by The Cowl Editor on October 7, 2021
Creative Non-Fiction
by Aidan Lerner ’22
I think the Career Fair would have been a great place to croak. I mean, kick the bucket in a dramatic fashion.
I walk in there with the stylish, pressed suit my dad picked out for me. I am dressed to the nines, with perfectly styled hair and an aroma of cologne lingering around my shoulders. I enter Peterson with my stack of resumes, grateful, for once, to be wearing a mask. It will hide my nervous half-grin and totally disheveled beard. Also, did I even brush my teeth today? As I approach the firm of my dreams, ready to inquire as to how to break into their industry as a post-graduate, I am ready to present myself as a human being who knows exactly what they are doing and how to do it. In five minutes, my future will be secure. Suddenly, I clutch at my heart, searching for breath. I fall to my knees, and I pass away tragically.
Oh, man. That would have been a fantastic way to go. My friends would have bawled, and my professors would have surely given me posthumous A’s. There has to be a provision in the school handbook that a premature death boosts your GPA. It may have put a slight damper on Homecoming weekend, but far be it for me to judge those who want to indulge in food trucks on Smith Lawn. Go nuts.
Do I genuinely wish I had perished at the Career Fair? No, of course not. Being alive in Friartown is one of my top three favorite things, behind only soccer and pretending to be Spider-Man. I am simply arguing that my demise at the Career Fair would have had its advantages. Chief among them, I cannot miserably fail in my post-graduate life if I have died.
You see, at my funeral, everyone will assume that I would have been a massive success. Eulogies will drone on and on about my “bright future” and how I was “destined for greatness.” After all, look at me. For that matter, look at all of us. We are students at Providence College, and that is no small feat. It points to a track record of success in education or sports or extracurriculars. But, post-graduate life is the question mark that has been waiting for me these past 22 years. Where do we go from here?
As an extremely heartwarming film once said, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” I think I will circle option “A.” Potential is not something to be valued. No one ever got paid because they told a pawn shop that they might mine some gold at some point. So, you take the lessons you learned in Providence, you go out there, and you try. I tried to go to the Career Fair, and I still do not know what my future holds. Only thing left to do is accept that, believe in myself, and then lie to everyone I see about how awesome post-grad life is going to be. Kidding, sort of.
I do not know if they will say I was a “smashing success” at my funeral some day, but I hope they say, “Damn, that guy did what made him happy.” Also, quick side note: I hope I live until I am 101 because then I will have been alive in three different centuries.