The story that launched a thousand entries, or at least three crazy ones. I've been complaining about it, so here, read it.
Tuesday, May. 24, 2005 x 2 - 21:44

She was a whirlwind, everywhere she went - big and loud and late, and always disorganized.

"Sarah you need to get on top of things," she said to herself and the others around her in the back of the classroom one day. She'd arrived late and panting after another mad dash down the hallway with her overflowing bag and overstuffed coat and long umbrella. The door squeaked open and slammed shut, her shoes clonked on the tile floor on her march to the back. Her bulk could barely fit between the row of desks and the wall and she might have hit someone on the head with her umbrella.

She pulled her notebook from the bottom of her bag, along with her box of pens and pencils, a big bottle of water many times refilled, and a bag of chips, crushed. Professors hated her and students hated her but she just couldn't stop herself.

The professor. Wait, wasn't this what he had talked about last week? What was going on? Up went her hand, but there was no response. He'd seen it though, he'd seen her hand and quickly glanced away.

"Excuse me," she said - in Alabama a lady never had to ask for common courtesies, the North was so cold.

The professor stopped talking but didn't ask her to go on and she'd learned that the silence was hers to fill.

"I mean forgive me if I'm mistaken but didn't we go over this last week?"

"Yes," he said without looking at her. "Like I said at the beginning of class, we're reviewing the material from the last chapter before we -"

"Oh good," she said, "because I was like am I going crazy or what? Because I could've sworn I already heard all this." She laughed and looked at the other students but they were looking at the professor or at each other and not at her, and a minute later when she stood up to take off her coat no one looked at her, not even when she bent over to get the pens she'd dropped, even though her v-neck was very low.

This campus was lost, she knew. She'd tried her best, but she'd lost them.

In a last-ditch effort she wrote a letter to the editor of the campus newspaper drawing herself into all of the recent campus controversies - logging, American Indian rights, sexual harassment and abuse - all of the issues involved her - finally tying it all together with out-of-state tuition and announcing her intention to enroll at some different university next fall.

Her letter was resolute but she was secretly open to persuasion - "Sarah this campus needs you, I need you," uttered by one of her professors or even a fellow student - that was all it'd take and she'd stay.

But after her letter was published she didn't hear a word, and when she casually announced to her 18th Century German Literature class that she would be transferring to the University of Missouri the next year, no one protested.

She decided to give them one more chance, though, but managed to get attacked one night as she was walking around campus with a basket of laundry. The campus police chief asked her to describe her assailant.

"I already told you!" she said, but he insisted. "He was a big dark black man, and he said, 'What's a pretty lady like yourself out wandering around late at night for?' and I said, 'That is none of your business,' and he said, 'I see,' and then I started to walk away and he attacked me and he would've raped me except I started screaming and hitting him, and then he ran away and I ran to the call box and pushed the button."

The police chief wouldn't look at her either, and she knew she'd lost him too. She stood up. "I am so done with this place," she said. "You people have no idea how to treat a lady. Well never mind then, I'm not going to press charges."

The police chief said, "Hold on there, miss, I'm afraid I can't let you leave."

The next week the campus newspaper published her picture with an article about making false reports, and even though she told all her classes it was untrue - they just made it up because she decided not to press charges - no one took her side. Days in class when she didn't raise her hand not once, no one asked her what was wrong. Carrying around a Uhaul flyer and ready-to-assemble boxes, no one offered to help her pack, or even asked if she was moving. Driving back to Alabama, she got a flat at a truck stop and got offers of free dinner, help with the tire, and phone numbers of four truck drivers. But once she got back home, her mother wasn't excited or surprised to see her.

"I'm going to Missouri next fall I decided, Ma," Sarah said, but her mother didn't try to talk her into Alabama.

"Well fine," she said to herself at the library one day. "I guess I'll go to Missouri."