Looking For Alaska

A COOL BREEZE had beaten back the onslaught of summer, and on the morning the Old Man gave us our final exams, he suggested we have class outside. I wondered why we could have an entire class outside when I’d been kicked out of class last semester for merely glancing outside, but the Old Man wanted to have class outside, so we did. The Old Man sat in a chair that Kevin Richman carried out for him, and we sat on the grass, my notebook at first perched awkwardly in my lap and then against the thick green grass, and the bumpy ground did not lend itself to writing, and the gnats hovered. We were too close to the lake for comfortable sitting, really, but the Old Man seemed happy.

“I have here your final exam. Last semester, I gave you nearly two months to complete your final paper. This time, you get two weeks.” He paused. “Well, nothing to be done about that, I guess.” He laughed. “To be honest, I just decided once and for all to use this paper topic last night. It rather goes against my nature. Anyway, pass these around.” When the pile came to me, I read the question:

How will you—you personally—ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering? Now that you’ve wrestled with three major religious traditions, apply your newly enlightened mind to Alaska’s question.

After the exams had been passed out, the Old Man said, “You need not specifically discuss the perspectives of different religions in your essay, so no research is necessary. Your knowledge, or lack thereof, has been established in the quizzes you’ve taken this semester. I am interested in how you are able to fit the uncontestable fact of suffering into your understanding of the world, and how you hope to navigate through life in spite of it.

“Next year, assuming my lungs hold out, we’ll study Taoism, Hinduism, and Judaism together—” The Old Man coughed and then started to laugh, which caused him to cough again. “Lord, maybe I won’t last. But about the three traditions we’ve studied this year, I’d like to say one thing. Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism each have founder figures—Muhammad, Jesus, and the Buddha, respectively. And in thinking about these founder figures, I believe we must finally conclude that each brought a message of radical hope. To seventh-century Arabia, Muhammad brought the promise that anyone could find fulfillment and everlasting life through allegiance to the one true God. The Buddha held out hope that suffering could be transcended. Jesus brought the message that the last shall be first, that even the tax collectors and lepers—the outcasts—had cause for hope. And so that is the question I leave you with in this final: What is your cause for hope?”

Back at Room 43, the Colonel was smoking in the room. Even though I still had one evening left of washing dishes in the cafeteria to work off my smoking conviction, we didn’t much fear the Eagle. We had fifteen days left, and if we got caught, we’d just have to start senior year with some work hours. “So how will we ever get out of this labyrinth, Colonel?” I asked.

“If only I knew,” he said.

“That’s probably not gonna get you an A.”

“Also it doesn’t do much to put my soul to rest.”

“Or hers,” I said.

“Right. I’d forgotten about her.” He shook his head. “That keeps happening.”

“Well, you have to write something,” I argued.

“After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out—but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it.”