Activity

“For you to assume I’m so heartbroken,” I said. “It is presumptuous.”

“Yeah, I get it.” He sighed. “My friend Imre said I was behaving really badly toward you. He said I was—what was it, it was a funny expression. Leading you on. He said I was leading you on.”

It felt like being hit again, th…

Over lunch, Lakshmi from the literary magazine told me about the preoccupying problem of her life. The preoccupying problem of her life was a boy. He was a senior, like Ivan. Lakshmi and I tried to discuss our shared plight, but the things that happened to us were so different that they barely seem…

Helen, the fiction editor, was petite and cute, with a down-to-earth manner. I could see she wanted me to like her, and I did like her. Without knowing how to demonstrate it through any speech act, I towered over her mutely, trying to project goodwill.

Ralph and I went to the student center to study for midterms. He was reading an econ textbook and I was studying psycholinguistics. Every time I looked up, I caught the eye of Ham from Constructed Worlds, who was sitting at a nearby table with three other guys.

After a few minutes, Ham came to o…

Winter drew to a close. Gray dull snowbanks began melting to reveal all kinds of half-frozen garbage. The air smelled of dirt. You were always tripping over dead birds. Daffodils came up, just in time to be crippled by a late snowfall, which turned immediately into slush.