Anonymous Satire
I don’t often stoop to the level of the rabble, but I feel that I must once again take to the page in an effort to curb the putrescent displays of sordid affection that have recently wriggled their way into the public eye like earthworms after a rainstorm.
Spring is traditionally recognized as a time of renewal and rebirth. I find it disgusting. I spend my winters indoors obtaining a healthy, corpse-like pallor. Just as I am reaching the stage of translucence in which I begin to see my vital organs through my skin, the sun appears with a fierce determination to cook me like a rib-eye steak.
I did not ask to be a rib-eye steak. I do not want to be a rib-eye steak. And yet, no matter where in my palace I trod, that flaming gaseous globe peers through my gauze curtains in the manner of a Peeping Thomas.
Suffice to say, I am not one for sunlight. This is why, of course, I chose to build my extensive mansion in Steubenville, Ohio.
I do not enjoy the nasty pastime of “sun-bathing” — I choose to bathe in arsenic-and-ice-water in order to improve my constitution. I do not want to feel warm — physically, of course, I wish to resemble the dead, but above all, I think it best to remain emotionally arctic. And this is what I wish to speak on today.
The Immortal Bard writes of a sickness “which puts some of us in a distemper,” and “is caught of you that are yet well.” He may be talking of insanity, but in this time of dull, stirring roots, this quote comes to mind often as I gaze upon the retch-inducing, new-blossoming lovers that skip around campus like little girls in plaid skirts and pigtails.
It is love— love, that detestable sickness, caught of you who are yet well, you who kept blissfully to yourselves during the winter months. This first peek of the sun has you all tripping over yourselves with tangled passion.
You compose sonnets in your sleep. You rearrange your daily routine to catch one glimpse of your beloved in the hallway. You suddenly find tulips enchanting. Tulips! Objectively the gaudiest, most grandmotherly of flowers, and you find that they remind you of Daphne or Joanna or Natalie. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
When will you children realize that it is not love in the air, but sunlight? Nobody looks beautiful bundled in seven layers of clothing, and everybody looks beautiful standing against a blue-ribbon sky.
I must have seen three or four women running barefoot on the grass outside of the J.C. Williams Center in sundresses. Barefoot! In sundresses! It is 64 degrees! We are not in Miami, Florida! Who are you trying to impress? Those little pasty boys who make the conscious decision to wear tweed? Remember yourselves, ladies!
All this to say, remain as you are. Those of you who are unmarried, do not look to be married. And those of you who are in love (or feel that you are as a result of the blossoming spring), seek to purge it like the illness it is. So, I amend my previous statement. Do not remain as you are, unless you are not.
With deepest revulsion,
His Majesty King Victoria