Rose 9

"Ain't it cold in the winter time?
Sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
Hard to tell nighttime from the day."
As I hear the familiar ping, I shut off the retro radio show. No loss, after half an hour, I'm starting to get tired of it.
Xar smiles cheerfully, "my friend, I want to thank you so much for your help last time."
I shrug, "no big deal, none of it was rocket science."
"My section chief was really pleased with the writeup. She was amazed you knew the answer to everything."
"Well, there were no inside jokes there. Pretty much anyone at the university would know all that. I'll put on coffee."
"Sounds wonderful Rose."
Once I've poured she gets to the point of this visit, "now you see Rose, a student newspaper is a funny thing. Not funny ha ha, funny peculiar."
I grin, "you noticed that!"
"Indeed, now I understand that they have a certain amount of censorship. Less in some places, more in others. I'm perfectly capable of getting the literal meaning by reading something in English. Where I, and the rest of us fall down is reading between the lines. Allegory and irony are not the strong points of our training."
We both laugh.
"Now you see Rose, I've saved up a dozen articles over this last semester. Try as hard as I can, I simply cannot decipher these. They either refer to something I can't guess or maybe even some of the writers are a bit psychotic."
She spreads them out on the table.
I draw a deep breath, "uh Xar, I've noticed alla these over time. I'd guess half can be deciphered and half are out there in never never land. Still, I'll give it my best try."