Simon Hobbs had not been amused when one of his friends attempted to trip the guy entering his apartment complex. It just wasn't funny. Simon had actually felt sorry for the man; he'd looked kind of sickly and flustered—all white in the face. Why couldn't they just have left him alone? No, no—Joe had to try tripping him and was bent on hassling him, asking him questions and all; of course, the man hadn't seemed to notice any of it. He'd just slipped through them, paying no attention to anything Joe had said and barely changing his step to accommodate Joe's leg. The man had moved through their small crowd without even realizing they were there. There was some irony in it, Simon thought—Joe had ended up more aggravated from his attempted molestation than the man he'd tried to irritate had been. That man hadn't been troubled in the least. Simon and his friends were like smoke to brush aside, to him.

Simon didn't like to cause trouble. He didn't like mischief when it involved other people—strangers—for no reason other than just because. A few of his friends really enjoyed making others embarrassed or flustered. Simon didn't like that sort of trouble; he knew you had to be careful who you messed with . . . you never knew who that person might turn out to be.

By most standards, Simon was a strange-looking seventeen-year-old. He gave the impression of being very tall but really was just over six-foot; the deception lay in his lanky, angular stature, in the way his pants always seemed slightly too short, and in the long narrowness of his head. His dark, straight hair hung limply around his face. Still, in spite of his odd looks, Simon Hobbs had the most diverse assortment of friends. His peers ranged from the guys who hung out behind the school dumpsters to smoke pot to the student council crowd; he ate some lunches with football players and some lunches alone, did some projects with absolute nerds and some projects with total wallflowers. No one disliked Simon, mainly because there was no one that felt he couldn't relate to him at some level. He was a bit amorphous in the sense that he fit in anywhere, took the shape of anyone and yet always seemed to purely be himself. This absolutely surreal quality—this ability to adapt without ever actually changing—put Simon in the position of easily being everyone's friend and at the same time caused him to feel internally alone; no one picked up on the resentment Simon so often felt at being forced into an age to which he couldn't really relate.

Adolescence was, to Simon, what a cramped cage would be for a parrot. He little felt the emotional attachment his fellow teenagers had to their lives. He had never felt the way they did about dating or grades or fitting in. The things that got them excited or brought them down were foreign to Simon. It wasn't that he never felt sad or happy, angry or thrilled—it was that he felt such emotions over much different things. Simon knew well how to play the game of fitting in; he knew not to condescend. He knew, also, how to remain somewhat aloof, and he understood that it was important for him to do so. Yes, everyone liked Simon Hobbs, and yet no one, if asked, would actually be able to describe him as a person.

It was typical of most teenagers to be introverted, to some extent. Whether they had friends and confidence or not, they kept much to themselves. Diaries of tirades against the world and angst-filled poems and lyrics were proof. Simon was aware of this ego-centric isolation that all young people (he included) put themselves through, and the fact of his awareness made it all the more painful for him to put up with his own self-inflicted seclusion. While at times Simon believed it inevitable—perhaps even necessary—to be alone, he battled with the truth that his frustration with feeling secluded was merely a result of his own ego. In contrast to the way he locked up his thoughts and kept his nature to himself, Simon was rarely physically alone. His personality created an aura of welcome, so that people who felt desire to talk to someone enjoyed spending time with him. And Simon was a superb listener; he'd mastered the art of hearing as well as truly listening to what others said and really comprehended their problems. He felt compassion for them more than anything else, because he saw that the problems they felt they had were not only nonexistent but were also stemming from their own self-centeredness. If they had only been able to see this, they would not have any problems at all.

Often, Simon had to plan time to be alone. During his days he was surrounded by people, whether at school or at home. So early mornings had become his sanctuary. Simon would wake up two hours before he needed to leave for school and would shower, eat, and leave. He'd drive to school and park his car, then wander the purple, pre-dawn streets. He cherished the feeling of being alone, feeling as if the world was lying in wait, quiet and unaware. He revered the sudden personal connection he had with life in those moments, the way it felt as if a blanket had fallen over the noise, the daily goals and struggles and desires and actions of the hundreds of thousands of breathing human organisms surrounding him in their hidden holes. He was secluded; he was a cognizant form among oblivious sleeping minds . . . the world was his. It was true and beautiful on those walks. There was mystery and promise. It reminded him that he was just a speck of dust, allowed by some chance of nature to live in such a vast, powerful matrix of incomprehensibility. He was alone, at those times, truly isolated, both mentally as well as physically, and it was such a state Simon woke up so ridiculously early to achieve.

The daylight hours were a charade. Those hours that brought everything out of the shadows and defined their lines. Simon felt the falseness of his days like the dull sting of a small insect—one that couldn't deliver much more than an irritation at first but that could, over time, cause infection. He knew that surrounding himself with people was less real than the utter loneliness of his mornings, and he didn't like knowing that the majority of his living was spent in a play; but this was how life was, Simon knew. This was what most people did—lead two lives, one wearing a mask amongst others and one walking naked, alone, in seclusion.

In spite of his understanding of the impracticality of this human plight and his even more frustrating slavery to it, Simon never ceased to be amazed at this aspect of humanity—this tendency that people had to sever themselves from others with the one thing they all had in common: mental isolation. It was irony at its worst, and yet none of them realized they were subject to it.

Everyone lived in his own mind, and ultimately, no outside person would ever be able to invade someone else's head. No one else could be privy to another's deepest fears and the silly thoughts he was embarrassed to express, the desires he packed into smaller and smaller boxes in attempt to squish them out of existence, storing them in some colored file cabinets. Such fears and nonsense and desires as well as the fact that all people strove to hide them were what all humans held in common, and yet even the mention of such things' existence was taboo. No one would be able to search the blue hallways of another's brain to uncover certain dusty files the owner had made it his passion to forget or hide away. Yes . . . it was a lonely place—the human head. A place unfathomable to many, including the one in possession of it. It was a skyscraper with towers of levels and innumerable corridors and departments, some of whose doors were best left locked.

Perhaps, Simon suddenly thought as he blew lightly on his tea to cool it, that man walking into his apartment complex the previous night had been too absorbed in forgetting something to recall anything going on around him. Yes, the guy had been preoccupied. Simon wondered what had been on his mind. It must have been important, for him to have been able to ignore Joe's attempt to trip him. It wasn't even as if the man had ignored Joe . . . it had been more as if he hadn't even realized Joe existed. Joe hadn't even been a blip on his radar. Simon wished he could do that—force everything away and be unaware of outside distractions—but he didn't have that capability, and then again, he wasn't sure it'd be the right thing to do, even if he had the ability to do it. Abandoning one's frustrations never solved problems or answered questions. The world, for as discouraging and disappointing as it was, could not be ignored.

Simon sucked in a quick breath as he absent-mindedly sipped his too-hot tea and burned his tongue. He never blew on his tea long enough; he'd begin thinking and then, about fifteen seconds in, his mind would wander and he'd forget the task at hand. Subsequently, he'd sip his tea and burn himself. It was a good thing tongue cells reproduced quickly.

"Are you ok?"

Simon slowly looked up, as a diver surfacing from water, emerging from his haze to see the sharp, heart-shaped face of a woman. At least, he figured she'd be considered a woman . . . she looked young, but she seemed to possess too much authority to be called a girl. She was standing over him, looking down in some minor concern.

"Am I . . ?" Simon was confused; it showed on his face.

The woman smiled. "I heard you gasp." She mimicked his breath-intake. "I just wanted to make sure your tongue was all right."

Simon glanced down into his mug of dark liquid.

"You know, our coffee's pretty hot. Many, many poor people get a case of tongue-burn, here."

Her exaggeration caused him to reflect her smile. He turned his face back up, blinked, seemed to wake up. "Oh . . . oh, no. It's not coffee. It's tea."

She stood there for what seemed like a long moment but was actually a mere couple of seconds before nodding and turning away, adding over her shoulder, "I know. I served it to you, remember?" And as he watched her turn around the front counter and disappear from his vision, he felt a strange sensation. Something he couldn't remember feeling before . . . he thought it was what was referred to as nerves. It was as if that woman had, somehow, sparkled—though, naturally, she hadn't. People didn't sparkle or glow or glitter. Those qualities were reserved for moons and snowfalls. Still, something had put him off, and he couldn't quite grasp what it was. This was disconcerting to Simon; he felt mildly amused, but at the same time, he wasn't certain if it was right to feel amusement.

His phone rang. It startled him out of his reverie. Glancing at the lit screen on the front of the phone, he didn't recognize the number. As tempting as it was to ignore the call and allow his voicemail to pick it up, Simon felt compelled to answer. He always felt compelled to answer. His voicemail was virtually unused, because he always answered his calls.

He greeted whoever was on the other end of the connection with a questioning, quiet "Hello?"

"Simon?"

Good. It must be someone who knew him. "Yes."

"Simon, this is Audrey King. I . . . I live in the same apartment complex as you?"

She was clearly hoping he remembered her. Simon sensed that she felt awkward and hesitant calling him. He knew he should reassure her. "Oh, sure Audrey. I know. And we have physics A together."

"Yes! Yes." The relief was evident in her voice. "I hope that I didn't wake you up?"

Simon smiled wanly at the new comfort her tone radiated. "No, no. I've been up for a while." And he had been. Since four-thirty. He had awoken, and walked, and grown cold, and although he usually dealt with the chilly weather, for some reason he had stopped at this place craving hot tea. And so here he was, now.

"Good," Audrey continued. Hesitation crept back into her voice. "I . . . I understand if it's too much trouble, but I . . . well, my dad's car won't start this morning, and he had to catch a bus to work, and I . . ."

Her courage was failing. "I'd love to give you a ride."

"Oh, really? Great! I mean, I figured since you were in the same building as me, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to let me hitch a ride. You're a life saver, Simon! Thanks so much."

"No problem," he answered calmly, knowing not to tell her that he was actually already parked at school and would have to go backward to get her (that would make her feel bad and refuse to let him inconvenience himself). "I'll come up and get you in about . . . twenty minutes, all right?"

Even if that seemed a little late to Audrey, she didn't mention it. "Awesome. I'll see you soon. Thanks so much."

They left it at that. Simon hung up, his eyes having glazed over. He didn't realize he was staring into space absent-mindedly until the waitress from before passed by his table, bumping it a little and jolting him from whatever his thoughts were.

"Sorry!" she apologized, smiling sheepishly and steadying the bottle of creamer she'd disturbed. Then she carried the tray of coffee pot and cups she was holding up to some people sitting at the window.

Simon looked down at his hands. He'd have to ask for a to-go cup. This tea was good. And he'd have to get up and pay at the counter; it would take him just about the twenty minutes he'd mentioned to Audrey for him to get from here to there. So he needed to get going. But he'd have to remember this place. What was it called? As he stood, he scanned the décor, seeking a name, but all he picked up on was the fact that the whole place seemed full of shelves of old toasters. When he got his receipt, he looked at the top of it. "Toast thanks you for your patronage!" it read.