In memoriam: Summer 2019

We hardly knew ye

By Isabelle Orr, Entertainment Editor

Thousands gathered in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery last Sunday to pay tribute to the late Summer 2019.

“It’s heartbreaking, just heartbreaking,” Vancouver local Shelley McBride said to the press. “It happens every year, but it never gets any easier.”

“You always think you’re ready to let go, but you’re not,” UBC student Payton Jarvis said, openly weeping. “This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I just lost my grandpa last year.”

Mourners placed flowers, photographs, and other trinkets in front of a large, glossy picture of the sun. Most locals won’t see daylight again until next May.

“I’m not ready for the sun to set at 4 pm,” McBride said. “I just can’t go through another winter again. I can’t!”

McBride wasn’t the only one clinging on to the season. Police were called in to control a rowdy bunch of protesters who were throwing rocks at clouds.

“We refuse to let summer go without a fight,” Angelo Sefras said to the press as he stapled leaves back onto tree branches. “Thanks to all the weird clouds and rain that stuck around in June, we feel we barely got the summer we deserve. We only want what’s ours!”

The group of dissidents, called the Anti-Fallcists, were encouraging mourners to rise up and fight against the changing seasons.

“Everyone tells you the seasons are cyclical,” Sefras said, yelling through a microphone. “But have you ever considered that they don’t have to be?”

Other Press reporters spoke to meteorologist Peter Kapur to find out if the seasons were in fact a natural and inevitable phenomenon.

“Obviously yes, they are,” Kapur said. “But what varies is human feeling and emotion. This was one of the shortest-feeling summers in the past decade. Scientists can’t explain why—it just is. Therefore it’s no surprise that so many people are clinging onto something they feel they deserve. After all, we’re only human.”

Protests began preparing a human sacrifice in exchange for two extra weeks of the summer season.

“I’m willing to die for a cause I believe in,” Sefras said as his body was adorned with garlands of flowers and essential oils. “I am ready and willing to give my body to the sun gods, so that they may feast upon me and stay satiated for 10 to 14 days.”

A candlelight vigil is being held for those who want to continue celebrating the recently deceased season.

“We’re going to have people march down the street to help remember the hot summer days and long summer nights—the whole month we had of them,” Jarvis said. “It’s planned for this evening—that is, if it doesn’t rain.”