Night over a small Liberal Arts college. The sky is dark as dyed felt, and the moon hangs in the windowpane like a light bulb in a Halloween diorama.

You’re a Ph.D. candidate at an English department mixer, chatting up an undergraduate over the murmur of a crowded room. Glasses clink with ice. Cigarette smoke hovers between conversations. You say something about the Brechtian significance of Reality Television. The undergrad, one Gloria, warms to your patter, asks if maybe you wouldn’t mind reading over her paper on Eugene O’Neill. You smile. Her eyes flutter over her drink. All is right in the world, or so it seems.