Are You Ready to Graduate?

By Sona Wink and Stephen Dames

Illustration by Ben Fu

Affirmative by Sona Wink

Haha yes, I am so ready to graduate from The University! “LOL.” I have Senioraytis.

Glarbo. I cannot keep up the facade anymore. I cannot have Senioraytis because I am not a real Senior. My Commander on Squeltron informed me that I was to assume the corporeal form of Columbia University Senior for sixteen kleebs, or nine “Human Months.” It is my job to discover why there exists an abnormally turbulent heat-pattern of Existential Anguish clouding the atmosphere of upper western Manhattan.

Commander assigned me the corporeal form of Dan. Dan has no defining traits, neither physically nor in his “personality.” Commander assigned me the major of Sociology, the least interesting of the majors. My assigned interests are Art Museum, The Office, and saying, “I studied abroad in Madrid.” 

In Dan-form, I attend Classes. Commander registered me for Advanced Performance Art, which is the class I am best at, even though I do not know what Performance Art is. Professor says Performance Art is about “self-expression.” When Professor tells me it is my Turn, I stand up and tell the Class about my assigned personality.

“My name is Dan. I like The Office. Kevin from The Office is so funny! Haha. I like to go to Art Museum on the weekend. Picasso, am I right? I studied abroad in Madrid. My name is Dan,” and on and on I continue to repeat my personality. I do this every time it is my Turn. Professor came up to me with a Unique Face and whispered, “Brilliant commitment to your premise. You have a Kaufman-eque charm.” I do not know what this meant. I looked up her face in my chart of Human Face Expressions, and her face most resembled “Excited.” I do not know why I excited her.

I went to “Lerner Pub” to gain more data about the cause of the Existential Anguish. I drifted around the room listening to conversations. The Seniors talk incessantly about Job. Their atmospheres gurgled with hot clouds of Existential Anguish when they talk about Job in groups. The atmosphere was so contagious, that I began to worry whether I had enough Job. 

The Seniors also talked about Theesis. They said they hated Theesis, yet they also clearly liked it. When several of the Theesis Seniors talked about Theesis together, they whipped up each other’s energetic currents, creating the same scalding-hot turbulence as Job. I reported to Commander that Job and Theesis seem to be the prime causes of the cloud of Existential Anguish. He response-emulated, “ȢɈʓ” (“Keep up the good work”). 

Once I accomplish my Mission I will Graduate. On Squeltron, “Graduate” means “to effervesce into star-matter.” Upon Graduating, one enters into oneness with the Eternal Cosmic Flux. I am very excited to Graduate. I am weary from years of interplanetary intelligence work. 

For Columbia Seniors, “graduate” means something very different. This was a source of confusion between me and my one Human Friend, Lauren. One day, she asked me, “What are you doing after you graduate?” 

I was surprised that Lauren knew about Graduation. “I will effervesce into star-matter, of course,” I said. 

“Cool, so, like, astrophysics research?” she replied. I did not know what this was but I nodded incessantly, to encourage Social Cohesion. “I’m on my fifth round of interviews to work at Goldman Sachs,” she said. 

“I do not understand why you will work after Graduation. I know of no beings who work upon graduating. They simply appreciate the Cosmic Flux.”

“We don’t all have trust funds, ok, Dan? You’re being really insensitive.” Lauren walked away. Now, whenever she sees me, she makes a Unique Face. I looked up her face in my chart of Human Face Expressions, and her face is most similar to “angry.”

Illustration by Phoebe Wagoner

Negative by Stephen Dames 

I am, as you will quickly gather, the “aesthete” par excellence of my year. Tennyson and Tanqueray always on the tips of my lips, I move across campus haughtily, my stately dress coming courtesy of the Via dei Condotti, or Savile Row. I’m sure you’ve seen me. After spending two years at Eton (and another few in Switzerland) I decided a change of pace was needed so, voila, I arrived here, amongst you all. 

Every morning—while pallidly smoking my first three vogues of the day—I stand on my little juliet balcony (the only one overlooking 116th street) and judge the hordes of pimple-popping freshmen and sweaty oversized seniors making their way to class. Always searching—through my narrow spectacles—for the diamonds in the rough, I look out carefully for them, the pretties, the new recruits to my way of life. Running into them oh so accidentally, darling, I captivate them with my wit, my charm, my not-too-delicate innuendos and indiscretions. When I occasionally throw delightful little fêtes for these gentlemen and ladies of note, I quietly sip Cointreau in a corner and just wait until one of them comes to court my favor. The prettier ones I seduce, naturally, but it’s more a habit born out of boredom than desire: I couldn’t actually be attracted to anything quite so profane, indelicate or un-cosmopolitan, as a Columbia undergraduate.  

However, one day after speaking to some professor (I don’t remember which one, those feeble-minded little bookworms were never of much interest to me), I ran into someone who I was actually compelled by. Older, much older, and walking with a proper gentleman's gait, the bony white-haired man carried himself with a dignity and a poise that I couldn’t help admiring. A lifelong learner, the gentleman (who I later learned was named Humbert) was either a Count or an “accountant,” who, in his twilight years, decided to grace Columbia with his presence. His dandruff covered scalp, his goiter-covered neck, and his too-creased face made me positively burn for him. I just couldn’t resist. 

Lying in bed that night, my black silk pajamas on, a bottle of Vichy water and a couple of ripe plums next to me, I dozed off and dreamt of him, my Humbert. I dreamed of his body, his mind. He was the embodiment of Eros and Thanatos combined; so close to death and yet so full of life. Imagining his lasciviously dry caresses filled my waking hours. 

So when, one day, upon speaking to him after class, I learned that he was going on “a Senior cruise” of some variety, I was immediately intrigued. Not taking the venerable older gentleman—in his ascot and waistcoat—for one who paid close attention to CCSC’s emails, I was surprised he would go on our senior graduation cruise but I decided to join him. Though I was positively sickened, my dear, at the thought of attending a “school event,” the opportunity to get out on the open sea with my erastês was irresistible. 

Sipping pilfered Grand Marnier on the balcony of the cruise, some weeks later, my bored eyes wandered across the drab skyline of New York City. Like Aschenbach viewing the Lido, I looked out onto the city and thought only of what it could bring me—of the temptations and excitements to come. Having already set sail I was surprised to see few—nay, none—of my fellow classmates on deck with me, instead finding only the wrinkled skin and flabby arms of my love’s elderly compatriots. I had signed up not for my own “Senior Cruise” but for a cruise of a different “Senior” variety. 

I now found myself in a land of utter temptation. In an attempt to satisfy my new and curiously geriatric libidinal desires, I wrote verse after verse dedicated to my new love’s not-so-supple form, trying not to get ink on my off-white Armani suit. I searched all over the deck for him. I recited—quite improperly—several verses of T.S. Eliot for a few gentlemen who I thought were him, hoping to impress my elder companion with my knowledge of the sea. Instead, I made several strangers confused by saying, in my acid monotone:

The brisk swell

               Rippled both shores

               Southwest wind

              Carried down stream…

   To Carthage then I came. 

Or maybe it was New Jersey.  Not being able to find him on the deck I ventured inside into a strange too-white room. The hospice wing, a sign said. This is where I found him. He was about to, in a sense, graduate life. I stood, as Dante writes, “prepared for fortune, come what may.” I wept at his bedside, longing for him. I longed to go where he was going. Even though I wasn’t ready, not yet, I wanted to graduate too.  

How I miss you my “geronphet,” my sin, my soul. My lifelong learner. My graduate.