Published

I had a class dinner. I was excited. I hadn't even warmed down, and my body was still pulsing from the last all out swim I had done. Snow was slowly accumulating on everything, and I watched my step as I trekked up the hill. There were strangers everywhere. A whole coach bus came carrying old people. It stopped within my sight to ask a dude walking in front of me where Frank Dining Hall was. It was, of course, the nearest building to them, but they were strangers, so I didn't expect them to know from the big windows and Colgate Dining Service Buses parked outside that Frank Dining Hall was Frank Dining Hall. I continued my walk. I didn't want to be late, and I had this sort of pent up giddiness in my system. I was excited to put lotion on my dry skin and get relatively dressed up. There were more strangers, exploring the campus on what people called, "tours". They made me want to hide whenever they were present. I didn't want people to examine me and add me to a list of reasons why this school was good or bad for them.

Reaching the apex of the hill I noticed a car pulled right outside of my dorm. Another stranger? I wondered. A young man, probably a college student, got out and ran towards one of the academic buildings, carrying a stack of some sort. Maybe he was delivering a paper right before deadline on this Thursday night. He ran back to his car. I fiddled with my Zune. He reappeared, and ran into East. I was close enough to realize that he was holding newspapers. My heart raced, then paused. I never heard back about my editorial, so I assumed it hadn't been published. Sad, because I had spent time on it, but I was also content that it would never reach the press. I didn't want anyone to be offended by what I wrote, and I definitely didn't want to inspire anger or dissatisfaction in people against me. So maybe it was good that it wasn't published.

I walked into East, and ran dangerously close into the young man. He was hustling, perhaps in a hurry to get them all delivered by a certain time. Our eyes connected. I thought he was attractive. I would've grabbed a paper from him, but he was moving really quickly, and I didn't want to make any awkward movements. Of course, if I was correct, there was more than one newspaper settling location in East hall, and as I walked around the corner, I saw a nice stack of them lying above a radiator. I took the top one, and began scrolling through the fresh warm pages as I walked upstairs to my room. I wanted to get through the whole newspaper without seeing my name. But as I was outside my door, I found it. "The Unfortunate Power of Words", in big bold letters, and above the first column in a small font, "By Elora Apantaku", and in smaller letters still, "Class of 2011".

I promptly did a 180, and, seeing Sasso's door open yelled, "Sasso! I got published!" My voice much giddier than I had anticipated. I bounded over to his door, finding Kayla, naturally, on his bed with him. "I got published! I'm so nervous! Ah! This is horrible!" Their faces both showed congratulations and confusion, but I had no time to explain, I had a dinner to get to.

Standing in my room, tossing on clothes, and pouring lotion over my cracking skin, then make-up all over my face, Kayla walked in, and hugged me, complimenting my article. Yet that meant nothing, for it was Kayla, and she would compliment me on anything, truly.

Sasso also said it was well-written. I figured, coming from an actual journalist, I must've done a good job. I was then satisfied. I couldn't believe it. Smiling as I put on make-up. In one week, I had gotten a paying job working with rats and had written something of high enough caliber to get published. Was the quality of my life getting better? Because I was thinking and had free time? Who knew. But my smile didn't go away, and I was still jittery, be it from swim practice, or instant fame, when I walked outside to go to dinner.