OP-ED: God is Dead, and the Smell of This Man Next to Me in the Elevator Killed Him

Sing muses, of the sadness of Kelly, oh woe is me, oh terrible, awful woe. 

My creator has surely abandoned me in this time of need, left me to float in the warm, sweat-scented air of this metal container, hurtling upwards towards what I hope will be my eventual demise. 

Even my lovely words, the companions who have stayed by my side, stalwart and true in the turbulent tossing of this life, have left me bereft. 

I have nothing else to say. 

This man is stanky. 

I dare not guess what has made him this way, with a sharp, nostril-piercing aura that makes my heart and lungs clench in fear and pain. 

Perhaps he was unable to partake in the human invention of showers, our most glorious gift in this trying midterm season, and I should display some sympathy.

But in this small, metal hell-box of human secretions in the hall of Williams, I have no room in my heart for sympathy: only pain and suffering.

I have pulled my vestments over my nose, but even the smell of my quad dormitory cannot drown out the ungodliness of this man.

My torment looks like it is at an end — we are only two floors away, but what’s that creaking noise? Why are we slowing?

Oh no. We’ve stopped. 

Is this how I die? 

If so, instruct my offspring to endow a foundation in my name, for the purposes of teaching freshman how and why we shower to prevent others from suffering as I have. 

It is a small thing, but it is all I can do in this time of struggle. 

Tell my parents I love them.

Scatter my ashes in the oceans and in the fields of my homeland.

Finally, spray a puff of Febreze™ into the air as a reminder of the importance of going against this man’s example and to make the world a slightly better-scented place. 

mors vincit omnia.