March 9, 2019-Lander, Wyoming.
Early Friday morning, residents of St. Leo’s Dormitory on the Holy Rosary Parish grounds were awakened to violent reverberations and the sound of their dorm crumbling around them, along with another sound, one unlike anything any of them had ever heard before. The sound abruptly ceased as the power conduits were severed and the building settled in a heap on the ground. As the bewildered students crawled out from beneath the rubble, their prefect, Mr. Nick Rex, was relieved to find that everyone was accounted for and there were no injuries, besides the expected scrapes and bruises.
As morning at the brown brink eastward sprung, the young men surveyed the wreckage of that which had been their home for the past semester and a half. Mr. Rex summoned up the greatest semblance of grim determination he could muster, then to give a rousing speech to his charges. “Men,” he said, “we know not why the power of the Divine has so smitten our beloved Leo’s, but we do know that it is not without reason, despite the fact that St. Athanasius’ dorm is a more obvious target. Perhaps it is that we are the chosen people, needing a summons to move on to greater goods and higher dwelling places. Whatever the case may be, we have been blessed to live and to continue to serve. We will continue,” and looking heroically into the distance, he said, “We will rebuild.”
Officials at Wyoming Catholic College, however, were far more interested in the efficient cause of the matter, or the formal cause, in the case of those officials who questioned the direct interaction of the Divine Will in the matter. The culprit was quickly found to be St. Leo’s resident DJ, known to his fans as Jon ‘The Sound-Table Thing.’ He was discovered hours after the incident, staring into the pile of debris, from which various spiders and other vermin were making a mass exodus. He had tears in his eyes and kept shaking his head, muttering, “It was so beautiful… So beautiful.”
After Student Life representatives somehow managed to bring him back to reality, Jon revealed that he had long been inspired by the likes of The Glitch Mob and most recently, by the Guillotine remix of the song, ‘Death of Me,’ by the Christian nu-metal band, ‘Red.’ He had realized that many people pursue beauty in the musical realm as a form of artistic chastity, that classical forms are often considered to be pure, as they are beautiful and pleasing to the ear, therefore being more rightly ordered.
However, as he himself put it, “Sometimes it isn’t the beauty that brings us to God; sometimes it is pain that causes our conversion. Few things are quite as painful to the human intellect as the orchestrated dissonance of a well composed dub-step remix, complete with an excellent and ravishing bass drop. After all, will I be ever chaste, except He ravish me? Therefore, I set out to create the best dub-step with the ultimate bass drop, finally finishing late last night. As you can see, it was indeed ravishing. However, I have realized my folly. In attempting the ultimate bass drop, I fear that I have created an affront to the Divine. Surely none can ever compose on the same level as the Creator. I am finished. I will never create a better bass drop. I have achieved the greatest bass drop any man shall ever synthesize. I end my quest and await the perfection and redemption of creation.”
At last word, Jon has retreated into the wilderness to await the end of all things, when the allegory of St. Leo’s Dormitory finds its fulfillment. According to his newly established theory, all power and glory will be shown forth with the ultimate bass drop, one of infinite power, which will bring about the end of the old earth as all powers of evil flee, much as the vermin of Leo’s departing the ravishment and ruin of that corrupted and decaying dwelling place. Then and only then will the face of the earth be renewed, as a cosmic parallel to the renewal of St. Leo’s, the rebuilding of which is expected to be completed by the beginning of the fall semester.