The music was loud and the bass seemed to vibrate through the entirety of my body. “This isn’t a crowd,” I thought, “This is a sea- a mindless, reasonless sea.” The sea gives and the sea takes, and if you aren’t careful, you can become lost in it—drown in it.
I looked over to the left side of the quad, spotting a thick concentration of junior girl jerseys. I decided I would make my way over to the pack. I would fight the directionless current, I would make it to my people. This was my odyssey.
As I meandered over, I was overcome by a sudden wave, undoubtedly sent forth by Poseidon himself to impede my progress. I sailed around them with the elegance of a whale, sustaining a mighty blow in the process.
“Watch where you’re going, freshmen!” I shouted to the wave as I narrowly avoided its crushing grasp. I had almost reached my final destination, when I spotted a group of sophomores, sirens in the night, calling for me. “YOLO,” they sang, their silky voices penetrating the deepest reaches of my mind.
“Do you have any gum?” One called out to me, trying to pull me off course, and distract me from what I had already come so far for. But the temptress wouldn’t stop me; I would do what it took to get to my destination. “No, I don’t have any gum, sorry,” I thundered back, with such force that only Zeus himself could surpass.
I finally made it to the promise land. Standing before me were my friends, but before I could reach them, the sea shifted around me, swallowing me whole. I found myself trapped between two quarreling banshees. With fury the likes of which I had never seen, the spirits wailed at each other, their breath reeking like a tavern on a busy night.
They lamented in their screams of lost loves, loss of innocence, and broken friendships. They’re wails went “How could you do this to me!?” and “Get out of my face before I smack it!”
A single tear rolled down my cheek as I listened to the fury of the banshees, two unstoppable forces colliding, causing a glorious tsunami in this vast sea.
When I finally made my way past the two banshees I thought I was home free. Finally, I had made it to my people; there would be no more interruptions.
But as I approached my friends with a smile upon my face, the merciless sea shifted again, this time violently casting me into the island of the Cyclops. There the brute stood- six feet and three inches tall, glaring at me from above its Redwood Football practice jersey, with a stupid and angered look upon his face. The brute opened its mouth and prepared to speak, presumably of how it would cook and eat me. “Bro, watch where you’re going, I was trying to get my grind on,” it boomed, with a voice to carry beyond the mountains themselves. I prepared my heated lance of quick retort, and cast it at him. “Okay, sorry,” I sent back with the skill of Hermes himself.
Flustered as I was after all my previous experiences, I at last arrived at my destination. I was with my friends, but I was a changed man. The Back to School Dance was no longer a dance to me—it was an endless, raging sea, full of perils at every turn.
