Introduction

      “Most Effervescent?”
         “Yeah! Hi, I’m—”
           He cuts me off before I can even begin to anticipate his next question. My blood simmers for a brief moment before I can convince it to be calm again. I should be used to this—and I am—after living through almost eighteen years of always-interrupted introductions. Still, it gets irritating, knowing that there isn’t a single human in all of creation who can think along original lines.
         “Whoa! You have purple hair!”
         Blood rushes against my cheeks. Sometimes I wonder how so many people can be so generously endowed with the rare gift of keen observation.
         “Yes, I—”
         “Do you dye it?”
         “No I—”
         He smiles. I’m sure he thinks he’s clever, and is probably about to say something clever, but I hardly think I can take anyone else’s clever remarks on the subject.
         “Ooh, you must be an alien then. Ooh.”
         He whips out an ASDFmovie “oooohhh.” Huzzah. He’s going to be “Salem-saying-anytime-you-kill-a-zombie-it’s-a-double-kill” level lame.
         “Roughly translated into English, Insigni, to be exact. Half, on my mother’s side.”          
         His mouth goes a little lax. I’m not sure if he actually believes me, or if he’s just trying to come up with another supposed witticism to counter with.
         “May I offer the always suitable, ‘I have a unicorn, therefore your argument is invalid’?”
         His eyebrows cinch a bit with the added confusion.
         “W-huh?”
         The kids—excuse me, high school seniors—who they put in charge of taking down names while the photographers take superlative pictures are getting quicker and wittier every year.
         “I was saying, hi, I’m Lia. Yes, I’m the one they’re looking for.”