Roamin' Holiday

Roamin’

Holiday

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Synopsis: A familiar face turns out to be Daria Morgendorffer’s college roommate—but it wasn’t a face she had ever expected.

Author's Notes: This tale first appeared in a PPMB thread called “Scenes No Daria Fanfic Should Have: Hump Day,” in October 2009. As you can imagine, “Depth Takes a Holiday” is one of my favorite Daria episodes.

This tale makes use of a cheery font called Jester for the title and other bits. This delightful, useful, and free font can be easily acquired from Dafont.com or Urbanfonts.com.

Acknowledgements:

Her parents well on their way back to Lawndale and her belongings put away at last, Daria Morgendorffer inspected her half of the dormitory room with solemn approval: bookshelves stuffed beyond capacity, René Magritte print (La Chateau des Pyrenees) hung over the bed, Apple Mac laptop open and running on her desk, mini-fridge full of Ultra-Cola (her caffeine addiction a parting curse from her high-school days), colorful CD cases in formation and ready for duty, and clock-radio set to awaken her for classes on the morrow. She was well and truly at Raft College. She celebrated with a sigh. Her relief at being on her own at last could not be put into words.

She then cast an uneasy gaze over the barren other half of the room. All she knew of her companion-to-be for the year to come was her name: H. Wayne. Too bad it could not have been Jane Lane, her best friend. The thought of dealing with a difficult roommate cast a pall over the pleasure of the moment. Perhaps her roommate would drop off a few things, then leave for her boyfriend’s place and never return. Perhaps a computer error would place a nonexistent roommate with her, giving her full use of the room throughout her freshman year.

“And maybe a winged monkey will fly out of my butt,” she grumbled. Knowing there was nothing more to do about it until the new roomie showed up, she gathered the empty cardboard boxes from the floor, broke them down and flattened them out, then carried them outside to the dumpster in back of the dorm, per the many posted requests by the campus sanitation engineers to do so.

She had been gone from her room no more than five minutes when she returned and found the door ajar. This stopped her cold. She was positive she had locked the door on her way out. Fearing a break-in and the ruin of her introduction to college, she hurried forward and went into the room—and ran directly into a spider web.

“Gaaah!” she cried as she thrashed about, trying to get the mess out of her face and hair.

“Oh, there you are,” said a deep, throaty, and all-too-familiar voice across the room by the shaded windows. “Sorry about that. I’ll have Arachne keep the doorway free next time.”

Gasping, Daria put her glasses on straight and looked to see who had spoken. It couldn’t possibly be—

—but it was.

“Call me Holly, okay?” said Halloween, sitting in a tilted-back chair with her black leather boots crossed on her desktop. She frowned. “I’m on a sabbatical from Holiday Island High. A black sabbatical, you could say. I got expelled, the f###ing rat bastards. They didn’t even give me a f###ing diploma. Now Samhain’s got my old job, the f###ing backstabber.” Halloween—Holly—hammered her drumsticks against her kneecap, then looked up and said, “Got anything to drink?”

Wide-eyed, Daria took in her new college roommate. “Holly Wayne” wore knee-length black leather boots with golden buckles, into which were tucked skin-tight black jeans cinched with a gold-chain belt. Completing her ensemble were a pumpkin-colored Victorian vest over a crisp white blouse unbuttoned to her solar plexus, a half-dozen gold necklaces from which dangled crosses and crescent moons, and an unzipped black leather biker jacket with a bat-winged collar, undone straps, gold buckles and D rings, and a stark skull-and-crossbones patch on the left shoulder. Her darting black eyes took in every detail as they peered through a long, tangled mass of night-black hair.

Daria regained her voice. “Christmas and Guy Fawkes Day are hiding in the closet, right?”

“Nah, it’s just me this time. Maybe for good.” Holly’s face darkened and became frightening with rage. “F###ing bunch of f###ing—”

A distraction became all-important. “Will Ultra-Cola do?” Daria interrupted, walking to her mini-fridge. “It’s all I have.”

Holly’s mood lifted on the instant. “I knew you were still cool!” she proclaimed, jumping to her feet. She accepted a green, twelve-ounce bottle from Daria, unscrewed the cap, and chugged it down in a single motion. The back of her biker jacket was decorated with a ragged, flame-orange anarchy symbol.

“So you’re really here and I don’t have a brain tumor,” said Daria, still not sure she didn’t have a brain tumor.

“I pranked the mainframe to admit me,” said Holly. “Forged my transcript and everything. It was a bitch but it worked.” She burped loudly and tossed the empty soda bottle away to land beside her unmade bed. “I’m majoring in political science. F###ing Holiday Island fascists haven’t seen the last of me.” She looked down—being a half-foot taller than the five-two Daria—and studied her roommate. “None of my business, but you need a new look,” she said. “This isn’t high school anymore.”

“I’m not going trick-or-treating,” Daria said with a glare.

“F### that,” said Holly. “I mean, ditch the blazer and skirt. Wear something different. Or not. Whatever.”

The glare deepened. “Like what? A fuzzy ewok costume?”

“F###, I don’t know. You figure it out. Loosen up. Don’t carry your old baggage around. Throw it out and do something new. I don’t care.” Holly stretched, burped again, then relaxed and scratched her stomach. “Navel ring itches,” she muttered. “Stupid bastard Axel doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

The next hour of conversation was quite revealing. Holly could no longer return to Holiday Island following the publication of an incendiary editorial by her in the school’s underground newspaper. Holly had called for the school administration to be overthrown for instituting “unreasonable” searches and privacy-invading monitoring devices. Tracking the editorial’s author down turned out to be ridiculously easy, as one of the underground paper’s reporters (Walpurgis Night) was overheard laughing about the matter with fellow students. The eavesdropper was the school’s principal, Mr. Tyme.

“Wouldn’t even let me graduate with the hardcores,” Holly said, her dark look returning. “My little sister can graduate eventually, but not me. Why am I so much worse than Devil’s Night? She f###ing burns stuff down, for f###’s sake!”

“Times are different,” said Daria. She sat backwards on her own chair, chin resting on her crossed arms on the back of the chair. “It’s a reaction to school violence. Thoughtless rebellion breeds repression, which breeds intellectual rebellion. It’s an endless cycle.”

“Tell me about it. F###ing autocrats.” She took a swig of her third Ultra-Cola. Daria’s earlier irritation with her roomie had wholly vanished. Holly was a lot to take in at once, but she was starting to grow on Daria. Holly had Jane’s confidence and self-assurance, but was far more outrageous in style and attitude. It turned out she had read Sartre, Kafka, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, and Camus, but given her unexpected exile was sliding rapidly into a bleak nihilism. She rejected the status quo. She loathed duplicity and hypocrisy. She radiated danger and sex. Daria was helpless to keep from admiring her.

At some point, Daria realized Jane was hundreds of miles away. But Holly, hallucination or not, was here.

“Want to go out for pizza?” Daria asked. She gave in to impulse. “After I change clothes, I mean?”

“Sure,” said Holly. “We’re starting new lives. May as well look like it.”

Daria snorted but felt maybe Holly was right. She got up—then noticed the altered condition of the dorm room. The one spider web at the door had been joined by dozens more, most of them on Holly’s side. Lit candles burned from her roommate’s shelves, emitted soft glows and strange aromas. Instead of posters or pictures, spray-painted slogans had magically appeared on the walls over Holly’s bed. One couplet in particular caught Daria’s attention.

I shall blow up your buildings a little more

And be less open with you than I was before.

Holly noticed Daria’s gaze and looked at the wall, too. “Thomas Rainsborough,” she said. “I have to unpack a few things before we go. Be ready in a minute.”

Daria went to her closet, noted with relief that no other ex-Holidays lurked within it, and changed into some of the clothes her sister Quinn had recommended during a shopping spree a week earlier: a button-down eggshell blouse and a navy-blue jeans jacket with ankle-length matching skirt. She kept her old boots.

Moments later, they were on their way out for pizza. This is one day I'll never forget, Daria thought as she glanced at her companion. The irony of that statement struck her seconds later and made her grit her teeth. It proved true enough, though. It proved true enough.

Original: 10/09/09, 11/03/09

FINIS