The graduation gown feels oddly heavy. Heavier than it felt when I was trying it on. Weight of expectations is a real thing, I suppose. Approaching the double doors into the auditorium, I look to the left. Standing in a corner, quietly chatting with Phillipe, is Ter. Looking over to my right, across in the mass of people whose families have come, stands Ali, her mother behind her chatting with one of this semester’s visiting Maestros. She catches my gaze and excuses herself, taking a step out from the crowd. She gives me a look, to make sure I’m good with everything that I’ll need to do in the coming years. I sigh, shrug, but nod. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen that look from her. She looks over to Ter. Ter finishes her hushed conversation with our student government president and looks at Ali. The look Ali gives her is different than the one she gives me. Less patient, almost. But also, somehow less concerned. Ter’s response is what amounts to her version of an eyeroll. She looks over at me. Bored. Waiting. I gesture my head towards the clock, and then the parents, still arriving to attend. We both know this will be a long one. We have the two student commencement speeches, Nat’s and Phillipe’s, and then they announced there would be a “brief” speech from a visiting important figure in the Court. Likely because Greg got accepted as a court spy. Which means it’ll all in all take hours just to get to the walking across stage part. And, because of the auditorium rules, we can’t bring in any food or, more importantly, coffee. Ter looks over to Ali, who nods. Ali then looks curiously at Ter, glancing upwards towards her mother. No fair, she didn’t invite me to meet her mom. Ter slightly shook her head. That’s probably why. I would definitely have accepted. And both of us probably would be more successful in her schemes without meeting anyone too important too quickly.
I continue to look around at my classmates. A bunch of people with their parents, people who are going to be successful in their lives. People who definitely won’t. And a lot of people who I just don’t know. Take Jase. He’s here with his brother and his brother’s new fiance. Parents didn’t show, but he wasn’t expecting them. Jase is a lot, in a lot of ways. And I could definitely see him never doing anything more than minor, unimportant programming work. I could also see him quietly and accidentally becoming one of those important DC players from just being friends with all the right people, and using whatever twisted, terrible lessons his bestie Ter has taught him these last four years. Or Greg, our resident success story. Struggled a bit his junior year, and now he’s going to Court, to be turned into an independent agent. Is he going to be the person he’s been this year, and be a key spy for all the muckety-mucks? Or is he going to revert to who he was before his struggles, and end up flailing around ineffectually? I honestly can’t tell. Either is possible.
The doors open on their own, as the music starts playing. A couple ushers come out to lead in us graduates and get ourselves organized in the back room. In the back room, we separate into alphabetical zones. Within those zones, we are further organized by some of the schools’ newer Magisters. Then, we get even more time to stand around, now organized how they intend to announce us. Eventually, a different, more intense song starts to play, and we’re processed out from the back and into the auditorium itself. The parents and families are in the back rows and upper levels. We’re filed into the seats at the front of the auditorium. Each of our seats has our name on the pamphlet, just in case we weren’t properly organized before coming in. Settling in for the long ass speeches to come.
The first speech is that of the guest. A member of the Basilica’s Court. Not a particularly important one, given Ter and Ali’s response to their announcement as a guest speaker, but still a get for such a relatively unimportant Villa in the middle of nowhere. Our Great Maestro comes to the podium and announces, “Please give a friendly welcome to our guest from the Basilica itself, the Court Magister Thanasis Metaxas.”
There is some vague clapping from a bunch of people who have no idea who they’re clapping for. I wonder what this speech is going to be transformed into for those of the audience who are outside the groups of understanding. A middle aged, well tanned gentleman steps up to the podium, shaking our Maestro’s hand and moving the mic to his mouth. Then, he begins his speech.
The speech is exactly as long as we expected it to be, which is to say, far from brief. It’s a rambling mess of anecdotes and life lessons, none of which are particularly relevant or interesting. Ultimately, I think the point was that we should be careful about mixing the outside world with our world. I, of course, don’t need to worry about that too much. That’s why we have a Ter to help conquer the world. I just need to worry about the other aspects of our world. And it’s also a speech that could have been done much better and in five to ten minutes by anyone more interesting. Instead, our admin has successfully bored a bunch of people who came to the event just here to watch an hour of people walking across a stage. Impressive, if I do say so. The Great Maestro approaches the podium once more. “Thank you, Magister Metaxas,” she says. “Now, as we always do, enjoy a couple of brief speeches from other students, that hold your respect. First, our leading Valedictorian, Apprentice Natalya Sobol.”
That one gives a hearty round of applause from a solid half the student body. We all know Nat deserves this thing. She was in a tight race with Greg and Kyle for Valedictorian, and ended up winning by like a hundredth of a point. 3.974 to 3.969 and 3.966 or something like that. Insanity. All that matters for the long term is the top five, so it was basically a race to see who was going to be forced to talk. And, Greg would have had a good enough speech, I think, but no one likes Greg. Kyle, on the other hand, would have given Thanasis a run for his money as far as bad speeches today would be concerned. So, Nat was the best option. She walks up from the seats of the top five on the left hand side of the stage. Clearing her throat, she adjusted the mic and started to speak.
Her speech was exactly what we wanted. In less than four minutes, Nat basically said the cliche speech about how we’re just starting our futures and have more ahead than behind. And she ended it by saying, “So, let’s get through this, pick up our degrees, and get on with the hard part: Living the rest of our lives.”
There was some vague applause, mostly because Nat understood the assignment and finished her speech quickly. Our Great Maestro walks back up and takes the mic back. “Thank you for that, Miss Sobol.” Then taking a breath, she looks intently at Phillipe, sitting on the other side with the rest of the student leadership. “Now, Apprentice Phillipe George, the president of our student government, will give a relevant, appropriate speech.” She puts a lot of emphasis on the words relevant and appropriate. Which is important, but won’t help.
Phillipe steps forward. Gives a slight bow of his head. Leans into the mic, rather than moving it. “I have had a bunch of different speeches planned over these last couple weeks. Cause, let’s be honest, I am not the best at sticking with my thoughts. Lost, I got some advice from some friends, some enemies, some idiots I know. And they all gave me contradictory advice. So, I picked the frenemy who gave me the worst advice and went with that. Stick to what I know. What I’m good at.” I could see in the wings, our Great Maestro starting to tense up. She knows what’s coming, if not specifically, in general. He’s clearly already off-script. “Which, as you are all aware, for me means flexing on as many of you as I can while maintaining an air of pleasantry and charisma.” The Great Maestro stands up. Phillipe notices. “Sorry, but it seems I should wrap it up. Party on my buddy’s yacht starting tonight, going through the next week, stopping off occasionally around the bay. Hit me up for more deets, or meet up with everyone for the drive out there together after lunch. Party hard, even if you’re not partying with us.” With that he quickly walks back to the chair, chuckling and chatting quietly with the other people in the student government. To be fair, most of the rest of us are chuckling, too.
“Thank you for that… interesting… speech, Mister George,” our Great Maestro says, causing even more chuckles through the students. And with that, we moved on to the part people were here to see: An important looking lady reading a bunch of names, and a bunch of people wearing funny clothes and a square hat shaking her hand. She starts with the Valedictorians, then the government, and finally the rest of us. She hands each of us a tube with our diploma in it, as well as a lanyard with an id on it. We went through this before. The diploma is for public viewing, the id is for interacting with the rest of the Magisterium. Has the less than externally appropriate details of our degrees on it.
After another hour or so of names, we finally are dismissed with another set of music, officially Magisters. We throw our hats in the air in celebration and headed outside to the quad. I head over to Jase and Ali. Nat comes over to join us. “Well,” she says, “That happened.”
I smile. “Yours was the second best speech.”
She chuckles. “Sorry that I didn’t think Phillipe would successfully get himself kicked off the podium.”
Jase sighed. “Well, I guess this is goodbye for a bit.”
“I mean, not really,” I say, “Aren’t you all going basically to the same place. And I’ll keep the League group chat alive while I’m away smashing things together to try making tiny explosions for science.”
“You better,” Ali said, “I want constant updates on your terrible decisions in your personal life.”
I chuckle. “Just ask Jase to ask Ter. I’m sure he could get it out of her.”
“I do love that you just assume Therese is going to be spying on you,” Jase says, “Not that she won’t be, because she def will, but it’s great that you just assume it to be so.”
“Well, good luck,” I say and we walk our separate ways, for the moment. Ali and Jase head over towards her mom and his brother, just getting out of the auditorium. Nat heads down to the parking lot, where a bunch of people are already organizing how to get as many people as possible to the Phillipe’s friend’s yacht as efficiently as possible. I look out, across the Betty Hill Run, one final time, towards a specific apartment building. Then with a deep sigh, I order a car to take me to the airport. I’ll get there early, but it’s best to just avoid the temptation.
The car eventually arrives, after the vans to the beach have already left. I get in, and we head out of town towards the airport. I make a bit of small talk with the driver, but my mind is stuck elsewhere. Thinking about all of what I just did, all of what I’m about to do, all the strange aspects of my life. And then, I get a message alert from Ali. A stark reminder of possibly the strangest aspect of it. ‘8 yrs max. have fun’
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