The Laundry Man

Carrying a bag of cheap thread filled with an alarming amount of clothes, I dwindle my way into the small, confined laundry room. Colleges are strange like that; they fund their designs into useless needs, such as a tacky bronzed mascot figure or scattered, poorly done beds of flowers sorted throughout campus. The laundy room was soaked with humidity, the machines raging against their struggle and plea for replacement. The door to the room opens into a narrow entrapment; often times hitting those who are already inside. While loading my laundry, the door scoots open like a bursting balloon; startling me.

"I'm sorry," I utter, knowing that it was not my doing. It was one of those strange enounters that implies one of the parties to acknowledge the dreary context.

Beaty, black eyes on a thin, wormy face scorch back at me. They were wide, yet still true to size. Small, yet flustered like a peacock's feathers. It was as though I had alarmed him for being in there. In an attempt to make room, I shift my belongings and body over from the door way. Nothing. The door slams, and pale limbs scoot past the door crack as it slams. Strange, but not unfathomable. Perhaps it was social anxiety.

Gathering my things, I collect myself and make the short journey down the hall to my room. To my surprise, adjacent to mine; I see this looming, weak sillouhette shadowing a cracked door. He was waiting for me to be done, and watching me return to my room. His beaty eyes stalk me like a hawk, waiting for the precise timing to maneuver his descent onto his pray. As my eyes met his, he became startled, shoving his weight into the door.

A couple weeks pass, not seeing this said laundry man I had told my friends about.

It was not until aThursday morning, where I pass him on my trek to class. It was a brisk morning, and I had not dressed well for it. In attempt to fight the cold, I half skipped around campus, keeping my body confined to the little heat it was generating. This time it was not his eyes that stuck to me, but his face. His dark hair shagged dirtily on his forehead, acne pulsating out of his porcelein skin. His pants too short for his abnormally long legs for his height (he was shorter than me); his adolescent appearing stature seeming to turn and shadow my body. Did he remember me?

Just so.

Not much happened over these weeks of not encountering him. Part of me believes that he never left his room quite at all.

It wasn't until three days later, when I found him scavenging through his laundry in the dryer, like a falcon picking about a corpse of a highway. I tried my best to smile, to show that he was okay and that I meant no harm. The boy pinned his shoulders shockingly against the wall, seeming to twitch at the sight of me being so close. I slowly left my task, and decided to allow him to finish until he was done. My clothes had five minutes remaining in the dryer anyways. I was willing to risk the shrinkage of my favorite jeans to escape the scrutiny he felt towards me.

I became sidetracked, and an hour later I went to retrieve my laundry. As usual, I scooped up my clothes, and used my bed as a platform for folding. Clinging to a dryer sheet, I find a greasy, burgandy substance. It appeared to be a sort of oil, and at first I do not direct much of my attention to it. It wasn't until I found a twisted, long, textured object tangled in my t-shirts. Upon examination of the object, as peculiar as it first was; the curiousity turned to horror. This wasn't an object at all. Fatty, slender, and greasy to the touch; this was a fresh human bone. To my knowledge- part of a finger. My mind raced through thousands of wild explanations, but I could only keep one. The laundry man.

Maybe it wasn't human at all? Maybe it was part of a project, or perhaps even the scraps of food? My gut twisted, my intuition rampaging, exclaiming my danger. I decide not to call the police, for fear that I was overthinking the situation. I decided on simply reporting him to the RA.

Leaving my clothes unfinished, and my sinister findings behind, I slip out my room trying not to pay any attention to his lair. I soon find this to be impossible. His door abruptly cracks open, and my pace slows down to the equivalent of a slug's. His piercing, beaty eyes locked into mine. I turn my head, but a rather high, ghastly congested, nasily voice pitches out.

"Looking for these?"

I whip my head around, anticipating to see some sort of skeleton, weapon, or god knows what. Instead, he is gripping a pair of lace underwear; shaking his clammy paws inches outside his door like he is holding bait. They were mine, and no way in hell I needed those back.

"Oh. No, that's okay," I weakly and embarassingly say. He laughs, which sounds much more like a gurgle, following by repulsive snorts. He slyly pulls out my ID card. Like an idiot, I start patting my pockets, hands, and examining the floor to ensure that I really did lose it. In order to use the elevators and stairwells, you must swipe your ID card. It is part of a new campus security feature. Ha.

He is still wagging my ID card and underwear outside his door; his animalistic eyes concealed onto the rest of his figure. His skin is so sickly and thin, you can see the purple veins bulging out of his forearm and hand from his intense grip. The boy stands shorter than I, and has a frail stature. I decide to place my bets and grab my belongings; immediately running for the closest elevator or open door on my floor.

I swipe with great intensity, latching onto my belongings. I am shaking with the unknown possibilities, almost long enough to distract me from the intense pain my forearm is encountering. Crimson flows from my skin and starts to dribble onto the carpet flooring, almost instantaneously. The blood begins to collect at my intense grip, staining the green lanyard my ID is on. I quickly try and deflect his weapon with my free hand; but am struck with a force that is both terrifying and bold. I'm probably crying, screaming; hopefully doing something to get anyones attention, but it happens so quick... I am forced into the slender opening to meet his underestimating, humiliating body, immediately met with a distinct smell so atrocious, vomit accumulates in the back of my throat.

I turn to fight the door and I....

suppose the rest is just dirty laundry.