You’ll All Be Sorry
I’m the groundhog who lives under the Rothschild Place trailer, but I’m also sick of being known as only that.
Here’s my daily routine: I get up, step outside, eat some grass, shit in the grass, eat around said shit, then figure out the rest from there.
Sometimes a kid’ll come over and gawk at me. They’ve tried to make me self-conscious, but it didn’t work. If anything, I’m just too self-aware. I lay awake at night at least once a week in a total existential crisis. It helps to remind me that only in death are we truly free. The other six days and nights of the week I feel so, so alive.
Anyway, I understand why they stare. My butt is a little big as of late.
It’s because of the goddamn lawn mowers that come around once a week, taking the grass with them. Therefore, I have to eat it all before they can do so.
I’m a pretty cool guy though. I’m a pretty nice guy. A pretty groovy guy. They think I just live under Rothschild like a bum, just to keep out of the rain.
Bitch, that’s where I keep my record collection. I have shelves upon shelves of them ? the type you need a rolling ladder for.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John is still my favorite.
I can still remember dancing to Coltrane with Mabel before she passed. Damn, things have been hard since she left…
Anyway, my house is not a hole in the ground ? it’s a fucking studio apartment, you profiling fucks.
I’ll confess I stole a few things.
I’ll confess I stole a few things six times from the circle apartments last year, including a flatscreen. I don’t regret it either. In fact, I’d do it again. Not to be that guy, but if you don’t lock your doors, and all the grass is gone, and you’re hungry as fuck, but also your home needs rennovating, someone like me is gonna walk right in. I don’t care. In fact, you guys kind of actually deserve it.
Just the other day I stepped in a used condom on the grass.
And these white privileged fucks keep complaining about the dining hall food. Keep your juices out of mine!
Some kid almost caught me once, his gaming equipment falling out of my arms, but I darted away then slashed his tires. He wasn’t going anywhere, but I was.
That night, I set up the flatscreen under Rothschild and tuned right the fuck in to Love Island UK.
The footsteps above my head get annoying, and of course I go through the whole thing where I hit the broom against the ceiling, but they never listen. I can hear them sometimes say, muffled, “Aww, it must be the groundhog, haha. Ha ha ha,” and then the footsteps disappear, getting further away.
They think it’s cute.
I think it’s disgusting.
One day I’ll pump so much iron I’ll turn the entire dinky trailer right on its head ? and it’ll be completely and utterly spectacular…
Seth Alkhuja is a second-year writing and cinema & photography double major who leaves offerings to the groundhog gods in fear of the impending uprising. You can reach them at [email protected].
Art by Staff Artist Guinevere Fullerton.