Night Air

That's it! I slammed down my pen and flung open my door. I had been tied to my computer all day writing papers and lab reports. I just wanted to be left alone in my own room! But no. The insensitive jerks across the hall were smoking again. I could smell it in my room. Dirty, smelly, thick, clogging smoke. It was perfectly in my rights to demand they close their door. But they were smoking so heavily that even with their closed door the smoke clogged the hallway. I had to escape it. It was strangling me. I needed to breathe. I rushed past their door to the fire escape. I opened the door and my bare feet touched the freezing metal. I breathed. Just breathed. After a moment I walked to the wide opening looking out onto the courtyard. Lights shone from many windows revealing students at work. I breathed deeply again and leaned over. Patches of snow still clung to the grass and the wind whipped at my face. My eye was caught by the lone tower of the gothic style building. My eyes followed its lines up to the inky black sky. Stars that I rarely saw twinkled. Wisps of clouds stained orange by the city lights floated past. As I watched the stars wink at me I breathed out all my frustrations with my hall mates, my paper, my lab, my reading. The stars and the chill air soothed my frayed nerves and comforted my headache. After mere moments I was ready to go face my room again. I gingerly picked up my feet and carefully walked down the painfully cold stairs back to my work.