Chapter 4:

[come.on.sweet.catastrophe]

(zac)
I absolutely hate early morning Boston traffic, especially around the airport. Don't people know about the wonderful world of public transportation and the like? I'm beginning to think not. I began to tap my fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently, as I tried to make my way to Alexandra's dorm. And, to be honest, I'm not sure why I am going there to pick her up, especially after last night and how things were left between us. Maybe I was just overreacting and maybe her silence scares me a little bit. I mean, I always heard of stories about MIT students and their compulsive, sometimes psychotic natures. How they would simply go insane from the constant pressures of academic life at MIT. I guess I always thought that when she was quiet, she could possibly be plotting my destruction, or something...one just never knows. The traffic began to lighten up and I continued my course in the direction of Alexandra's.

***

"Alex...Alexandra" I shook her once again. She mumbled something incoherently that sounded a little French, but atlas, I'm no French major by any means. She was wearing the clothes that she had on yesterday evening, and entangled in her bed sheets.
"Wha...Zac?" she said in her half sleep half conscious voice.
I sat down in a chair next to her bed, "So are you ready to go?" I half smiled. She looked up at the clock and then closed her eyes again.
"Don't yell, please." she whispered, pulling what portion of the sheet she could over her head.
I looked over at her desk and noticed the bottle of wine that she had open last night had a lesser volume now. I kind of had to laugh, inwardly of course.
I stood up and looked around her messy dorm room. I had seen worse, though. This was like maybe an F3 destruction zone. I started to grab random items that looked like they might be important to one's wardrobe and began to stuff them in a plastic bag.
Alex looked up from her resting postion, "What on bloody earth are you doing?"
"I'm packing for you, our plane leaves fairly soon and I just couldn't have you wearing the same thing over and over again back home."
She pulled the sheets back over her head and emitted a deep sigh. "I never really liked Christmas...in all of its entirety."
I dropped the plastic bag that I had been holding, and stood prefectly still with shock. AFter a few moments of no commenting on my part, she peired out above the sheets and giggled. I threw my hands in the air, "How can anyone not like Christmas??" I emphasized each word -- each syllable. "I mean the soft sent of pine, the lights, the smell of fresh Christmas cookies baking in the kitchen, and Heaven bless me -- but the thoughts of a rather large man shimming down the chimney! Come on Alex...Christmas is the ultimate holiday."
"Excuse me," she said throwing back the sheets and getting out of bed, "I didn't know I had a Christmas Fan on my hands."
"You are forgiven...now hurry up and fix your self, because the plane leaves fairly soon." I spoke waving her off. She grabbed a handful of clothes and waltzed into the bathroom. I sat on her bed and turned on her tv, only to be suprised by what she had previously been viewing.
The hills are alive with the sound of music....
Julie Andrews greeted me with heart and voice and I soon felt the urge to vomit. It was bad enough I had stumbled apon Alex recovering from her midnight soiree with her fancy French refreshement, but to later learn of the Von Trapp Family accompanying her is rather unsettling and the blight of humor has now plagued me.
She stepped out of the bathroom and looked at me with some sick sort of humor spread across her face. "Don't laught at me."
"I can see why you finished that bottle of wine now....this too would make me become an alcoholic." I stated with utter disgust.
She walked over the tv set and turned it off to my dismay. I was quite looking forward to further injuring myself with nightmares that ensue whenever I even see an Asturian hilltop.
"I just don't see how I have to come home with you for Christmas, epseically in this form. I am not fit to even visit the town idiot, if i have not converted into such!" she said throwing her hands up into the air emphatically and then sitting down on her unkept bed. I really do enjoy these rash outbursts of hers, they are like vitamins for the wearing soul. I looked at her, a smile so evident on her face, but words could not be conceived from my mouth that would pronounce the truth behind my motives. I am a sad sort. I just wanted to be near her for Christmas, is that so incredibly selfish?
"No one in their right mind should ever have to spend Christmas alone." I said in a knowing tone as I went and sat beside her on the bed. "And my mother would just not hear of it." I smiled.
She sighed, "It is just not fair."
"I know, now come on before we have to walk to Tulsa."

***

(alexandra)
I sat next Zac on the plane as we flew over hilltop, over forest, over vale. I really do despise him for this whole event. I'm not much of a family-person, or a holiday-person. Infact I'm not a person-person. Even just the thought of his family excites my premature stomach ulcer that I'm sure I have. I leaned my head back and looked cautionously over in his direction. He was asleep, the perfect time for any avengence, if ever i had thought of it.
"You are plotting against me aren't you?!" Zac's eyelids parted a bit and for the most part growled this at me.
I was taken back breifly, but had my wits about me, "Should I be plotting against you?"
"No."
"How can I trust you?"
"Obviously you trust me enough to come home with me for Christmas."
"Zac, that was awful, how I do hate it when you are unshamefully right! Trust only lies in idiocy."
"Why, then, so you are the town idiot"
"In the flesh. Now, what will your mum say when I walk in with restraints?" I said smiling up at him, and contiuned, "Why she will simply turn and say, 'lock up the knives and the good china'!"
He smiled tightly trying to supress any fordimable attempts to laugh at my sad sapling of a joke.
I sat back and looked out through the small window as the plane cut through the cloudless blue sky. It was such a beautiful day that seemed to mock me in my demise. This "vaction" of sorts, if that be the case, should prove to be quite eventful and appalling, I am most positive in my conjecture. I wish I hadn't come already and nothing bad has yet to happen. But I feel it in the air that circles around me. The same breath that Zac inhales and exhales. The air already knows of the follies of my heart and then the demise of my self. This event can only lead to self destruction. Families tend to have the effect on me.