Hunting

            I wake up to a relative silence within the apartment that tells me none of my roommates are home. That’s how I like them best. It’s nothing personal. I don’t particularly like people, and they are no exception.

            I roll over on my side to face the window. The sheets tighten around me in warning. I like burritos. I sleep like one most nights. With all the tossing and turning I do, the bedding is bound to say, “Enough” and bind me in a single position. The sun is screaming to be let into the room. The beach towel that serves as a makeshift curtain says, no way, pal. Pinks and oranges are reflected on my walls, making it seem much later than it is. Which is why I don’t check the time before allowing the sheets to unravel and dump me on the floor.

            8:36.

`           I stand in the middle of my room and debate cannonball-ing back into bed. Class doesn’t start ‘til two. I really should get more sleep. Nine hours a night can’t be healthy. Not for what I put up with in a day. But there are other things that demand my attention, now. Like my stomach. I look down at it.

            “Greedy bastard,” I mutter.

            It retorts with something sounding like, “Pizza rolls.” I shrug and trudge to the kitchen to appease it. No one has bothered to open the curtains in the living room. It’s pitch black there. My bedroom could use a few lessons.

            The pizza rolls are gone. There is a paper sign reading “MINE” crinkled in the corner of the fridge—the one my Totinos used to don proudly. The roommates must have tossed it aside when they ate them all. It’s such a relief to know they listen to me.

            “How about a bagel?” I ask my stomach.

            “Pizza rolls!” it growls.

            Time to go hunting. I turn to walk back to my room. I need to change into normal clothes. The people in Safeway have already seen these pajamas. It would be downright embarrassing to show up in them again. At this time of day, no less.

            I walk past the living room. There’s a rustle of what sounds like plastic that makes me pause. A hand thrusts out from the shadows holding my bag of pizza rolls.

            “Looking for this?”