By: Zainab Salam, Opinions Editor
Jess: a fourth-year student, burdened by ambition and Wi-Fi issues.
Advisor: a keeper of bureaucratic riddles, and a destroyer of hopes and dreams.
Professor: philosopher, lecturer, and a veteran of many, endless faculty meetings.
Barista: servant to the gods of caffeine and despair.
Student 1: group project hero in theory, ghost in practice.
Student 2: master of excuses, chronic vanisher when deadlines draw near.
Weather: omnipresent, dramatic, and really a main character in its own right.
ACT 378
Scene I
Fog blankets the concrete halls. Students wander, pale and sleepless. The wind whispers bad omens. Midterms approach. Enter Jess, dressed in a super puff, hunched beneath a broken umbrella, clutching a binder swollen with rain and regret. Jess heads towards the academic advising office. She takes a seat in the waiting room.
JESS (raising her phone to the heavens): I have awoken at dawn, taken the R5, walked through the foggy pathways, only to find that my Wi-Fi doth vanish at the very moment of the dreaded submission of mine own cursed assignment. The portal hath betrayed me! Nay, it mocks me, spinning its cursed wheel of eternal loading!
Enter the advisor into the small room.
ADVISOR: Good morrow, pupil. Dost thou seek guidance, or merely to lament thy fate aloud more?
JESS: Kind oracle, I wish to drop ECON 302. The graphs taunteth me. The numbers sneer. My calculations mocketh me.
ADVISOR: Alas, the deadline hath passed. You may appeal to the Board of Academic Sorrows, but they require three signatures, two tears, and a doctor’s note declaring existential fatigue.
JESS: Then I am undone.
The advisor exits, weighed down by policy and despair.
Scene II
Renaissance Cafe. The line stretches into eternity. The air smells of espresso mingles with wafts of hopeless ambition. Students swarm by, clutching loyalty cards as if they were talismans.
BARISTA: Step forth, good patron! What manner of brew shall please thee this day?
PROFESSOR: (enters, muttering lowly) I seek caffeine strong enough to revive the will to grade. Make it a double — nay, a triple.
BARISTA: One doth remortgage their nonexistent house for that.
PROFESSOR: Aye, that would not be the first of such misfortunes; for in these latter days, the economy doth wither like a neglected houseplant.
At a nearby table, students discuss their group project. No one has read the rubric. The tension could fuel a small reactor.
STUDENT 1: Methought it was thine honour to present, good friend.
STUDENT 2: Nay, I did believe the burden rested upon thy shoulders, fair friend.
A silence heavier than the Burnaby Mountain’s fog descends. Outside, the rain intensifies, drumming against the windows with the persistence of unpaid tuition.
WEATHER (from beyond): Behold! I am the true protagonist of this tale!
JESS (sipping her latte): Indeed thou art, sky. For even the sun feareth to climb Burnaby Mountain.
She glances at her phone — Canvas notification: “Grade posted.”
JESS: (Whispers) I shalln’t open it. Mighty flesh of mine, in the darkest night! Thy seductive flair shalln’t — I . . .
ADVISOR enters the room.
ADVISOR (chuckling menacingly): Jess, oh jess, where art thou chest? Have thy no guts? Or have thy no flames? I received word that you’ve received an F, so you shall stay in damnation at SFU for ten thousand more days.
JESS (crying to the ceiling): I begeth of thou, prithee! Spare my soul! Allow me to leaveth this cage — locked I am among the birds who die in this here glass. I am merely a student with a wandering past, and wander I shall ‘till the end of time, alone with my thoughts and Canvas notifications to keep me composed as twine!
ADVISOR pulls out a staff and bangs it against the floor, opening it up. As asbestos surrounds Jess, she looks panicked. Weather watches anxiously. When the asbestos cloud arises, Jess is in a trance-like state and proceeds back to class. ADVISOR exits on stage left, holding a sign reading:“WELCOME TO SFU: WE WANT YOU TO STAY FOREVER.”
FIN
