A silent and calm Sunday afternoon, the masses of students pour back into town after an adventurous weekend of infinite possibilities. With the cloud covered sky that this weekend has blessed us with, I move down to the Campus’s favorite eatery. The lights seem bright, a nice contrast to the walk down, and the aroma of food being prepared fills the air. A variety of students sit around; some by themselves, a some in smaller groups, and even a few in gigantic groups, each fighting for elbow room and oxygen as they occupy the booths.
After a few minutes, one young man comes and sits down by me, wearing a Broncos jersey. I see several around the room eating away, but this individual is staring down at his tablet device. I assume he is watching the football game that was going on, based by some of the sighs, and celebrations that I heard coming from his direction every so often.
A group of four girls comes and sits down in my area. I had to do a double take to ensure that they were all different people, based on their similar physical appearance, as well as dress. As soon as they sit down, the phones came out. The phones remained glued to their face as they ate in silence. Each appearing to eat the same dessert out of a bowl until they quickly left minutes later.
A group of students quickly rush in next, and occupy a nearby booth. They seemed almost determined to sit there, as if they owned the booth. The ease with which everyone slid in indicated that this was not an unusual thing for them to do. A barrage of chatter, as they all ate their cheeseburgers, followed occasionally by a sudden outburst of laughter; I am not entirely sure how they were all able to hear whatever the outburst was about with how loud they had previously been. Immediately the chatter started backup and I occasionally heard snippets of the shrill voices talking about their classes, or friends, or the party they went to this weekend. And almost as suddenly as they arrived, almost in unison, the group stood up, and filed out.
My attention is quickly drawn to a nearby table, where I see three individuals. All looking very similar, with darker hair and glasses, the three individuals, with one female and the other two males, suddenly broke out into song. It did not last long, and I was unable to determine what song they were singing. For a few minutes as they ate, they became quiet, as if their concentration on food was too great. But once it was gone, they started back up, singing and conversing for a few more minutes. Occasionally I would hear a shout form that table about the fourth of July, or fireworks.
As I walk over to go get more food, I see a student engaged in conversation with one of the employees. He was complaining about how he was supposed to have gone home already, but still needed to work. After a few more minutes of conversation, they parted ways.
Not too far away, is a table of 4. One of the girls at the table, I’ll call her Calendar girl, starts to plan out her entire life in great detail. Speaking quite loudly, I find it hard to tune her out as she talks about how she plans to graduate in exactly 4 years, then spend 3 months overseas, come back and have a certain job working for a certain company not long after. The three others at the table sat there in amazement as calendar girl explained what the next 50 years of her life would be like. After several more minutes, she finished her rant and quieted down before they all returned to their food.
The final group that was sitting near me was three individuals, all of seemingly different ages and ethnicity. At first they seemed to be discussing normal topics such as classes and their weekend, but after a few moments go on to talk about things that I never imagined that I would hear in this environment. Slavery, whippings, and Nazis were some of the more discussed topics that I could hear coming from that table. But they got up and left, as a giant rush came in.
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