Illustration by Cody Angell

An all-too-common scene from the Integrated Learning Center computer lab:

Two guys, let's call them Nick and Larry, drift watchfully around the same packed area of computers. It's like musical chairs, but without the music and plenty of chairs, although none of the free ones are in front of a computer. Someone in the far corner of the room does some final mouse clicking, stands up, gathers her things and leaves.

One computer. Two guys. Sharing is not an option. Nick eyes Larry. Larry looks back at Nick and narrows his eyes. Larry fakes left then motions toward the computer. Nick spins past a backpack and makes a mad dash for it. Larry's slow off the line, but closer. He picks up some time by sliding across a desk and somersaulting across two swivel chairs. It's a dead heat.

Daniel Cucher

Nick catches Larry making a reach for the chair out of the corner of his eye. He slips off his backpack and tosses it at the chair's legs. The bag hits the chair dead-on, causing it to roll back and slam through a now-shattering wall of glass. Larry grabs a nearby chair, throws his left knee upon it and pushes off with his right leg toward the workstation. Nick grabs a chair and does the same. They glide toward each other on a collision course. The extreme speed causes the swivel chair plastic to begin melting.

Larry slides up to the desk first and hits the brakes. Nick flies into him, using the chair's back as both a shield and a ramrod. Larry swivels out of control away from the desk and falls off his chair in the pile of broken glass. Nick scoots up to the computer and rolls up his sleeves to commence his clicking.

"Not so fast," calls out Larry from behind. He pulls a shard of glass out of his neck and flings it at Nick like a Chinese star. Just as Nick's index finger descends upon the right mouse button, the spinning piece of glass tears through his fingertip. A single drop of blood splashes on the mouse, arousing the attention of the ILC information desk monitor. She stands up from behind her desk and a hush falls over the lab.

"There's no bleeding on the computers," she says.

Nick takes off his shoe, slides off his sock and wraps it around his finger. "Sorry, ma'am," he says holding up his bandaged wound. The lab monitor sits down and Nick returns to his clicking.

Just as Nick's last e-mail loads, Larry awakens from a brief blackout and kicks the back of Nick's chair. Nick jerks forward into the 21-inch flat-screen monitor, sending forth thin ripples of liquid crystal. "That's it," Nick says, lamenting the now damaged monitor. "It's one thing to slice off the tip of my index finger. But when you mess with university equipment, you cross the line." With that, Nick lifts up the CPU and slams it down on Larry's foot.

"My foot!" cries Larry.

A cell phone begins a high-pitched single-note rendition of Beethoven's fifth. Larry gets to his feet and cracks his knuckles. Nick spins around and looks up at Larry, inviting him to just try and take his computer.

Just then, the University of Arizona Police Department SWAT team descends from the ceiling, breaks through the remaining glass wall and busts through the front door. Twenty- and 30-something heavily armed males with buzz cuts and moustaches, wearing black jumpsuits, flood into the ILC, surrounding the two boys. A chopper thuds away overhead. "Step away from the computer," thunders down a voice over amplified static.

Nick and Larry back cautiously away from the workstation with their arms raised. A cop fires a shotgun into the air and Nick and Larry dive for cover. With the two boys cowering under a desk, the police chief sits down at the computer to check his e-mail. He notices the damaged monitor and asks, "What's it take to get a computer around here?" The chief looks over at a student busily typing away, who looks up at him, bites his bottom lip and takes off for the front door.

There are not enough computers for us to use at the same time, nor will there ever be. This is similar to the way everyone can't be served fast food tacos at the same time, and how all the cars can't go through the same green light.

Sometimes, there are red lights. Having high-speed everything at our disposal makes us just a bit edgier when we have to wait. But waiting is inevitable.

So let us be patient. It will keep us from unnecessarily killing each other.