On just another chilly day on campus, you see something slightly unusual on your walk to class. You believe the frail, wide-eyed, cold and dust-covered little lad inside the Martha Piper fountain is another pre-finals induced hallucination. But still, you approach it slowly, about to offer your puffer to the poor soaking and freezing thing.
Is he real?
Your question is answered when the lad faints from sight of your bright orange SuperPuff (TM) and the strong smell emanating from your thermos (it was a double shot of espresso kind of day, and you really didn’t think the smell was that bad).
You realize that this must be one of those Victorian children you’ve heard about before, popping up all over the world due to an unaddressed tear in time and space. It hasn’t caused too big of a problem, as many of them don’t last very long (I mean, who would in these conditions?). Your unrelenting main-character syndrome and competitive nature that got you into this school in the first place refuses to let you become as careless as the people who have neglected these poor lost souls to fend for themselves (cause you’re such an empath) and you make it your mission to try and preserve this unfortunate child for as long as you can.
And so, you make a list of things that could potentially harm a Victorian child:
The R4 line (to Joyce and to UBC)
Full disclosure — I’ve been in three R4-induced comas in the past month.
You would think that the myriad of other perfectly fine buses would unburden the capacity of the R4 (RIP 480), but for some reason every UBC commuter lives along 41st Ave .
Victorian mine carts (history majors don’t come for me) are no match for the sheer force of a crowd of stressed out, brain dead commuters — a good majority heading for UBC. Wouldn’t you think the advancements of the future would do something about this? Apparently not, Victorian child, apparently not.
The AMS
The Victorian child would not only be baffled by the concept of unions, but with students running it? Yes, overthrow the monarchy, but also have we gone so far in desperation as to have students running our shit? Is this what democracy looks like? No hate at all, but it would definitely send a Victorian child into a coma, who, hypothetically speaking, works at the mines to support their family and eventually go to school, and then finds out that in the future you’d have to both WORK, do school and RUN school. Kinda crazy, kinda whack.
So yeah, they’d probably die or whatever. Note to self, maybe just avoid the Nest entirely?
A Blue Chip cookie
What is in a Blue Chip cookie? Who knows? But these little morsels of sugar would send a Victorian child, who probably never even had a cookie, into a coma for sure.
Rat president
You would think a Victorian child would be used to rats, but the more I ponder upon this one, the more I'm inclined to think that our rat president would send a Victorian child to their demise. They would think they have escaped the rat problem that plagues their society and BAM! Suddenly, rats are in governance! They’re in leadership! It’s giving the AMS is a shadow government.
They would also probably not only faint, but become brain dead from the fact that the rat president is not a rat, but a human person — posing as a rat — to become president. Much to think about.
Fortunately, with our rat president on a leave of absence, the Victorian child may stand a chance.
Syphilis
Yeah.
Wreck Beach
Getting there is one thing, but seeing is another. Just imagine forcing a Victorian child down the stairs and right back up again after doing the Polar Bear Swim — just rawdogging it with no vaccines, no flu shots, no nothing. I don’t even think they would make it up back to the steps.
Good Riddance, Victorian child. You’re not sure what strange contraption transported them into this century, and worse, UBC, but you want to believe your efforts were worth it.
As you turn away, you see another frail, emaciated, hollow-eyed thing shuffling across the shore. As you approach, believing it to be another one, you do a double take.
No, it's fine, it's just another student.