THE GHOST OF JOHN HARVARD STATUE

By Yehong Zhu

It’s not easy being a 400 year-old plaything to 6,700 undergraduates. Unable to escape the brutal nightly hazings by intoxicated freshman, tormented by the inferiority complex that comes from being used quite literally as a “john,” and gloomy from serving as the running inside joke around campus, the ghost of the John Harvard statue has lost a lot of spirit. To compensate for his nightly humiliations, the John Harvard statue ghost looks for sources of validation. He attracts countless legions of tourists to mindlessly photograph his statuesque physique. He lures the uninitiated into caressing his golden toe. And yet, in the end, all his ghoulish efforts somehow still leave him feeling hollow inside.

THE GHOST OF THE SLEEP-DEPRIVED FRESHMAN

By Emma K.Talkoff

Long ago an overeager freshman stalked Harvard’s hallowed halls, driven by forces unseen to try his hand at every extracurricular the College offered. Improv comedy, acapella, IOP—he blindly committed to them all, double, triple, quapdruple-booking each week. Every night offered a new comp meeting, another forum, a fresh opportunity for free pizza. Before long, sleep was all but a distant memory, and our once bright-eyed hero saw his fall extend into one endless, sleepless day.Finally, one morning just before 9 a.m., gummy-eyed and exhausted, he collapsed somewhere between Canaday and Thayer, a sleep-slackened shell of his former self. “What happened to that one kid,” they lamented, “that one kid who was in, like, all the same clubs as me?” He was never seen again, but his ghost remained, tethered to the grounds which had robbed him of sleep and sapped him of life. Embittered and lonely, he vowed to inflict the same sleepless terror on generations of freshmen, for all eternity. “Let them try,” he moaned in an inhuman show of passive aggressiveness. “They will never sleep in again.”On weekends and late mornings, you can still hear his spirit prowling the Yard, pealing out its gloomy call for all to hear from the spire of Memorial Hall. The next time you wake with a start and a frustrated groan from your interrupted Saturday slumber, remember. Remember your fallen comrade, who succumbed to eternal sleep that fateful 8:40 am. 

THE GHOST OF THE DISGRUNTLED DORM CREW EMPLOYEE

By Michelle Y. Raji

If you find yourself deprived of toilet paper on a snowy Thursday evening, beware: you might be the victim of a particularly passive aggressive spectre—the ghost of the disgruntled Dorm Crew employee.The ghost of the disgruntled Dorm Crew employee roams the basement of Weld Hall. This troubled soul’s fate was sealed after a petty dispute with a desperate college student over the irritating limit of two toilet paper rolls per student. Upon returning multiple times, only to be denied more toilet paper, the frustrated student impaled the unsuspecting student-employee with a nearby broomstick. Ever since, his restless spirit has haunted the Weld basement, occasionally visiting dorm room bathrooms to steal toilet paper in the wee hours of the morning, pitting roommates against each other. Many believe his acts of worldly vengeance are doomed efforts to fill the perpetual hole in his broom-stuck heart. It’s actually about “how drug testing and other privacy violations are alienating America’s youth,” he says.

THE GHOST OF VIRGINITIES PAST

By Grazie S. Christie

If you find that the Widener stacks is one of your favorite haunts, watch out: as you sit in your isolated study carrel and attempt to skim the 400 pages you should have read weeks ago, you are not alone. And no, I’m not referring to the couple potentially getting it on a couple stacks over. I’m talking about the Ghost of Virginities Past.  Between rows of books levitates this far-too-hormonal fiend, resplendent in all its weepy, desperate, why-didn’t-you-call-me-back glory. In a reading-induced delusion exacerbated by a serious case of Harvard goggles, you might think the mysterious figure in front of you looks a lot like your ex, or maybe reminds you of that cutie in your entryway. I suggest that you run. The Ghost of Virginities Past is thirsty, and it’s not about to let you go. Especially if you’re a freshman.