By the time this column runs, the Red Sox may have won the World Series. In that case, the campus is still on fire, Martial Las has been declared throughout the state and they are just beginning to dig through the rubble that once was Southwest. So the chances that anyone will read this article are slim, since the only ones left are running from the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. But I have a question for all of us out there in the Red Sox nation.

What will we do if we win?

I mean, up until this moment, we have had a bittersweet relationship with our baseball heroes. They build up the tension in our lives. At the pinnacle moment where they have to choose whether to win or lose, they explode all over themselves. We are left frustrated, demoralized and with a few years cut off our lives. This is how it has been forever. They were dependable, and we loved them for it.

But now something is different. We can all smell it in the air. It’s like electricity, and Red Sox fans are uttering three words that no one has ever dared to utter across this land for nearly a century. “They might win!” Say it out loud. Feel how your mouth resists forming the syllables. “They might win!” Say it enough, and the wind starts blowing harder and the sky darkens for some eerie, ominous reason. These words will wake the dead. I once said it early in the morning, and all the birds outside my window suddenly took to the sky and flew off into the horizon. The anticipation is flowing through this place, and you can feel it oozing out of everything.

We are all caught up in the moment. The past few weeks have been a blissful, dizzying ride of … what do you call it? Victory. No one knows what day of the week it is, or even the month. Every night is Saturday. Classes have become a secondary priority, and sleep is no longer a concern at this point. All we want to do is watch the Sox hit the ball and feel that addicting, knee-buckling, euphoric flow of energy course through our bodies. Once they win we hypnotically watch the highlights on ESPN until our eyes glaze over and we pass out on the couch. I never know where I’ll wake up once a game ends: my bed, on the couch, perhaps in my car.

But what will we do if we win? Up to this point, we are all extremely happy. We are experiencing something that no other Red Sox fan has experienced. We swept the Angels. We came back to defeat the Yankees in a most historic fashion, and now we are leading the World Series. If we win, I’ll be hysterical. But when that hysteria ends, what will we have to look forward to? Every year I look forward to the baseball season because I know it’ll bring me joy and pain, the hope that this is the year. Well if this is the year, what will happen next year, and the year after that?

If the Red Sox win, they will have vanquished the curse that set their epic tale of tragedy into motion 86 years ago. No more curse. No more excuses why they never seem to get a break. Well then, what will we have to hang our frustrations on? Who will cause us the grief that we search for every year? Without an outlet, I fear that the Red Sox nation will lose its tradition of being the most downtrodden, irrationally optimistic fan base in all of sports. We love the abuse we receive, and we love coming back for more. With each, almost-there-but-didn’t-quite-make-it season, we eagerly feed upon the anxiety, despair, hope and heartburn that the Red Sox dish out.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that with a World Series win the Red Sox will seem a little more human. Before, they were the stuff of myths. They were legends, a cursed team. Upon breaking that curse, they will resume their role in the baseball world. After that, what will they have to strive for, and what will we have? Every team wants to win a World Series. But how many want to win and break a century’s long affliction?

Perhaps there will be the Curse of the Garciaparra. Perhaps in another 86 years, Cubs fans will scream, “two thousand four” at Red Sox/Cubs games. All I know is that in Anaheim, a little boy’s father left his family because angels or other ethereal beings aren’t allowed to intervene in baseball games. (This is an actual MLB rule.) In New York, pigs are flying, and there are way more Jets fans than there used to be. In Boston, victory hungry fans are on the precipice of world domination. Like I said, “they might win.”

Ben Feder is a Collegian columnist.