The Rainy Extrapolatory Effect

Tuesday, it was dark. Marcus’s rationality had reached an all-time low. There he was in his dorm room, 8:30 AM, doing bong rips by himself, listening to the Wipers. His roommates were gone. The music was on loud. Jeanne came out of his bathroom.
“Do you spend every morning this way?” she asked him.
“It’s my special secret educational method.” he responded.
“Do you think it’s normal?”
“It’s completely abnormal.”
“Why do you do that? Don’t you think nobody will ever take you seriously?”
“Why would I want them to take me seriously?”
Jeanne crossed over the room to him.
“Fine. Can I smoke too?”
“Please. I love you.”
Outside it was raining. Greg Sage was screaming through the speakers about how we all had to feel it now. Jeanne cleared the chamber. Marcus leaned over to kiss her. They were sitting on his floor. They laid down supine and held each other. There was a loud crash outside.
“What is that noise?” Marcus said.
“I don’t want to know.” Jeanne answered.
They laid there together for a while.
“When do you have class?” she asked him.
“9:30.”
“What class is it?”
“It’s called Gender and Sex.”
Jeanne laughed.
“What do you talk about in a class called Gender and Sex?”
“Mostly about transsexuality.”
“What have you learned?”
“Some people think they’re born the wrong gender. They have to switch it to feel right.”
“Well, I know that. I mean, what else new did you learn?”
“I don’t know. It’s just repetitive all the time. Nothing new gets talked about. I think everybody in the class secretly wants me to be gay.”
“Don’t do that now,” Jeanne said. “But how, why?”
“Just to be sure that I don’t hold any prejudices.”
Jeanne sat up. “Things are so complicated, aren’t they?”
“It’s impossible to please everyone. But I’m doing my best.”
“I have class at 9:30 too.”
“What’s yours?” “Art History.”
“Who are you studying now?”
“Courbet, Eugene Delacroix—reading Baudelaire.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“It is. It’s oddly pertinent.”
“Oddly pertinent.”
“Oddly pertinent” Jeanne said again.
“Are you doing anything for Halloween?”
“I’m going to dress up as Sylvia Plath.”
Marcus laughed uproariously.
“That’s a great costume!”
“I’m just going to go off of the beginning of The Bell Jar. What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I think I’m going to dress up as the President.”
“Oh God, why?”
“It’s a good opportunity for satire.”
“It is. It is.”
They got up together and they grabbed their bags, and they walked out onto the street. Outside there were a hundred people gathered around the sidewalk. They went closer to inspect. There was blood. There was a motionless body. There were policemen. There were people talking on their cell phones. There was one person crying.