A Muffin a Day Keeps the Human Away

Five Years Earlier...

I walked up the stairwell to my room on the third floor. The dorms I had moved into this year were fairly new and not full yet. It would be me and my roommate sharing a common room, kitchen, and bathroom in Room 312. Three of the other twelve rooms were filled so far, and by the end of the semester they’d all be full as well.

This would be my junior year and I was looking forward to getting back in the swing of things after a long summer vacation. My only concern was getting a roommate that I didn’t like, as I get annoyed quite easily. There was nothing worse than getting done with class and my job delivering mail throughout the dorms than to get to my room and have an obnoxious roommate interrupting my studies.

The staircase finally ended and I stopped for a moment to rest against the wall, catching my breath. They really should have spent the extra money for some more elevators. There was only one elevator in this dorm building and already it had been vomited in three times over the summer. The smell was revolting and no matter how many times they cleaned the vomit out, it seemed to linger in the cracks between the linoleum and the panel walls.

Besides, I’d be a bit less pudgy from taking the stairs every day. This was nothing compared to the pain of moving all my belongings into the dorm, and with the first day of class tomorrow my roommate should be here by now.

I walked across the cheap, thin carpet to my room at the end of the hall. The card reader beeped twice as I slid my card through and the door clicked open. I pushed it in and heard the television was on.

“Hello?”

“Yo!” The person in the other room didn’t bother to get up. “What’s up?”

My new roommate had been shopping, which would come in handy as long as he wasn’t one of those people who marked all their food. The muffins he had on the counter in particular looked good.

I walked past my room and tossed my backpack in it. The sounds from the living room were awfully lively and I could hear cartoonish characters speaking. When I walked in on him in the living room, he was watching some colorful ponies in a cartoon. I was at a loss for words, but to each their own.

He turned and saw me standing there with my eyebrow raised. “Oh, you seen this episode yet?”

“Episode of what?”

“My Little Pony.”

I sighed and shook my head. “No. I’m Derek, by the way.”

“Oh yeah, I’m Matt. Nice to meet you.”

He stood up to shake my hand and I saw the T-Shirt he was wearing. It prominently featured a grey pony with blond hair, and the most ridiculous wall-eyes I’d ever seen. I couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s that?”

“Hmm?” He glanced down and back up. “Oh, that’s Derpy.” He took my hand and shook it.

“Okay… I, uh, have some work to do before class tomorrow. Just don’t make too much noise and we’ll get along fine.”

“Sure thing, boss.” He sat back down to watch more of his show.

As I walked towards the kitchen my stomach rumbled and I realized I was long past due for a meal. He must have heard it rumble, because he shouted to me from across the room. “Hey, feel free to help yourself to some of the food I bought. The muffins are my favorite.”

I entered the kitchen and looked around, finding a glass and some milk. The muffins on the counter did look pretty good, and a couple chocolate muffins would definitely hit the spot. My stomach rumbled again as I smelt them. They looked like the kind you’d buy in mass at Costlow Supermarket.

Glancing back to make sure he was still watching his cartoons, I grabbed three and took them with the milk to my room. He did say to help myself, after all.

Once in my room I sat down at the computer and fired up reddit to see what had happened on the internet today. I glanced at the muffins and milk and unwrapped one, then took a tentative bite.

The muffin was moist, almost too moist for a store-bought muffin. It melted in my mouth and I barely even got thirsty as I took a few more bites. It tingled a bit and felt warm, and I looked down at the wrapper in front of me.

Delicious Muffins, just like mom used to make. Don’t sacrafice quality or nutrition for good taste! Made from all-natural, FDA-approved ingredients bought from local farmers who don’t use chemicals…

I flipped it over, eager to get past the nonsense and see the nutrition information. I finished off the muffin and unwrapped a second to eat while I looked at it. The ingredient list did look pretty standard, with whole wheat, unbleached flour, and other natural ingredients. There seemed to be a few I didn’t recognize, likely preservatives.

Produced by Sugarcube Corner Inc. Dubuque, IA...

My finger got bitten as it pushed the last bit of muffin into my mouth. I pulled it back and shook my head before unwrapping the third muffin. There was no way I would be losing weight this semester with all these muffins around. I vowed that this would be my very last muffin, before devouring it.

After half an hour of getting my stuff ready for class tomorrow, I was too tired to continue. My weekend must have really tired me out as it was barely eight in the evening, but I did have class early so I hit the hay all the same.

Once I’d taken off my clothes and gotten in bed, I quickly fell asleep.

I began to toss and turn in the middle of the night while I had strange dreams. In them, there were spiders crawling all over my body making it itch furiously. Finally, I tossed the sheets off of me and groaned as I set up. My body was drenched in sweat and my skin itched from head to toe.

“Fuck my life,” I muttered. This wasn’t how I wanted my first day of junior year to go. I hadn’t had insomnia since freshman year when I had been much more stressed and less confident of my abilities.

It couldn’t hurt to take a quick shower and cool down, so I got out of bed and grabbed a pair of shorts. There was a fan in my room, so I pulled the chain to turn it onto high, and I opened the window.

As I looked out into the night sky, a cool breeze swept through the room and I could feel myself relaxing. It was a lovely night outside, maybe I could take a stroll if I couldn’t fall asleep.

The common area of the dorm was quiet, and aside from the box set of My Little Pony on the coffee table, completely devoid of signs of my roommate. At least he wasn’t one of those computer science guys who stayed up until four in the morning every night, only to wake up around two the next day. On the other hand, now I’d have to be careful not to wake him up.

The bathroom was small but had all the typical things a college student would need: toilet, sink, and shower. I closed the door and turned on the lights, looking at my face to find the skin red and puffy. I groaned loudly as I rubbed at my cheeks, causing the itching to stop for just a moment.

It looked like I’d been out in the sun too long, and my hair seemed to have lightened a bit. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or my illness, either way I didn’t want to explain to three different teachers why I’d missed the first day of class on top of spending the first few days of school sick in my dorm room.

I shook my head and climbed in the shower and hoped that this was all an allergy to the detergent I’d used on my bedsheets or something stupid that’d be easy to fix. The warm water almost stung, so I adjusted it until it was nice and cool.

Once I’d gotten clean I just sat in the shower and let the water run over me, soothing the aches until my skin had stopped itching. While I sat there, I examined my skin, noticing I seemed to be a bit hairier than I recalled. It was very fine hair, almost grey, all around my longer brown hairs. I had to squint before finally shrugging and putting it out of my mind. I’d learned in biology humans have just as much, if not more, hair-per-inch than other primates. The difference is how fine ours is.

Finally I turned the water off and grabbed my towel to dry off. I yawned loudly as I left the bathroom and passed by the kitchen, suddenly in the mood for a late night snack. I didn’t feel like cooking and there was still the two dozen muffins my roommate had bought—he wouldn’t miss a couple more.

I took some strawberry muffins back to my room and ate them without bothering to sit down or grab something to drink. This would be a quick snack before I got some more rest for tomorrow.

After I’d eaten the two muffins I laid in bed, still feeling too warm to use the blanket. Instead, I just laid there as the cool night breeze blew in the window and over me. It felt much more comfortable, reminding me just how stuffy the air inside the apartment could get.

Sleep took me as the breeze blew through the room, putting my mind at ease.

The sun fell through the window onto my bed and I rolled over to shield my eyes. The breeze was gone and I found it hard to sleep in without the cool air. I rubbed my eyes and opened them to look at the clock.

The alarm clock next to the bed didn’t quite come into focus. My eyes must have been tired because it took a minute before I could finally make out the time. It was seven fifty, which gave me ten minutes to get to class.

I yawned and snuggled back into the pillow. A moment later, my brain caught up with the program and jolted me awake as I recalled my first class was at eight. I had overslept the alarm.

“Fuck!” I shouted, leaping out of bed and bounding towards my closet to get some clothes on. I grabbed the first pair of shorts I found along with a shirt, and sat down on bed. My ankles ached from when I had jumped out of my bed, and a few patches of my skin still itched. I also seemed to have a sore muscle in my back.

It was just my luck to be sick enough to suffer but not sick enough to ditch class. I rubbed my eyes to get the last bits of drowsiness out of them. One of them was beginning to sting because I had been rubbing them so much and the day had barely started.

With a loud string of expletives I grabbed my backpack and walked towards the door. There were some pop-tarts I had bought that I could eat, but I didn’t have time to heat them up. A few apples sat in a bowl, but I’d never been much of a fruit guy. This left me with the muffins on the counter.

At this point I was feeling pretty bad. When my roommate said I could share his food, I doubt he expected me to eat all of his muffins. Yet as I looked at them, I couldn’t resist. They were just too delicious, and he did tell me to feel free to eat them.

With a quick glance around, I unzipped my backpack and tossed four muffins in, then zipped it back up. I grabbed two blueberry muffins to eat on my way downstairs.

The door locked behind me as I left and entered the stairwell, already working on the second muffin. My stomach was still rumbling and I felt like I had back in high school, when my body was still growing and I could eat everything in sight and still be hungry. Luckily, there was plenty of food back in my dorm room to eat. Maybe later tonight I’d have some macaronni and muffins, or go out for a steak and muffins, though perhaps some muffins would be good too.

Gosh, these things sure are addictive.

By the time I got to class I was five minutes late and wound up sitting in the back of the class. The professor shot me a nasty look, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

The lecture was long, boring, and monotone. Somewhere around the discussion of the course syllabus and grading system I found myself digging around my backpack for a snack. After a couple minutes of confusion, I lifted it up and looked inside. I knew I had put four muffins in there, yet all I could find was wrappers.

My stomach rumbled but there was little I could do until break. Even then, my next class was across campus in fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t have time to go to the bistro or pizza place to eat. I’d have to grab something at a vending machine.

The bell rang and I dropped my bag, looking around at the students getting up and leaving. I must have zoned out sometime during the lecture. I looked down at my notes to see if the teacher had talked about anything important, but there were no notes, only doodles of food.

I stuffed the notebook into my backpack and rushed towards the door and the nearest set of vending machines. They were in a small, shaded area outside, and I went up to the snack machine first. I looked through the chips and cookies up top, finding nothing that good looking. Down at the bottom was just candy and gum, but there on the side was a chocolate muffin. It sure looked tasty, so I bought it along with a soda.

There was a bench nearby so I sat down to eat, hoping it’d tide me over. I unwrapped it and began to ate it, but it was dry and stale. It wasn’t a very good muffin, nowhere near the quality of the ones back in my dorm room. Yet I was hungry and didn’t have much choice, so I finished it quickly and washed the taste out with the soda.

It didn’t do much to satiate my hunger, but it’d do for now. I headed into the math class and was able to get a seat near the middle this time. I was far enough back that I could mess around or check my phone, yet close enough to actually hear what the teacher said.

The class seemed to drag on forever, yet only ten minutes had gone by. The derivatives and functions we were learning would likely never come in handy anyway, so I began doodling in my book again. My fingers were aching pretty bad, and I looked at how I was holding my pen. It didn’t look like I was holding it wrong, though my fingers were definitely sore.

I sighed and leaned back, pulling at the sore muscle in my back and nearly swearing out loud. This day wasn’t getting any better. Then I saw my roommate walk in late, speaking to the teacher briefly, and then sitting in the back of the class. He didn’t appear to be sick, so I couldn’t blame him for my illness.

Between randomly itching and aching and being hungry I couldn’t focus on the class. My feet were starting to kill me too, and I regretted buying new shoes. When I got home I’d pull my old sneakers out and start wearing them again.

The teacher began to write formulas on the whiteboard, but I was just too distracted to pay any attention. Besides, I just couldn’t seem to focus on objects far away from me.

I slumped down on the table and moaned, deciding to just nap through the rest of the lecture. Judging by the hushed laughter and the teacher’s brief pause, this hadn’t gone unnoticed. Luckily, everyone thought nothing of it and went back to what they had been doing.

After class I raced back to the dorm, eager to eat everything I could get my hands on, and take the longest nap in history. It was a rather shitty first day, but after explaining I wasn’t feeling well, my math teacher decided not to count me as absent for class.

No sooner had I walked into the main building to the dorms, the resident advisor saw me and walked over. “Hey, Derek, here to pick up and deliver the mail?”

I groaned and gave him a blank look. “Come on, I’m exhausted and sick…” It was my job to distribute the mail to the mail slots on each door in the dorms, and it might take the better part of an hour to pass out all of it. Still, I’d gotten certified to deliver mail and it was quite a responsibility. If I just stopped delivering the mail, tons of people wouldn’t get their letters. “On second thought, I guess I can handle it.”

“Glad to hear it, but if you need someone to cover for you, let me know, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” I frowned and walked over towards the mail room, sliding my ID to get in. I grabbed the bag with the bundles of mail in it, labeled by room, and left. Considering I got paid a small amount and got a discount on staying in the dorms, it was worth a little suffering to keep my job.

As I began passing out the mail I felt a bit relieved, some of the stress melting away. It was easy enough to do for a job, and a very important one. A few times I’d miss the mail slot and drop the letters on the floor. Considering I wasn’t feeling well, I decided being slightly clumsy was to be expected.

The dorms were rather vacant, which I was glad for, as I wasn’t really in the mood to chat. Instead I just hummed a tune while trying to figure out where I’d heard it before, and thinking about what flavor of muffin I’d eat later.

I finally reached the third floor of my dorm, delivering the last stack of mail to my own dorm room and going inside. I tossed my backpack and the mailbag in my room and nearly collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. First I needed to see what my roommate was up to and let him know I wasn’t feeling well. I’m sure he’d keep the noise down or pick my homework up for me if I asked.

Inside the kitchen I looked for the muffins but didn’t see them. It made sense my roommate would hide them after I ate over half of them in the first twelve hours we lived together. He was watching television again so I went in to relax and see what was on.

I plopped down on the couch across from him, moaning as I sank into the cushions and relaxed. “God, I had such a crappy day,” I complained.

“You don’t look so good,” he replied. He looked at me from head to toe, almost looking smug and satisfied. “And I can hear your stomach rumbling. You come down with the flu?”

“I wish. I don’t know what it is. I ache and itch and am always starving. I just wish I had the energy to cook something. I’ve been eating nothing but muffins to save time. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Matt chuckled, and pointed to the coffee table. “Hey, don’t feel bad. I have plenty of them, and I just moved the rest of that box in here to the living room.”

In the middle of the table was a bowl full of wrapped muffins. I instantly smiled, recalling how nasty the “normal” muffins I could get on the campus at vending machines tasted. There were a couple empty wrappers here too, so I could tell Matt had been enjoying them as well.

“Thanks, Matt, you wouldn’t believe how amazing those muffins taste.”

He laughed again. “I think I would. I do buy them all the time, after all.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“Nah, eat as many as you want.”

I nodded and reached forward, pulling out as many flavors as I could spot. There was cinnamon swirl, bran, banana nut, strawberry-blueberry fusion, white chocolate, double chocolate, and more. Finally, I realized I’d set thirteen muffins out in front of me.

“Wow, going for the baker’s dozen?” Matt asked.

I blushed, looking away from him nervously. “Sorry, I don’t know what gave me that idea. I’m just hungry is all.”

“Nah, don’t mind me, eat up. My show is almost back on anyway.”

The nearest muffin was bran and I shoved it in my mouth. I’d never tried a bran one before, and judging by the name I expected it to taste nasty. However, it had a sweet taste like brown sugar and a simple natural flavor to it. Once I’d chewed and swallowed that, I turned to see my roommate smiling. “What?”

“Oh, My Little Pony just came back on. I was curious if you were gonna stay to watch.”

I glanced up at the television, finally remembering where I’d heard the tune I was humming while delivering the mail. It was the theme song for this show, and part of me wanted to get up and leave. “I’ll stay and finish the muffins, unless you feel like running out and buying some TV dinners. I usually cook my meals so we’ve got lots of ingredients and nothing I could just ‘heat up’ in the kitchen.”

“Nah, I’m watching the whole second season. I’ll get some groceries tomorrow if you leave me a twenty.”

I nodded as I inhaled the strawberry-blueberry muffin. “Eh, sure.” It was so good to finally be able to eat my fill. The show came on and I did my best to ignore it while I ate. I would finish up and head back to my room. The art style did seem to be growing on me, and by the time I’d eaten my fill I relaxed and watched the show, slowly picking up on who the characters were.

The show ended shortly after, and my roommate left to do his own homework. I considered watching some without him, but decided to just go get some sleep.

My room was a bit messy, so I began to clean it up before I went to bed, opening the window to get some fresh air. The sun wasn’t quite set yet and I didn’t want to close the blinds and block the breeze. As I walked around and stood on my feet for a while the aching began to get worse. I kicked off my shoes to walk barefoot in the room, which helped a little.

The sun had set and my room would be clean enough for now. Perhaps I did have the flu, as I felt like I had a fever and plenty of sore muscles. However, if it was the flu, why was I able to keep so much food down?

I set the alarm clock for later in the morning as I didn’t think I’d be in any mood to go to class tomorrow. Once I got in bed I started trying to go to sleep.

After tossing and turning for a while I could feel a sharp pain at the base of my spine. I laid on my side to try and relieve the pressure, but the stinging pain continued and sent tingling down my legs. When it became too much to bear I got out of bed and reached around to rub the sore spot.

There was a pretty large bump on my butt right below the spine, and it was very tender. I couldn’t get a good look at it, however it felt around a couple inches long and swollen. It would throb each time my heart beat and I laid back down on my stomach to ease the pain and try to sleep.

With only my boxers on now, I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep. I could feel the itching start again as I began to sweat, yet the cool breeze coming in from the window offset it and gave me some comfort.

As I fell asleep I began to dream of the cartoon again. With all that was going on I was surprised I was sleeping at all, and the fact it was lucid was even rarer for me. In the dream, I was flying around town to deliver letters to all of the ponies. It was pleasant as far as dreams go, but soon enough I knew I’d wake up and likely spend another day feeling like crap.