HUMOR DISCLAIMER: This article is intended as satire and uses the tools of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule in the context of contemporary politics, current trends, recent school events, and other topical issues.

by Nick Stonesifer ‘20

January 2, the Judgment Day. Students all over the county have fallen victim on this terrible day. Break is over and we’re all back… yay! Time to sit in class and look back on the wonderful times we had over our holidays, when we’re free to wake up at a reasonable hour if we so choose, spending time with the ones we love, and most of all, having six more hours in our days, to do something actually productive.

The reality is we’re stuck here at school. Like a dream, rudely awakened by an alarm, “there is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness,” said Dante Aligheiri, who famously recounted his tour of Hell in the Inferno and then had to journey through Purgatory.

The Warrior got in touch with Dante to get his insights on Purgatory, and how it compares to the months of January through April during the school year. “How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears),” said Dante. Even to the normal person, these months for students can feel like eternity as we wait for the sweet release of break. Yeah, break. Climbing from the depths of the Inferno as we make our ascent to our personal Heaven away from school.

As we climb to the summit we are faced with relentless obstacles that seek to dishearten us. Our teachers pile on hours of work for students who care to do the work, but at this point is anybody even thinking about doing it? The only thing that keeps us going is pining for snow days. It is only when our snow days that we return to pushing our stone up the mountain in futility.

The days drone on as the hope we share is dragged through the mud. Slowly we pull ourselves up every morning to the school that drains the life from us. The weeks slog on as we swim through the thick paste of time, stuck in a twilight state where nothing feels real anymore.

January, February, March, April. Dante offered to give more insight about these awful months, and all of the suffering they bring us. “My son, here may indeed be torment, but not death,” he reminds us. There is wisdom in what he said. We as a student body have to be more optimistic in these dark days, and have only each other to keep safe. Push through these brutal days, only making that break all the better once we are set free from this place. Only 81 days to the mountaintop.