It's later in the afternoon on Thursday. The sun has been out today, and the wind isn't swirling so all the cold is blamed on just that -- the cold. At the table next to mine in the Bean, a Rook lesson is taking place. Three girls play a demonstration round. Two students listen attentively to one as she explains different strategies and understandings. Perhaps this will be put to good use in their next planned social event. Young American girls, no? Behind them, a professor and student sit with coffee and a legal pad. They laugh often. Steve Buscemi lies with his coat still on. A younger crowd enters warily and is greeted by the barista, ordering drinks to go. Sticking yellow notes into her book, a student of Marie Antoinette solidifies her productivity. On the table sits the Norton Anthology of American Literature, a worn copy of Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent and a partially completed list of activities from the summer that I rescued just a few minutes ago, from the wrinkled recesses of my bag. Chase bats. Drink beer with Dad. Recite poetry. Eat cherries, spit pits, attempt to plant. Eat waffles with Carmela. Eat something with leeks in it. Play with dog. Outside the window, the light declines as the casual noises erupts and falters from our wandering thoughts.


"And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. So jolly," she repeated and smiled, for all the puzzled anxiety in her eyes, with what was meant to be an inviting and voluptuous cajolery.
He looked at her in silence, his face unresponsive and very grave -- looked at her intently. After a few seconds Lenina's eyes flinched away; she uttered a nervous little laugh, tried to think of something to say and couldn't. The silence prolonged itself.

-Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Harper Perennial. 2006.

My being is a finite, frail, temporal, conditional and vulnerable one. A state of susceptibility would wisely, and humbly, prelude that selfishly cathartic act of creation. Indulge, then. Why don't you? Not only is our collective prerogative disposed to suffering, there is also neglect and apathy. If only for sanity's sake, for a fleeting time of peace (as if there is a need to define the specific motive), indulge in manipulations, contortions and abstractions; laugh at the thought of accurate documentation. Why bother? Why bother to repeat the song of the sparrow back to the sparrow? Not only has the sparrow perfected what it was created to do, there is no shortage of song in its seemingly similarly finite entity.

I wonder of the correlation between how 'good' we consider something to be -- whether, and how much, we love something -- and to what degree said object, idea, piece or person affects us. These are sprawling questions, I know, but it's difficult for a novel to be written if the protagonist is forgettable. David Foster Wallace wrote that every piece of fiction is a lie. I agree and, more significantly, am intrigued with his claim. Aren't we enthralled anyway? Don't we find ourselves captivated in the realm of what could fairly be described as make-believe? The ideas and characters that linger with us -- isn't that what beauty is, even if terrifying and challenging?

While I was walking around this morning, a car pulled up right next to me. An old man was driving and wasted no time or pleasantries. "Direct me to the gymnasium." If it were a less beautiful morning, if I had less sleep in my bones, if he looked anything less like Walter Kronkite, I would have been a total jerk to him. "Direct me to the gymnasium," as if I were dressed in some shiny, rented vest and sharing weed with some talentless actor-hopeful outside while the rich and famous eat some overpriced, glitzy cuts of beef inside. If only he had known, of course, that I am a very big deal around these parts. The man smiled at me without smiling at me, before nodding imperceptibly and making his way with conviction. The next party I met, young pedestrians stood and hesitated before addressing me. I had my back to them, trying to focus on the top of a tree set upon a brilliant blue sky when I heard a mouse ask, "Um. Excuse me, sir?" I turned around to a frightened girl and two cowardly guys behind her. They all looked to be my age. "Sir," -- my goodness. The next was in the park, enjoying the hush of Iowa blanketed in January and allowing the sun to warm my face for a moment when a curly black dog came sniffing furiously. Her owner, a friend and a member of my parents' church (Faith CRC) came up with a smile and a camera of her own. She knew of me, had heard of me -- something about Dordt and so forth -- and I, her. The odd comfort was that, in our supposed familiarity but actual state of strangers, I found a calm security in her questions concerning all those big things: senior year, post-grad ambitions, Kenya. What we discussed wasn't advice as much as tangential themes and anecdotes. And after, she took a glove off so we could shake and I found myself placing my left hand over my right arm in doing so. She smirked in noticing this. I think I shrugged a little, apologizing.

Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold and the Norton Anthology of American Lit. (7th Ed. Volumes C, D and E) sit atop my library desk, towering next to the tiny one-use toothbrush that the bookstore is giving out like a more public institution might hand out condoms, except that I can't pump hand lotion into my disposable toothbrush and leave on my roommate's pillow. Well, I suppose I could. Anyway, the books feel like Christmas here. The short stories are not for a class I am taking -- they were under the Fiction Writing course that, though I completed two years ago, I sat in last night to decide on an independent study to round out my graduation requirements.

I've said that we don't know yet that we've been changed (but we can hope) and we don't know yet how we've been changed, but there are indications. I walk around saying asante instead of thank you, my hair is much shorter, my skin is a little more dark and my knees buckled in fatigue by eight last night. Jet lag... having me fall asleep catching up with old friends, greedily staying in while the room goes out bowling and waking at six the next morning, hesitating to play music for the shower for fear of disturbing the roommates. I still laugh, but I don't know the answer to how Kenya went... yet. Instead, I emit a gaggle of gibberish and hesitant indecision. "Uhhhhyyyyeaaahhh.... ummm..." Yep. Like an idiot, with my arms flailing about.