The yellow flame of the match penetrated the whiteness of the fluorescent light and it was a strange color and then it was all covered with blue smoke from the cigarette. This was Vag's fourth cigarette, but he was still on page 296. He looked at the book again and whispered the printed words. The Naval Officers marched past outside his window, and he stopped and listened for a moment. Then he looked at the book again. Everything around him was moving. The electric clock hummed merrily in its dark corner. The cigarette burned smaller. The marching died away in the distance. But the book still lay open on his desk. Page 296.

"What the hell!" Vag said aloud, getting up from his desk. Then everything was quiet again, and he seemed to hear the hum of the clock repeating "What the hell!" over and over again. His eyes passed over the open book and onto a little yellow card beside it. He sat down again and picked up the card. Its bright color interested his eyes more than the dull white pages of the book. Its bold black letters meant more to him than all the print of the wordy volume that lay before him. "Notice of Classification" it said on top. And then a few more lines, some printed, some typed.

Vag thought of the warnings his dean had given him. "Remember now, don't throw up everything just because you'll have to go into the army eventually. Do your work until the very end." And the other routine from his parents. "Forget about the army right now. When they want you they'll call you. Right now you're in school. Make the best of it." It was the same old story. Isolate yourself and do well before you go into the army.

Again Vag tried looking at that book, but he remembered Saturday night and the farewell party to the guy across the hall. He thought of the farewell party the week before that, and the ones before that. He thought of the pat on the back and the "good luck, boy, I hope you don't have to depend on it though." And he thought of the sailors in the Common and headlines in the newspapers and the war movies.

And he sat alone in his room and tried to look at page 296.