eyes closed. "Jus' don' leave me any blue onezzzzzz..." _______
Daria poured a few teaspoons of sugar into her coffee, then rummaged through Jane's bag. She found a half-full box of Vivarin and an unopened sleeve of Yellow Jackets. She tried to get her eyes to focus on the dosage recomendations, then muttered a curse.
She took two Yellow Jackets and four Vivarins, grimacing them down with a still-too-hot shot of black coffee. She put the rest in her pocket and went back to her books. Outside a flake or two still danced in the breaking dawn. _______
Jane woke slowly to the rhythmic bumping of her bed. She heard someone chanting, someone who sounded like Daria.
"Bunghole! Bunghole! Bunghole!"
She rolled over and was immediately awake. Daria stood at the foot of her bed, hitting it with her knees. Her expression was to say the least manic and she had pulled her Raft sweatshirt up over her head till only her face showed, her arms held out at right angles.
"Daria?"
"I AM THE GREAT DARHOLIO!!! I need TP for my bunghole. ARE YOU THREATENING ME?!?"
"EAP!" _______
A tip of the Cornholio hood to mman, without whose kick-in-the-butt motivational posts I'd have probably still had this challenge on the back burner. Blame him, if you must, I'm innocent.