But I Could Always Tell In Her

I Really Like Umbrellas. It's Like, I Have A Roof! I Carry It With Me! Umbrellas Always Amuse Me.

I Nodded. I Liked Augustus Waters. I Really, Really, Really Liked Him. I Liked The Way His Story Ended With Someone Else. I Liked His Voice. I Liked That He Took Existentially Fraught Free Throws. I Liked That He Was A Tenured Professor In The Department Of Slightly Crooked Smiles With A Dual Appointment In The Department Of Having A Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I Liked That He Had Two Names. I’ve Always Liked People With Two Names, Because You Get To Make Up Your Mind What You Call Them: Gus Or Augustus? Me, I Was Always Just Hazel, Univalent Hazel.

I Told Him They Built A Statue Of Schultz, And Then He Said That A Monument Is Cold Comfort To A Dead Man, And Then I Said That The Statue Was Built Not For Schultz, But For Us--to Remind Us How To Be Human.

Tonight, Darling, We Are Going To Right A Lot Of Wrongs. And We Are Going To Wrong Some Rights. The First Shall Be Last; The Last Shall Be First; The Meek Shall Do Some Earth-inheriting. But Before We Can Radically Reshape The World, We Need To Shop.

The Colonel Explained To Me That 1. This Was Alaska's Room, And That 2. She Had A Single Room Because The Girl Who Was Supposed To Be Her Roommate Got Kicked Out At The End Of Last Year, And That 3. Alaska Had Cigarettes, Although The Colonel Neglected To Ask Whether 4. I Smoked, Which 5. I Didn't.