Transfer

Was it steam or fog? Was there any difference, really? Hot and cold are relative, like so many things these days. It could, of course, have been both. Whatever it was, it was congealing with the sweat and assorted sprinkles of filth in her palms as she pushed her way forward through the parking lot. You can wash your hands quite easily these days, but wheels are different. Her tires left thin muddied trails behind her as they dried, like brushes running out of paint. Yet it was the grit that lingered in discolored splotches and spires, waiting to be crushed and fall away. Feet leave partial approximations of our motion, but when she looked back at her trails they felt eerily revealing.

Shannon both did and did not want to be here. It was the first day of college. She had spent a gap year, and then another one, and then a few more after that learning all about what she didn't want to do with her life, and finally she was doing something different. She couldn't quite tell if this was right, or how it should feel if it was, or what even counted as right in this context. Was she just nervous or had she made a gross miscalculation? Had she defrauded herself and others? If there were answers they never seemed more foggy and distant than while perched atop the pillowy cushion of her wheelchair.

Swallowing away the lump in her throat she resolved to keep moving forward, if only because there was no other place she could at least pretend she belonged. She noted that people took great care to either stare or not stare. Starers attempted to sate their curiosity while leaving it politely hidden behind the minor motions of daily life. Lifting a steaming latte to one's one's face or checking a watch or handbag might give the eyes permission to wander just slightly off course. Yet others were overly resolute in their stiff chinned non-staring. Here curiosity was starved with a rigid adherence to acting absolutely as normal as possible. Both failed in similar ways while traveling different directions.

Of course, other people just didn't notice her at all that far below eye level. The silence and stature her tires afforded left her virtually invisible in many ways. In practical terms this meant, she had long ago noted, you had to cultivate a constant awareness of people's backpacks and other baggage as they were all the more likely to bump into you unaware. Indeed, it seemed to her that if one didn't speak up they never would be.

Shannon was early today, which wasn't always the case with her, but nobody can be perfect. Still, she rolled off the elevator and into the smooth concrete hallway. Everything was wide and accessible, except of course for the doors which always seemed heavier than they needed to be. Her classroom was clearly marked and she turned on the lights, and made a seat for herself at the front, moving a chair out of the way.

As she sat there, alone, she sighed to herself, and for the first time that day, began to feel calm. Then she leaned back in her chair, placing one hand on her wheel. As she did one of her rings clicked against the hollow metal of her pushrim, leaving a little echo bouncing off the smooth walls that, to Shannon at least, seemed to linger.