The end of another ignominious era: two hundred and fifty classes, and Verily Veritas has seen nearly half of them through the door. Around the first massing of the sweaty, pulsing bodies and their hookah pipes on the steps of Low, a fit of giddiness—they'll be gone soon! May's melancholy comes when Verily realizes that next year's bunch will be indubitably, inevitably even worse, more vapid, bug-eyed, and newfangled.
This wending downward slide...what to make of it, in light of the empirical evidence? Verily opens the papers to find that
Verily, of course, is not making it to the podium. Thanks to a Columbian flirtation with "tuition control" in the wake of post-WWI rent control laws, his yearly tuition has remained a rather affordable $82.50, and he quite likes it here, thank you very much. Could he possibly be jealous of the pitiable folk who year in and year out toil and achieve their way to gold tassels and glorified secretarial posts and six-figure debts? And commodified lifetimes as strained, prolifically breeding estate tax lawyers and money massagers and, now, computing/Inter-Net specialists? And as geriatrics bumbling through purgatorial lunacy, draining the last of meager savings on pills and ointments, their final words uttered—"I'm cold...where's my medicine?"—as they lose bowel control one final time?
Verily would no doubt go out like Beethoven, a titanic, tectonic career, recognition as a singular genius, capped one stormy May afternoon in bed—he would rise from the covers like a lightning bolt, raise his first to the heavens, and expire, his legacy already reverberating through the ćons—ahem—if he chose to graduate, that is.
Oh, all right, there is something about that May afternoon, the pomp and powder-blue robes, the hugs and the pride and the diplomas, one of the few places you'll ever see (non-Pig) Latin in the real world—Verily always watches from his perch, clutching his windowsill like a gargoyle. Is this jealousy? Pah! Nonsense—what a medieval place the real world is, and even Verily Veritas is not old-fashioned enough.
But VV is beginning to feel a tad like Peter Pan, the creation of a wistful, asexual man-child, or Bart Simpson, endlessly repeating the fourth grade. How long can he sustain it? If Verily's merely a player on the world-stage, what is his motivation?
Ah, yes, his port. At least he still has his port—he buys new vintages, leaves them in a corner, and abides. In a few short decades, he has the finest drink known to man, ambrosia on earth; it is what keeps him going. Another fiscal benefit, along with the aforementioned tuition control, of being an ageless, spectral waif. He digs deep into his reserves. Time for a dram...guahahah! Verily is pawing at his smarting tongue with hand-kerchief. How old is this bottle? 1893?! All acid and sediment; it has been for many years.
Verily slumps against the wall, his eyes drawn, his mouth stained—he has been here a long time. But there's no leaving now, is there? No, it's too late for him, Verily gasps, clutching his port-poisoned throat. He'll make you a deal, reader. Go out in the world: breed, think, and be miserable. He'll be here, remembering what, after stamped ambitions and the over-all callousness of the world, you'll consider your finest years: drug-addled promiscuity, unfortunate facial hair, foolish idealism or foolish irony, as the case may be.
Verily Veritas will be here, on the shores of the
