Something was stirring in the bushes that night. People began to know a little something about some things. It was comforting to know that I was not alone. I was listening to “Live Until I Die” by Ol’ Blue Eyes on my iTouch and how fitting a soundtrack. But as quickly as this thought preoccupied my mind it left as I read a text message from Ken, “…another student jumped off into the gorge, where are you?” It needed no response. I was walking back from practice alone, which was uncharacteristic seeing as how we typically walked back as a group. I was shook. My comfort churned into dissatisfaction and soon a slim kind of anger. “I knew why it was happening,” I thought. I know well why we were going down and who “we” were, “but I will not join them, not yet at least. If only I could talk to them to beg them to hold off and listen to what it is I had to say first then I’d save them all, save us all.” I looked out onto the gorge as I stood still on the footbridge. I yelled at the top of my lungs knowing full well no one would hear. Off to the side I saw the stag as he watched for the body to come with the current down the Styx.

I kept walking until it made sense to stop. I could tell that some time had passed and it was late because the air was chilly and still. Death was about tonight. It looked for the living to claim, which meant there was not much for death to have, besides the proud few who dared to be. I was in the Arts & Sciences quadrangle when the stirring came out of hiding. A good amount of folks were gathered around, I reckon to talk about the unfortunate events of the evening.

“This is the seventh one so far…” Another spoke in sequence “…They bring it on themselves, life isn’t that serious” they said.

“Well, if life isn’t as serious as you say then how about you try it?” Her opponents could not understand what she meant and she knew it. “How about you try living…or not? Whichever you prefer.” Dainty Princewillis would have said to been Heaven-sent if not for the fact that she had no wings. Her skin was naturally formed out of cool volcanic rapids and her demeanour had the same spark.

“As long as people like you live as you do, what use is there for people who actually want to live, where would they be allowed to live as they should? If this campus is crawling with the likes of you, the people of tomorrow then I should have died yesterday.” That was their thinking — get out while you can before something worse than death grips you. The only fault to them is that they have left us without one more living and thinking thing, one less beautiful mind and someone willing to use it. They gave up prematurely. “That was not the last and they will keep on going rather than compromise with y’all. I’m committing a crime much worse than they when I continue to chat with you and agree to the terms of a pretend life. There is no excuse for my living like this. I am as much dead as the rest of them and you for that matter.” She spoke as if this was a matter of fact. There was no contempt in her voice, simply the truth. She was inviting death to dance.

I knew Dainty to be a soft-spoken outgoing kind of gal ready for whatever may come her way, jovial even. I did not meet the same thing in her tonight. Hell hath no fury like this woman scorned. Her emotionless delivery was acute, death could not keep step. Her hair was long and hard to see against the night’s backdrop. Her eyes were bold and you could see if you looked hard enough sparks from a burning fire. People found offense in her manner and kept on at her. I would have been less than a man had I not cut in on this number.

“What she is saying is that some of us rather die than live with the likes of you.” Death recognized a familiar friend in me, an unclaimed victim and bowed out until the next number. My mind fell back on something that I, in all my thinking, had forgotten until I saw her again under this starry night — Love. I loved her, Motley, Sinclair, Seabreeze, Teagan, I loved them all. These were the only kind of men I could love if ever it were still a thing to do. I could have no love for people who did not love themselves, who did not love being human and neither could they love one another. This was what they were met with, a tragic destruction brought about by themselves, a communal suicide — how is that for religious devotion, people were quite the orthodox. They all walked away not knowing which way to go.

“Hails you didn’t have to put yourself out there like that. You’re always cutting in on my fun.” It was her way of saying thank you.

“You know I’m gonna do what I want to do.” That was my way of saying she was welcome. You could almost mistake the curve of my lips to be a smile. We walked on to Rand Hall and I could tell that she wanted to talk about something . She could not resist.

“I heard about what you said this morning.” I looked at her waiting until I caught her gaze and curved my lips even more than before. I left her with that and pressed on past Rand Hall. I unpaused “The General” by Dispatch.

The idea of love remained with me although she was gone and then a thought came to me suddenly, “this was what it meant to love thy neighbor.” This Love did not come and go with the person. It was within me and it stayed where it belonged, in the heart. She erected my love for her but within me when she did things I know I too would do. So I loved her because she was me and therefore I was only loving myself. I loved her just as the immortals loved me and I them. I was holding the keys to the gates of the Isles in my mind, a thought more would turn the lock.

“Hails, wait!” Either she had never meant to return to Rand Hall or she thought she needed to know something from me right here and now. Walking back over the bridge to North Campus was always a pleasure but tonight it was simply splendid to see the full moon harness the suns rays flinging them unto the gorges below like a film from a projector onto the big screen. The stars were out like it was a red carpet event.

“What is happening in the world? Something isn’t right but I can’t find the words for it, I just know it isn’t right what’s happening.” I looked at her then to the moon. I followed its path to the flowing river below. I could see the earth underneath the water as it rushed over the boulders, a sublime sight. I saw the wind lift up from the river to the bridge and whist past us to the other side of the bridge and back to the river again.

“The gods were the best of men, the men who knowing the secret of their humanity transcended to another realm, a place only the divine soul can reach. But I suspect that men en masse could not fathom such a spirit or power within them, not today at least. They turned on themselves and on the gods who loved them. Men sought out to put an end to the reign of the gods to put an end to the human spirit as we know it. The battle has been raging for some time now. No doubt it is becoming worse and the casualties we are suffering are increasing. Instead of falling into the hands of these unthinkably grotesque living some choose to honor life with death. I will not speak on if this is right or wrong here. Perhaps it has come time that some of us took our rightful places on Mt. Olympus and remind the world what humanity is.” It is not as if she had to say what she did next and I imagine she said it only to canonize the oath, “In the name of the best within us.”

I took another look at the moon then nodded towards her and heading north I thought before I left the bridge “I should take a leap over the edge, but I already had my chance. Now I live for her love, for the best within us.” I turned back to see her standing there on the bridge looking at the night.

“Never surrender your mind Princewillis, never give away your ability and you will find the fountain of youth. People will say that you never existed, that you are only stuff of legend because you were too impossible to live in a place like this and they are right, they could not comprehend a life such as your own. Ages have gone by and people have only been more apt to regard you men of mind and spirit as insults to human nature. Rise barefaced, shoulders broad and walk with a clean gait. Watch as they cannot see the marvel before them.”

vv. Francs IV