110 had a rough final. it was called Saturday night.

Setting: 110
Protagonist: a girl with an unnervingly serene disposition
Era: finals

The warning signs were there.  She had seen yellow streaks on the wall and drips from the ceiling and thought mucus? acid? an externalized flu? And then she shrugged and went to bed.

What appeared to be a Simpson murder was reported the next morning to the building super – but exams took precedent as the days progressed.  She began telling her suite mates that the neon yellow crime scene on the walls of her bathroom were fading.  Their nerves settled, she had passed a final: life was looking up.

But then the incident happened.

It was 3am when the suite was relatively unresponsive to what sounded like the earth splitting in half in the neighboring room.  Some Columbia students may think that living on Broadway is loud – but 110’s glamorous history as a luxury hotel of yesteryear presents itself in the form of creeks and melancholy groans. It’s tired. We’re tired. The pressure of exams on us is akin to the weight of time on it’s old structural forms.

So, sometimes we fail our tests.  And, sometimes 110 lets go a of ceiling.

110 tell me what’s bothering you

It’s not intentional, it just happens. You don’t mean to skim through Columbia buy sell memes for hours the night before a final, just like 110 didn’t mean to drop a ceiling on the floor. It was carrying this girl’s bathroom ceiling for a very long time, just like we carry the guilty weight of books we didn’t read to our English classes, or homework we didn’t do because we were “violently ill” the previous night.  Maybe 110 forgot about this ceiling! Or maybe it just said, “Fuck it!” that night! We can’t blame the building for simply reflecting the sentiment of its residents, now can we?

So whether, it was absentminded that evening, or whether it graciously exclaimed, “See you later, old friend!” as it let go of it’s ceiling jolting… let’s not blame 110.  It doesn’t matter.

…Or does it matter that our protagonist said she was “frankly unsurprised”….

Food for thought.

(all ceilings were restored and no one was hurt during the process of the incredibly emblematic ceiling collapse of last week)