Junior Haunted By Their Ghosts

Junior Eddie Scrouge had a productive day. He spent his morning sabotaging his classmate’s AP Calculus paper, so he wouldn’t have the lowest grade in the class; spent his lunch period screaming at pigeons within 10 feet of him while he was studying in the park; and spent his afternoon in a very low-speed and embarrassing chase with one of his other classmates after Eddie had told one of his teachers that they were in a cheating ring. (In his defense, it was true, though he left out the part about how he was the leader of said cheating ring.)

It was all justified in his mind, though. That’s just how life was. These underhanded tactics were the only way that he would ever go to MIT.

Proud of himself, he propped himself in front of his desk and opened an SAT prep book about the size of a rolling backpack.

But for a second, Eddie could have sworn that the prep book was, in fact, a rolling backpack. He rubbed his eyes and saw that he was right. On his desk was now a rolling backpack, stuffed to the brim, and emerging from it a familiar spirit. It was short, outfitted in a physical education uniform, and it was staring at him with hopeful and arrogant eyes.

His freshman self.

“What’s going on?” Eddie backed away from the spirit.

“I am the ghost of your freshman year. Follow me.”

Eddie didn’t want to, of course, but he didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. Screaming, he was sucked into a vortex and found himself back in Music Appreciation.

“Oh god, I hated this class. How the heck am I supposed to recognize what a castrati sounds like?”

The ghost just looked pissed. “Look at you before.” Eddie turned to find a smaller version of himself, talking happily with the people around him. “You actually had friends back then and cared about something other than your college admission.”

“We were just from the same middle school. And besides, I was weak back then. I didn’t know how the world works.” Eddie found himself yelling at a void as he realized that the Freshman Ghost had disappeared.

Thinking it was all just some weird hallucination, he was startled by a nearly invisible force grabbing his shoulder. “I am the ghost of sophomore year. Follow me.”

“No,” Eddie said. “I’m gonna ignore you.” And ignore he did, singing “LALALALALA” and closing his eyes until the Sophomore Ghost realized that it wasn’t going to make an impact on Eddie and just disappeared..

Now very annoyed, and with his eyes still closed, Eddie walked into another being: a perfect clone of him right now, down to the exact shape of his eye bags. “Let me guess,” Eddie said. “You’re yet another one of those ghosts.”

“Yep. Ghost of junior year.”

“Let’s just get this over with.” And with that, he was transported to earlier in the day, just after he had begun running from the classmate whom he had ratted out. He noticed the teacher was talking to her coworker about how he was a rude person who only cared about what made him look good for college and not about his impact on the world, about how he was a liar and a brat who wasn’t even good at either of those things. One thing the teacher said about him really stuck in Eddie’s mind.

“He’s a heartless brat. Honestly, I couldn’t write a single good thing about him for a college rec.”

Eddie stood in silence for a bit. Then a new figure, about his height, walked next to him. It was wearing a college hoodie and sweatpants. “Who are you?” Eddie asked.

The figure sighed. “The ghost of your senior year.” And with that, Eddie found himself surrounded by rejection letters. Rejected from every school imaginable: MIT, UChicago, BMCC—even Harvard wouldn’t accept him.

“This is your future if you keep up your passionate quest to be accepted into a college,” the Senior Ghost said. “Rejected by your peers, your teachers, and most importantly, the colleges who want a person, not a fanatic.”

Eddie gulped. “What do I do to stop it?”

The spirit looked Eddie in the eye. “What you need to do,” it said, “is STOP CARING.”

STOP CARING.

STOP CARING.

STOP CARING.

Eddie woke up at his desk in a sweat.

From that day on, Eddie was a changed man. He joined clubs not to look good on college applications, but to be part of something. For the first time since he was 12, he enjoyed other people’s company, and other people enjoyed his. He helped edit his peer’s essays. He was nice to birds. He still committed academic dishonesty, but instead of throwing his fellow cheaters under the bus, he was steadfast and loyal to them.

The next year, he got into an Ivy League during early decisions, but he didn’t care. Now, he was ready to do good in the world. Maybe he would make a version of Talos that didn’t blow up in your face. Maybe he would find ways to save the lives of kids who, just like him, were obsessed with their academia. Maybe he would just take a nap.

Either way, he was ready.