I am the Bucket of Pig’s Blood Perched Atop the Rafters in This Empty High School Gymnasium

All across America, there are prom dresses still veiled in their plastic sheaths, elaborate promposals that will never get executed, tiaras that will never adorn anyone’s cranium, and trays of deli meats that will never be uneaten at after-prom parties while kids seek basement corners in which to finger bang.  And there’s me, the bucket of pig’s blood perched atop the rafters in this empty high school gymnasium, a gymnasium which will not host a prom this year.

There will be no nervous exchange of corsages in front of eager parents, no custom tuxes, no chaperones keeping seniors six inches apart as they sway to Journey’s “Open Arms”, no glitter or mirth or streamers, and no liters of blood dumped upon a telekinetic outcast who got her period after gym class a few weeks ago.

No Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” playing while all your classmates suddenly become professional dancers, like how they did in “Footloose” and “She’s All That.”

High school is where you go to learn what sort of person you’d like to be, both inside and outside the classroom.  Where you go to learn to hone your skills at making other people feel bad about themselves.  Where you can learn to rig an election so the misfit wins prom queen and when she does, you can dump all the blood on her head.

I have a message for the high school seniors.  This was supposed to be your year.  You were supposed to be the captain of that team, the officer of that club, or that student who dumped gallons of porcine plasma upon the psycho mutant who can move things with her mind and didn’t know what menstruation was. This was THE year that your entire schooling was building up to. But it was robbed from you because of this global pandemic.

Those lawn signs are lovely, but nothing beats humiliating someone in person, does it?

A canceled date, another detention, an ill-timed zit: When you’re in high school, any number of problems can make it feel like the end of the world has arrived.  So when the weird girl got her period in the shower you knew that you had an opportunity to deflect some of your own shit onto her.

The last two months of your senior year were no doubt supposed to be showered in parties, end-of-the-year banquets, ceremonies, getting finger-banged in limos, and preparing for graduation. You probably raised money for the prom, thought of a cool theme like “Casino Night” or “Under the Sea,” killed a giant pig, a cute Yorkshire pig like Babe, drained the blood from its carcass, and arranged a Rube Goldberg-esque system so that the aberration with psychic powers would get what’s coming to her.

Anything could have happened on prom day – just like in the movies – that first kiss, getting finger banged in the limo, being voted to prom court, and the possibility of a deadly inferno promulgated by the telekinetic outcast who just got a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her!

I am sad for you; truly, I am. I feel deeply for you; truly, I do. It makes my heart hurt as I write. But if there is any group that can plow through this in creative ways, it is your group. There is no pandemic strong enough to silence you or dent the passion of your generation.  And when you said you were going to party like there’s no tomorrow on prom night?  You can still do that because there really might not be a tomorrow!!

But I can offer some encouragement. Right now, you have the power to make the most out of this unfortunate situation. If a decade of being pumped through a pig heart has taught me anything, it’s that people your age are resilient and innovative. Your generation can navigate multiple worlds and bounce between physical and digital spaces with ease. You will identify new and startling ways to make people feel bad about themselves.

You want to know who’s fucked, kids?  Me.  You kids will all go to college and have professions.  You have decades of finger banging ahead of you.  I am stuck here. Forever.  How often does a girl with telekinetic powers come along?  At best, I might be repurposed for some high school production of Macbeth or Hamlet.

We have every reason to be upset. The parties, the pomp, the circumstance – it’s all a right of passage that nearly every adult in your life has taken a part in.  You are absolutely entitled to feel sad that your senior year was cut short. Yes, there are horrible things going on in the world and yes, there are worse things that could have happened but your feelings are valid and they still count.

But maybe someone come up here and get me?  Maybe we can toss the blood on the telekinetic freak while she’s walking to the grocery store?

After all, it is still very much your year.