I arrived at Devanshi’s door wearing a hot green towel. My almost naked, slightly wet, self was quickly ushered into the room. My friend’s befuddled face amused me, and I was overwhelmingly relieved that she was home this Wednesday evening.

“I locked myself out of my room again. This time in my towel,” I added dismally, motioning to the box of toiletries I held in my hand. Diva sighed or smiled, one of the two. She did not seem particularly surprised, my forgetfulness not new to her after almost a semester of college. “So Divs, I was wondering, could you go get my key?” I asked, knowing this was not so much of a question as a statement. Of course Devanshi, my reliable, beautiful, Indian princess of a friend, would save me from the absolute mortification of crossing the Quad to get to the Fisher Hassenfeld Information Center with only my towel to cover my shivering skin and the lingering scent of bath products.

We worked out the essential information and the back story (although really the back story was the actual story) and I gave her the last four digits of my social security number. She left me her cell phone, in case He Who Guards the Extra Keys would refuse to give her the key to room 214.

I situated myself at the window sill, Diva’s sink and mirror to my left, stationed next to her poster of Klimt’s “The Kiss.” The absolute abyss of purple darkness was slowly blanketing the Quad in front me. Deliberately, I practiced what to say if Michelle, Diva’s roommate, decided to make an appearance. My brush went through my hair, “Devanshi and I, we actually dress like this around each other all the time.” No, that would definitely give Michelle the wrong idea. “I’m just hanging out waiting for Diva to come back.” Maybe that would be sufficient.

Black brush still untangling my saturated hair, I felt clean and beautiful; my simple garb strikingly juxtaposed with the elaborate robes the two figures in Diva’s poster sported. I decided at that moment that there was nothing more that I wished to wear besides the cotton habit that already adorned me. With little design, the simple swathe of material was unable to hide my forgetfulness and naiveté or my free-spirited soul. How lovely would it be if only the little people walking around on the paths outside of the window would de-bulk, embracing their bodies and souls and forever scorning materialism, brand names, and fake identities. We could all live purely in a world of peace.

Noting the freezing temperature the cold glass exuded, I knew this mental image of goodness and modest nakedness would never come true. Maybe at a themed dinner party, I concluded and retreated into the worries of my mind. And I laughed and had a general good time with myself and my image, reflected back at me from the mirror and from the window, and with the man and the woman in the poster, who, selfishly, appeared completely caught up with themselves. “Well fine,” I countered silently, “I can get caught up in my own infiniteness, in the fine purple darkness of this gorgeous night, in the room of an Indian princess, wearing only a hot green towel.”

“I’m back,” Diva called, startling me with the click of the door’s lock. “He said he could not give me your key,” she stated morosely. Suddenly, I shivered, longing for the elaborate garb of my silent friends, and picturing the smooth warmth of my butternut squash-colored sweater and blue jeans. Diva smiled. “Just joking,” she said, dangling silver keys in front of her. I concede living in a towel is much too revealing.