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EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ryan Frank
EDITORIAL EDITORS
Kameron Cole
Stefanie Knowlton
Starting the new year with a bang...
\
columnist rejlects on lije
and death as he careens
into 1999.
N!
ew Year’sEve. 11:50
p.m. Absolute dark
ness. “Highway to
Hell” blaring on the
■k radio. The dial displays some
✓ alien AM frequency as the
AC/DC anthem screams out of
the speakers, penetrating every
y micro-cleft of my numbing body.
j As the time sucks through my
cerebellum I quiver and jam the
foot to the crumbling floor;
full throttle, hammering
my way up the black
ness of the freeway.
Gunning across In
terstate-5,1 realize
that I am amid the
beautiful sea range and
the snowy Cascades, in
the valley... of death.
And white like the snow
on the mountains are the
lines that are viciously vacu
umed, like a supersonic Hoover, as
the car darts along the endless slab
of straight tar that vanishes in the
distance.
Another New Year is nigh and
desperation takes over.
l’v* The engine is a lulling
^ drone, the road is a
Mgr’sgL lazy straight line,
but the pain and
'y fear won’t go away.
\ Solution? More
\ speed. And as the
j foot presses
HEH^PP | against the floor,
) the speedometer
j needle creeps far
/ tiler and farther to
/ the right. The legal
j limit exceeded by
j many, many digits.
/ The car continues to
I frenziedly devour the
j white lines that disap
■T I pear as the ground be
■ / low is over taken by the
■ j explosive speed. And as I
W * fly"
fly my car through the de
dv
serted valley, I come
across the inevitable:
1 he explosion ot a naive, road-crossing
raccoon splatters animal blood and fur on
the cracking windshield. The wiper, faced
with the lack of water, spreads the noctur
nal beast’s remains on the stained glass as
if it were butter on toast.
Vision is now completely shut off. Even
so, the needle continues its defiant crawl
toward max speed.
Opinion
Vince
Medeiros
wii vjuu, ciuuiiici yccu . is
it worth it?
And you may be think
ing: “How dare you ques
tion our almighty Lord in
whose sacred hands reside
the power of deciding the
destinies of all living
things in this world?”
Well, I dare question it,
indeed! And I tell you
readers, it’s not worth it!
Enough of all this an
guish and torture that
nave luimemeu my uiuiiudiic exisitJilUtJ
for the past several years. Can’t take it
anymore. And the upcoming year
promises to be even more hellish.
Twenty credits sadistically await me
this term, ready to destroy every attempt
I might make at having a little bit of a life.
Plus there’s work—a freaking drag.
The campus night life has been as ex
citing as sex with an aged, haggard prosti
tute, and my once-treasured stack of pom
has become too old to comfort my misery.
Not much hope there.
So, as the road bends, I go straight. A
precipice looms ahead. I’m probably go
ing to die, exploding on the ground below,
the glow visible for miles, and my body re
duced to an amorphous mass of bloody
mince—my lifeless head writhing as the
last muscles finally cease to move.
But as I get closer and closer to my
doom, I suddenly ease my heavy foot and
slam on the brakes in a desperate attempt
to halt the inertia that will lead to my in
evitable fate.
A horrendous shriek ensues as the
brakes bum, trying to fight the violent ro
tation of the tires. Just inches before the
abysmal cliff, the wheels finally pause.
Jeez. Close one.
But I thought I should give 1999 a bit
of a chance.
Vince Medeiros is a columnistfor the Emer
ald. His views do not necessarily represent
those of the newspaper.
„.DOMT WORRY. PoiKS.'
/M OKAV/?
ir
6eh,jww_
(OUIDNTWU
JU$T PMtOON
ME?
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