The blizzard question, asked of a Hal who cannot answer

texture · 20 Nov YDAU, morning

• When: 20 Nov YDAU, morning of the big snowstorm, on the second floor of Comm.-Ad.
• What: Peterson passes twice through Hal's first-person account of an off-court panic attack, oblivious both times. First in the hallway, at the seizure's onset: "Sleepy T. P. Peterson came out of the bathroom in a dazzling plaid robe, his face and feet salmon-colored from the showers' heat, and vanished across the hall into his room without seeing me wobbling." Then, once Hal has retreated to lie on Viewing Room 5's carpet: "After a time, Sleepy T.P. Peterson put his wet-combed head in the door and said LaMont Chu wanted to know whether what was happening outside qualified as a blizzard. It took over a minute of my not saying anything for him to go away." He never registers that anything is wrong — but the relayed question sticks: Hal's monologue keeps returning to blizzard definitions (the North American Collegiate's, the condensed O.E.D.'s, Sitney and Schneewind's), silently answering Chu's messenger long after the messenger has gone. The book's last sight of Peterson: a dazed go-between, met with silence, withdrawing.