Big Brown Box

From Betweenlines

Alex didn't leave from the library until late that night.

When he finally did make it back to his room, it was getting on towards morning. He gently shook the doorknob into place where it could be unlocked properly; it had come off three times in the past year alone, but the dorm hadn't bothered replacing it entirely yet, citing a switch to a swipe-card system that would come "soon, really, we think". The room was mostly dark, save for the bright-white glow of an LCD on the other side of a divider, the sounds of some video game or another emanating from it. Alex quietly stepped in, closed the door behind him, and promptly tripped over something.

The explosions came to an abrupt stop, and a few seconds later the light came on. Alex groaned, more in exhaustion than in pain.

"Are you okay, man?" his roommate spoke. Matt was a much taller- larger- man, having been forged from one mold of stereotypical geek, with a bushy ring of black hair around his head and wardrobe mostly by Cafepress. He looked worriedly at Alex.

"I'm fine." He stood back up, brushing off his bruised leg and leaning over to drop his backpack into a nearby chair. Things were piled in the floor where they wouldn't normally be; that must be what he'd tripped over. "Why are... why is your Guitar Hero in the floor?" He gestured to a brightly-colored plastic instrument.

"Oh!" Matt exclaimed in delight. He hopped over a stack of books (Alex's) and a pile of laundry (unknown) and threw open the door to the oversized closet. There was a very large, heavily-taped cardboard box in it, and he slowly dragged it out onto the floor. "This thing came for you. What is it? Open it!"

Alex blinked sleepily. "I have no idea. Who's it from?"

"It's from a software company. Open it," he grinned at Alex and sat back down.

The wheels turned in his head; software company...? The type on the side said Visualize. That sounded vaguely familiar. He kneeled and started picking at the tape on the sides; after a few futile attempts Matt handed him a butter knife and Alex went at it with that. Ripping off the first layer, he found a wave of foam peanuts, and grabbed a trash bag to toss those into; underneath was bubblewrap, which his roommate happily collected; and then another box. At this point Alex was ready to believe someone had sent him a set of packing material, but underneath all of this, there was a chunk of what was very obviously electronic equipment. Both young men examined the haul with great interest, and a dim light of memory entered Alex's thoughts.

"Good lord," he breathed. "Don't they usually just send a CD?"

"Wow. I really hope you get to keep all this stuff when they go bankrupt," Matt snickered. He waved the baton around idly as Alex unpacked the rest of it.

"This is ridiculous." There was an entire computer in here, a visor, a set of gloves- he made a mental note to examine the whole set in the morning. Morning. Right.

He yawned. "Wonderful, now I'm going to be dreaming about this if I can get to sleep."

"You're going to sleep when you have all this to play with?"

"I've been out all night," Alex grumphed. "At least it's a weekend."

Matt looked slightly crestfallen. Alex smiled at him. "You can see in the morning. Just keep it down." He sighed and put the baton down.

It was a quiet night other than that, all things considered.