1am

This one walks into the room. Three of us are watching a movie, the fourth is half-heartedly typing away at his computer. He looks up when his friend enters saying, "I'm so pissed off at people right now." His voice is calm and level, his face flushed slightly from drink. His behavior betrays little sign of his inebriated state.

He continues, "Dude, I need something to hit. Like something hard, but something that won't cause any permanent damage."

"Don't hit a wall," his friend gives a small laugh.

"No. I just broke the closet in my room though."

I chime in from the floor below, "Hey do you want to throw glass?"

His ears seem to perk up at the suggestion. "Yeah!"

So he fishes out an empty bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade from his collection and I run upstairs to find my old glass from home. It's grown mildew anyway: time to throw it away.

The air outside is frigid. Two people are out front smoking. No one is out back by the road.

There is a large spot at the middle of the building where no windows will get in the way. We stand in the road, watching it. I ask him, "You ready?"

He lights a cigarette, and lets it dangle from his mouth. Then, he pulls his arm back behind his head, and he begins to step forward. Behind him, steam is pouring from the grates in the road. It billows up just past the four floors of the dorm and dissovles into the night sky.

I stand back and watch, wishing I had a camera to capture the perfection in this moment. Then there is the dull sound of a thick glass bottle breaking against brick, followed seconds later by a slightly more pleasing shattering. The glass had somehow left my hand before I even realized it, and the moment is gone.