A Rant From A Hudson Stairwell Spirit

It’s not easy spending your days of Purgatory in the Hudson Stairwell. On a typical day in the school year, you encounter at least a tenth of the student population popping, drinking, or smoking everything from matcha-infused Xanax to steaming cauldrons of pumpkin-spiced coffee to caramel-flavored smoking devices and nearly everything else these post-millennials try to innovate. You’d think it’d make me fondly reflect on the days of merchant ships and opium, but those poppy seeds just had to lead to my downfall. My addiction was so terrible that I was blocked from both heaven and hell after my inevitable overdose. Can you imagine being rejected by Lucifer after he lampoons you on the stench of your corset being a force potent enough to obliterate his Underworld?

Oh, speaking of blocking…seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to barricade the escalators in this place? Initially, when that escalator incident happened, the Hudson stairway was rather empty. This place is usually forgettable unless you’re a couple lacking a love nest, someone down on his luck needing a place for their thoughts to echo and resonate around and within himself to fill a lonely insatiable void, or a tardy student desperately looking for a shortcut so that her transcript doesn’t start looking like a police report. I’ve heard the Humor Department crack more overused jokes about this place than I have seen students actually clambering up and down its steps.

Until now, that is. Seriously, I thought that there was an earthquake threatening to topple this building when I felt a tremor in the ground like I’d never felt before. But no, it was only that rare hoard of upperclassmen with common sense enough to dodge traffic in the main staircases by using the Hudson. Dread filled my stomach like despair replaces the hearts of students in this place. I had this awful premonition, and I didn’t know why. Not that I had to wonder for long! It only took a period for the underclassmen to join their comrades in making great ascensions.

(Too bad these ascensions were only limited to staircases as opposed to fallen ambitions.)

The only good thing that came out of my great tragedy was that someone dropped her poppy seed bagel. Wheat dough cannot replace a sturdy wooden pipe, and poppy seeds are but a petty meager morsel of my vice, but the dead cannot choose.

Or can they? I’ve heard America’s gained more independence in regards to government and the press, and even as an apparition, I wouldn’t mind having my voice heard outside of a sewing circle. I spotted a weary senior who I also knew to be a student journalist trudging to the 10th floor.

“Psst, Ilioaei!”

“Oh—!” She jolted in surprise, more so over the fact that someone actually pronounced her last name correctly as opposed to the fact that the dead was speaking to her. She glanced around, ensuring that no one would hear her speaking to thin air. “I guess if I can see you, I really must be dead inside. What can I do for you?”

“You’re a Spec journalist, aren’t you? Do a Feature on me.”

She winced. “I could write an article on you, but there’s NO guarantee that it’ll be a Feature.” She put an emphasis on the NO, signifying that The Interview With The Ghost would never make it past the department editors.

“Fine. Make a joke out of it for all I care.”