The Diary Of That Gervase Sign

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

July 1, 2008

Oh, my darling, oh, my darling
Oh, my darling Clementine
She is lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.


Today will be my last entry.

I had a dream last night. I was sitting above the door to Gervase again. It was winter and icicles slowly melted on to me.

A student lumbered in. He was there to complete work sanction hours for an alcohol violation. I imagined him back at the party in Village C or New South or even LXR in the lands far. He was happy for once, escaping the bitter cold and stresses of a young life with a lukewarm Natty Light in a friend’s dorm room. Then someone came in and stole him from this solitary pleasure.

It was not unlike what they did to me.

I drifted into the nightmare again. There I was, just hanging there, enjoying a restful night. It had been a long day; I counted ten people that needed me to tell them where Gervase was. Sometimes in those days I questioned whether I even made a difference, but damn I loved that place. Then they came. Like a team of basketball players from Hell, they jumped and knocked me off my post. One put me in his bag and took me away. I try not to be so feminist about these things, but it really was a form of rape.

I awoke in a cold sweat and imagined for a split second that I smelt the sweet aroma of banana bread. Of freedom. But it quickly turned into the foul stench of death.

Long I have tried not to think about it. But today I face the truth: they have moved on. Sure, they may have put out a broadcast e-mail. They may have gone a few months, even a year, before replacing me. But now another sign is there in my stead, and they have forgotten about me. Maybe the new sign is just a piece of paper taped on the door, coldly telling passersby “GERVASE PROGRAMS.” Maybe worse, she looks just like me. Maybe the only reminder of my absence to the Gervase staff is when people ask if the new sign is me returned from the dead. I wish the new sign luck, but I hate her.

I sit here alone on this white townhouse wall. For two years, I have sat here suffering as a piece of irony in this wretched man’s bedroom. If only I could have told him how much I hate John Glavin too! But alas, I cannot speak his language. He graduated over a month ago, two years after quitting the Carroll Fellows. The bed was taken with him, the clothes, even the other posters. But now I sit here alone in a barren room, a sign on the wall no longer meaningful to a man who has moved on.

Rather than waiting another two months to meet my maker, I have decided to end it here. I was always too proud, or too cowardly, to face the bottom of a trash can. And so death must be dealt by my own hand.

If anyone ever reads this, tell the Honor Council I love him.