Looking For Alaska

Although I was more or less forced to invite all my "school friends" i.e., the rag tag bunch of drama people and English geeks I sat with by socail necessity in the cavernous cafeteria of my public school, I knew they wouldn't come.

She festooned our living room in green an yellow streamers, the color of my new school.

I hate the rich snots here with a fervent passion I usually reserve only for dental work and my father.

And when I asked Alaska, she started yelling, 'You're not going to impose the patriarchal paradigm on me.'

"Pudge is done with staring out the window, and I'm done with going on tirades about it he's a terrible teacher, and you won't convince me otherwise."

Before we even got off the campus, Lara was lurching helpessly whenever Alaska took hard turns, so I took Alaska's advice and wrapped my arms around Lara's waist.

The Colonel blew smoke rings, and Takumi called them "pretentious" while Alaska followed the smoke rings with her fingers, stabbing at them like a kid trying to pop bubbles.

"Yeah. Heard you puked on Lara. Very suave."

I mean, I knew it was inevitable.

She coaxed me onto the couch, and we played Decapitation together until she abruptly dropped the controller.

I did not hear her words so much as the cadence of her voice.

By the time they started doing it, Alaska commenced with her righteous indignation.

But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and i was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating.

"All right. The snow may be falling in the winter of my discontent, but at least I've got sarcastic company. Sit down, will ya?"

The colonel relied so heavily on perfect synchronicity that if one of us messed up even slightly, the endeavor would collapse entirely.

The Colonel and I said nothing, while a bunch of people who didn't know Alaska extolled her virtues and professed to be devastated, and at first, it bothered me.

I'd never entered Coosa Liquors, but it was every bit desolate as Alaska described.

My research is in the field of sexual linguistics, specifically the way that young people discuss sex and related questions.

The four of us returned to room 43, aglow in the sucess of it, convinced that the Creek would never again see such a prank, and it didn't even occur to me that I might get in trouble until the Eagle opened the door to our room and stood above us, and shood his head disdainfully.

Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations.