The next morning they sit down with a piece of bread and cheese each.
"I'm ravished," says the first.
"Me too. This cheese is so appetizing."
"What do you think is wrong with Steve?"
"He probably doesn't like you because you're too fat."
"Yeah. . . ."
"We just have to keep on exercising. We forgot on Wednesday."
"I don't know how long I can go on this way."
Everyone is in the same predicament. It is hard to take responsibility for one's own existence without privacy and without time. It is hard to use even the freedom one does have, for it is hard to realize it is there. The noise of the dorm fills up the spaces and presses in on the people living there, sounds, words, commands--the voice of the public consciousness. The constricted space of plural living is a sign of sorrow. Free, open space is needed for the fortuitous and the unforeseen to occur, for the emotionally neutral and the amplitude of life everyone has a right to expect.