FM Imagines: Emails From Leslie Kirwan

FAS OPEN THURSDAY, CLASSES AS SCHEDULED

Dear members of the FAS community,

The University and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) have been monitoring the winter storm approaching the Cambridge/Boston area. At this time, FAS plans to remain open for normal operations on Thursday.

We will continue to provide updates detailing any developments, though note that any cancellations will be made over my cold, dead body.

Sincerely, Leslie A. Kirwan

FAS WINTER WEATHER UPDATE, THURSDAY 8 A.M.

Dear members of the FAS community,

FAS has been monitoring the ongoing winter storm and its deteriorating conditions. While the situation continues to develop, the University remains open at this moment. We ask that those members of our community who have already arrived on campus please proceed to their duties as scheduled.

Instructors should email students if they are for some reason unable to commute to campus. An updated list of affected courses can be found on Registrar Michael P. Burke’s Tumblr page.

Concerning the President’s recent comments on the disputed islands in the East China Sea: I want to remind you that with the increasing threat of total nuclear war, I take pleasure in knowing that your last day in civil society will be spent trudging through two-foot high snow banks.

Sincerely, Leslie Kirwan

FAS OPEN ON FRIDAY

Dear members of the FAS community,

We did it. Yes, we actually dropped a goddamn nuke. I write this with one bar on my Blackberry, from my makeshift office on the bottom floor of Widener. We have entered day one of nuclear fallout and circumstances are not ideal. As such, classes are hereby cancelled—kidding! That was a good one, if I do say so myself. FAS will remain open for normal operations. This is Harvard, after all!

I would like to address this evening’s MessageMe alert sent by somebody posing as Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, which read, “gET out WHLE you StILL CaN, thEre r zOMbiEs iN tHE YARd.” Rest assured, this message was sent in error. There are not, nor have there ever been, ghouls in the Yard. These moaning creatures are not irradiated mutants, merely freshmen unaccustomed to the New England winter. Please understand they have been without running water and electricity for almost two days now.

Courses may be cancelled at each instructor’s discretion. As Burke has been MIA for several hours and has stopped updating his Tumblr page, I have written out the affected courses with the tears of my critics on the outer facade of University Hall. Like that of cancelled classes, the list of my foes is ever-growing. Luckily, this means no shortage of tears.

Calm down, calm down! I’m just joking. In times like these, it’s important to have a sense of humor.

Please keep warm, as this brisk winter weather looks like it will continue for some time.

Sincerely, Leslie Kirwan

FAS OPEN, NOW AND FOREVER

Dear members of the FAS community,

You thought you had heard the last from me, huh?

Well I sure as hell wish I heard the last of YOU a long time ago. Another email from Leslie Kirwan, you said. Maybe she gets some sort of twisted high from refusing to cancel school when every other institution in the Greater Boston Area is closed, you said. Well, I want to let you all know that I heard it. I heard it all. And Leslie remembers everything.

By the way, to answer your snarky comments, it does feel good.

Even my assistants left today. They told me that I was a madwoman. “Dying of hunger,” they said. Pshh. Hunger? Those weak-willed fools know nothing. There’s tons of good food here. I may have started to eat moldy leather book bindings, but they are high in nutritious content. And what harm has a little cold ever done? I don’t need them anyway. I don’t need ANY of you.

So, with that, I take the utmost pleasure in announcing that FAS will remain open for normal operations today, and for all days to come.

I’m the only one here now. No staff. No faculty. No students. And you call yourselves affiliates of Harvard University?

This shit wouldn’t fly in New Haven.

Sincerely, Leslie Kirwan

P.S. I lied. Yes, fine, I admit it. There are zombies in the yard–angry, irradiated zombies. Many of them were once freshmen, I presume, so what I said before was not inaccurate. Though they speak in anguished moans, I can understand them now. I am their leader.