But the fact was, he envied his classmates. They finished their degrees, while he plodded behind. He was jealous of those who went to summer programs and on research trips. But he was also furious that his school favored the more privileged in so many large and small ways, while at the same time presenting itself as a bastion of lefty, emancipatory values. When he grew tired of the trap, Alfonzo would look away from school toward his childhood friends. He felt jealous of their relaxed states, their badly-thought-out politics. They seemed to be able to just enjoy the kind of life he’d trained himself to ruthlessly deconstruct.

He could rage at the classist snobbery of the university using discourse he’d acquired there. This erudite grumbling did nothing productive. His school colleagues thought him bitter; his old friends thought him a snob. Neither group was really wrong. He hated the shape he’d taken on. To cope, Alfonzo had put his head down and worked. And this was how he had come to produce a 1,532-page-long dissertation.

In writing and reading, Alfonzo chewed on anything that had even a vague connection to camelid identity. He learned about the social, political, and mystical histories of the Andes. He pored over guinea pig oral histories. He entertained the kooky artiodactyl theory that camelids were all distant relatives of dolphins and whales. He pondered the symbolic significance of toes and stomachs, and the absence or “lack” of humps. He wrestled with arguments that spitting was a form of ritual rather than a violent act. He meditated on images of sand, water, and mountains. Translational nuances, phenomenological asides, footnotes on hooves—there was no academic flourish Alfonzo eschewed. His text rippled outward in ever-expanding concentric arguments.

When friends made the mistake of asking about the subject of his dissertation, he would hum, then ask them softly, “What is anything about? What is animal life about?”

And his friends would puzzle. “Are you high?” they would query.

He’d borrow one of his dad’s nonsensical quips: “As high as a flea on the underdog.”

Why was his dissertation 1,532 pages long? Because it was about all alpaca life. No, but why, really?

Because he was afraid of ending.

Viviana was right, he craved failure. Alfonzo was bitter and confused because he could see that the text he’d written had no end. The academy wanted him to conclude, and he wanted to keep unspooling.