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First-year students like Diana were required to schedule a minimum of three meetings with a life coach, and after verifying her details, Krystal texted her timeslot details.
Mr. Aart Bakker
2/F Room A-3
1400 – 1500
Checking her watch, Diana saw that she still had about thirty minutes to spare and took off for the library. She still had a couple of critical passages to reread from St. Augustine’s Confessiones, which – albeit not dealing directly with suicide – helped Diana considerably in establishing a causal relationship between the depth of one’s faith and depression.
While she did believe depression was a medical condition, she was also of the (unpopular) opinion that depression, at certain points of one’s life, was the result of fallacious perceptions and misinformed decisions.
Depression could and was more likely to happen if a person (or, as far as her thesis was concerned, an individual of the Catholic persuasion) failed to appreciate that true happiness was one of the soul. Eudaimonia was the term the Greeks used for this particular state while Saint Augustine explained it more eloquently, having written in his autobiography:
What does love look like?
It has the hands to help others.
It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.
It has eyes to see misery and want.
It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.
That is what love looks like.
Settling down on one of the empty tables at the back, Diana propped her iPad up and drummed her fingers on the desk as she considered how to best frame her thoughts.
If depression is the outcome of either a person’s tendency or unconscious choice to prioritize a lesser form of love, then could this not be effectively rectified by revealing the truest and purest nature of love, and in so doing show what true happiness constitutes?
Not a perfectly conclusive premise, but it was a start at least, and Diana slowly began to type. The words flowed relatively easily, and by the time her alarm went off, she was glad to see that she had been able to write an additional two pages for her thesis.
Since life was so good, she thought contentedly, it should follow that she must be doing God’s will. That, after, all was what true happiness was about.
Right, Saint M?
Diana had her answer some minutes later when her first life coaching session commenced with a MoU between Helder Meer and its students.
“Our university likes to keep it simple,” Mr. Bakker explained, “which is why we have this in lieu of the typical student handbook. I’m here to answer any questions you may have, and if there happens to be any issue we’re unable to resolve, you can raise it with either the Student Council or the University Board during our monthly assembly.”
Her life coach stood up and pointed to the door, saying, “We’re required to give you privacy while reading the MoU, so just knock if you need me.”
The Memorandum of Understanding only consisted of three pages, and the terms and conditions it enumerated were as straightforward as Mr. Bakker had said. She was half-inclined to simply affix her signature at the end and be done with it, but her conscience ultimately won this round, and Diana began to read.
Section 1 was all about attendance, Section 2 was on grades, and then…Section 5.
Students have the right to form any relationship that is consensual in nature and participate in activities that are demonstrative of this for as long as these activities are not criminal or felonious in nature and the relationship itself is not unlawful.
Assuming that the above considerations are met, the university thus recognizes any relationship in which the involved persons are any of the following:
1A Both parties are of the student body
1B Both parties are of the faculty body
1C Both parties are of the administrative body
1D A student and a member of either the faculty or administrative body*
*Both parties are required to disclose their relationship to the university and file a Conflict of Interest declaration form.
Together
Diana felt sick.
And the closer she got to the faculty building, the sicker she felt, and she could only feel dimly thankful the moment raindrops struck her skin, and her pain turned invisible amidst the skies’ own tears.
She could only muster half a smile for the professor’s secretary when she came barging in, and either she looked too terrifying or pathetic, but Mrs. Montez didn’t even say a word, much less stop her from walking straight into the professor’s office.
Matthijs was on his feet the moment he saw the distraught expression on her face. “Diana?”
She tried to speak, but it was just still too much, and she could only look at him and hurt.
He was so, so beautiful, with nothing in this world able to lessen the flawless symmetry of his face.
So beautiful.
It was just too damn bad he had turned out to be a modern-day Dorian Gray, and almost as if he heard her heart shattering anew, he suddenly stiffened. “You know.” His voice was without emotion, and so was his too-gorgeous face, which was no longer anything but just carved edges and grooves now.
