The Apuanaut

Rei Ayanami Says… Watch Your Caffeine Intake!
Mailed August 2026

Front cover: Black pen on cardstock.

Inside: Typewriter ink on cotton paper.

it was the autumn of 2022.
in my capacity as a resident advisor in an undergraduate apartment complex, i found myself tasked with the tri-monthly ritual of adorning the communal bulletin board. having recently succumbed to a burgeoning obsession with the nineties anime neon genesis evangelion, i took it upon myself to rasterize a monumental rendering of Rei Ayanami — skin-tight plugsuit and all — and mount her towering visage upon the wall.

“this,” i murmured to the empty hallway, “shall surely be the instrument of my termination.”

duty, however, demanded an educational veneer. thus, i pressed miss ayanami into pedagogical service, positioning her as an unlikely apostle warning my residents against the perils of excessive caffeine consumption.
when the inevitable confrontation with my employer arrived, i ventured to ask if my employment hung in the balance. he assured me that it did — though not for the transgression i had imagined.

“the anime titties i can overlook,” he conceded. “i draw the line, however, at hypocrisy.”

he was, regrettably, correct. a soul hopelessly bound to the nectar of redbull lecturing impresionable scholars on the dangers of stimulant abuse? a wretched spectacle indeed.

it is now august 2026.
i am acutely reminded of george lucas’s famous adage, “it’s like poetry.., it rhymes.”
once again, i find myself pursuing the study of biophysics, again in a land celebrated for its snow. once again, i inhabit a dormitory, and once again, i mistreat caffeine.

yet destiny, it seems, possesses a wicked sense of humor. under the weight of a recently-acquired narcolepsy diagnosis, i am now sustained by state-sanctioned amphetamines. the supreme irony of it all?? my devotion to redbull remains unbroken.

perhaps rei ayanami ought to descend from her bulletin board once more — this time, to lecture me on the delicate mechanics of the stimulant cocktail.