Julie Learns How To Make Porridge

Uncommon enough to see the earliest hours of the morning, when the nightsky turns to intense blue, and soon afterwards white from the light bathing the surrounding concrete blocks. The luminous mist wraps the scenery for two days now, and one could believe again there's nothing beyond the farthest tower to be hardly seen through it.
No sound but the humming of a nearby building airing system, the calm of a Sunday, and the deceptive light of a morning we wouldn't think so early give the feeling of an abandoned city.
I think a hint of curiosity pushed me to the kitchen the previous evening, where I found Topias gazing at the microwave.
"You make porridge?"
I had never tried it. I still recall Anne's peremptory judgement about porridge, and never went further than it.
Toby took the bowl out of the microwave, after the strange mixture raised a couple times dramatically fast. I stretched my neck to see what he'd do with that. "So how do you make...?" "Can you pour cacao on it? Apple pieces?" My weird ideas made him laugh, as he turned down all my proposals. Not many ways to do it. Butter, sugar, milk. I just learnt a few days before puuro is mostly made with water. I was not expecting that.
He explained how, as a child, he'd imagine the oat flakes floating above the milk level to be continents, and simulate plate tectonic with his spoon.
It looked interesting. I declined preparing one for myself right away and turned back to my room to finish typing another long and tedious summary of house research. Which however turns out to be a house finding, or nearly. The list of tasks, papers, people to call and letters to send is clearly displayed, black on white and cautiously written, in my mind. Looking really professional. Down to the slightest detail. Guarantors, sublet contracts, co-securities,all things unfamiliar but as always challenging enough to ignite my interest.
And so much more to do in a given time. I painfully recalled next day's lunch, and the pies to bake; and everything I was planning to do, and above all everything I could not plan to do. Next week would be so packed. I ought to get everything done about the renting by Tuesday, have another lunch on Monday, another again on Tuesday; people to call besides my work, and the paper summit to prepare along with the features, and all the rest for the end of my traineeship. Only one week to go already. And a week ending on Wednesday evening, as I take off to Oulu on Thursday afternoon.
It was so late already and I hadn't been doing half of what I wanted to. I went back to the kitchen, and Toby popped up immediately, eager to see how I was doing when coming to porridge. I purposefully prepared it with childish innocence. "Do you think it is enough? And, and, what do I do now? Do I really pour water? That much? Shall I mix it now?"
Done the right way, it was terrific. I had to call my mother and then first took the bowl, but gave up going to my room and stayed with Topias in the kitchen, devouring the thrilling-looking dish while discussing about different sorts of porridge and other Finnish things. She rang my phone, I called her back, for four times longer than needed as I had to repeat everything over and over again. Topias was drawing faces and spiral plants, psychedelic forms on a sheet of paper abandoned there by Marina, who was packing to leave for over a week.
We laughed about our parents' slowness of comprehension afterwards. I was so struck down by exhaustion, vaguely unwillingly whimpering at each step. Nothing more done, and I had to sleep. We'd see then. Couldn't do more at that point.
I barely slept. I barely sleep these days and scare myself looking at a mirror. I had been harrassed by insects for the whole of the night, and had no rest, but nor was I really willing to rest. It is not time to let go, anything. I am yet yearning for stopping doing for a while and being instead. But I cannot do it now on my own.
Sentences arise continuously to my mind, emerging from complete silence with a stunning concreteness and as alive as when first pronounced.
"Have you remarked how incredibly much of these white feathers there is along that path?"
"...when you look at someone so closely, that you cannot recognize that person"
"Look at the mirror!"
I start disliking here very much. Not the place, but all those people who arrive, cramming in the lift, all cheerful and new. They make parties. I got so far from that... This place is no longer my place, it is full of unknowns instead of comfortably empty. Those new people are exiling me.