"The smoke-filled rooms that traverse the passageway leading me through the cavern are filled with young people around college age. The talk is subdued, muffled. A revolution or joke is being considered. My presence is an afterthought that never fully registers on the cavern's collective mind as it absorbs the shape my figure has taken.

"I have a beer mug in my hand and I am talking to a young woman who has dirty blond hair standing out in all directions. Her ice-blue eyes have a tendency to turn black whenever she uses her forehead and beautiful cheekbones to make a point. She never really makes a point but jutting her forehead forward and raising her cheekbones up toward her eyes means, I suppose, that she is actively thinking her response out into the smoky-air we sift ourselves in."