8:30am: My day starts like any other. I strap on my lanyard, slip into my water socks, hop in the shower, dry my lanyard, throw on my Bulldog Days tote bag, recite my SID number in the mirror, and rush out of my princess suite.
8:43am: I scooter to the High Street gate full of joy and hope, as all first-years do, blissfully unaware of my impending misfortune. Someone swings the gate open ahead of me and I pick up my pace. Despite the well-greased wheels of my trusty steed, the gate closes with a metallic slam before I can reach it, my fingertips brushing the handle a moment too late. I push, but it’s no use. I am trapped in Old Campus.
8:46am: I try every gate, every door, every odd brick that might open a secret passageway, but nothing budges. I try to scale the walls, but a Pierson FroCo continuously shoots me with a BB gun until I give up. I live in fear of another pellet lodging itself in my shoulder, so I resign to a life on the ground.
12:41pm: I miss my second class of the day and begin to lose hope. Despite my best efforts to ration my limited supplies, I have already eaten the last of my roll of Hubba Bubba gum. In the delirium of such famine, I lose my glasses somewhere near Vanderbilt Hall and take up echolocation to find my way around.
12:54pm: I see someone coming!
12:55pm: It was a mirage. I am alone.
1:29pm: My phone is losing battery. I have no water. My only companions are the squirrels and some old man in a Class of ‘87 hat that is pacing High Street looking just as confused as I am. Despite our kinship, I grow to resent him for ignoring my clicks and cries.
3:07pm: They will name this bench after me. It is the place where I will die and leave behind my corpse for Yale Security to place ever so gently into a stretcher. They will bury me in my lanyard and 2027 shirt, but they will mail home my water socks to give closure to my family. That will have to be enough.
3:08pm: It was a pull.
—E. Thulin
