Campus Scene: Keyser Quad

Prompt: Capture a real scene on campus. 

It is mid-afternoon on a warm day in late February. Green buds are beginning to form on naked trees lining the periphery of the quad. A girl exits the library, sunglasses in hand. The click clack of her heels match the swaying of her hips as she makes her way down the marble steps toward the brick pathway of the quad. Her left hand holds the beige leather strap of her Michael Kors purse, while her right hand reaches into her jean pocket to take out her phone.

There are five people occupying five separate tables outside the library café. Three of them are having conversations with anonymous people over the phone. The voice of a girl wearing a purple zip-up, sitting in the table next to me, rises above murmur of the quad.

“When are you going to the doctor?” She leans forward, lifting herself up from the metal chair, just enough to fold her legs Indian style under her body. “Is everything going to be okay?” She places her elbow on the table and cradles her forehead with her left hand. “Uh, huh.” She nods, and lowers her head further into the palm of her hand that now covers her eyes. Her voice softens to a whisper. Three minutes later, she looks up, her eyes glazed, but no tears. “Please, please call me as soon as you find out. I’m serious.” She runs her fingers through her hair. “Okay, I’ll call you tonight. I love you. Bye.”

Another girl sits in the table directly in front of her. She has been fixated on her laptop screen for the past eight minutes. She reaches for the Café Q coffee cup next to her laptop and lifts it with too much force. She shakes the empty cup in disappointment.

A couple approaches the girl in the purple zip-up. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Good, how are you?”

“Great, its such a beautiful day. What are you up to?”

“Just trying to get some reading done before class but I got distracted. My mom just called.”

“Yeah, I always get annoyed when my mom calls in the middle of the day when I’m trying to be productive”

The girl in the purple zip-up looks down at the pages in front of her, avoiding eye contact with the couple. “Oh really? I don’t mind”

“Cool. Hey, um, did you finish the problem set?”

“No not yet. I’ve been busy with other stuff”

“Okay. Can you text me when you are working on it? We should probably head to class.” The couple turns to walk towards the breezeway.

“Yeah, no problem.”

The wind is starting to pick up. The girl in the purple zip-up stands up, shoves pages into her backpack, and swings it over one shoulder. A gust lifts up the end of a pink ribbon safety pinned on front pocket of her backpack.