WHERE THE BOWTIES COME FROM
By: John E. Dippshitte
I risked my very soul to bring you this story, dear reader. To prove my merit, I snuck into an RA training session, where President Green was taking questions on the controversial hosting of Vermont College of Arts on campus during our winter break—forcing many students to move back home. But during this session, I discovered a far greater, more terrible answer to a question I never knew I had: where President Green’s bowties come from.
Just how did I know of the President’s confidential conference? Well, I was accidentally put on the email list. As for how I slipped in amongst the staff unnoticed, my beloved mother knit me an orange and maroon sweater so hideous that it had to be university-issued.
Gossip occupied the space before the conference, but it all died rather quickly when an aura pierced that bubble of time. A drumbeat began to rise, from the pit of our stomachs to the glass of our hearts to the confines of our skulls, until it burst out of our ears and into the air.
All turned as the center door opened of its own accord, yet somehow also against its will. A short man with a long shadow strolled in—the President. Though his eyes darted side to side, his smile didn’t falter. It broadened like an alien sun. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
As if breaking a spell, the RAs spoke again, but without disorder. Everything had a rhythm, a rehearsal. That is, until the student next to me raised his hand. Oliver DeTwist, his name was.
The President’s whole demeanor changed in an instant. Hands clenched the lectern. Smile fading until his lips were a pale scar behind his beard. His eyes locked upon DeTwist’s. The President invited him, voice low. “Yes.”
“You know,” DeTwist said. “This shit sucks, dawg.”
The President’s left hand jumped from the lectern, pointed at DeTwist, jaw unhinging like a viper. Maroon mist flooded out of the crevices of his suit. His eyes had an unyielding orange glow that sucked out all light in the room.
RAs and staff alike ducked under the tables as thunder roared. DeTwist and I were locked in place. We couldn’t even scream. We could only bear witness.
“YOUR ARROGANCE AND GREED,” the President said as his feet left the stage, “SHALL NOT BE REWARDED IN MY KINGDOM! IN MY SUSQUEHANNA!”
DeTwist’s final words became a gasp of skin on fabric—or rather skin becoming fabric—and his upthrown arms shrank to narrow ends. In a blink, DeTwist had been twisted into a bowtie the color and pattern of his shirt—orange with white stripes. Yet he remained untied.
The President flicked his wrist. DeTwist’s remains slithered away like a snake, up his pant leg, popping out and wrapping around at his neck. A low growl emanated from the maroon cloud that encapsulated the President, lava-like eyes shifting, searching for any further dissent. And with a popping noise, like a cork out of a champagne bottle, it all disappeared. A small man remained on the stage, wearing a navy blue suit and tie. An assistant. He mumbled into the microphone, “President Green is saddened by the hostility on this campus and your unkindness. He is disappointed. ”
The meeting ended shortly after, but the horror hasn’t. It pursues me in every email chain I don’t belong to. Every wink the President gives me. Everytime I glance upon him, DeTwist is twisted around his neck.
