The following piece is satire and should not be misconstrued for actual reporting. Any resemblance to a student, staff or faculty member is coincidental.
A candle-lit memoriam flooded the darkened stairway, leading to the now forbidden pathway to TDR. The mood was somber, yet nostalgic. Tears of mourning splashed before the orange traffic cones just beyond the stairway and the TDR exit, plastered with a sign that said “EMERGENCY EXIT.”
Serving as the Mary Graydon Center’s backdoor to iconic food stops, such as the Market, under the parking garage tunnel, one of the most popular fire exits leading out from TDR has now been shut down temporarily after fifty AU students have disappeared through what experts are calling a “gateway to Narnia.”
“All the money we paid for our daughter to go to this school was a waste,” Marsha Mathers said, mother of Gina Mathers, one of the missing students. While her sobbing echoed throughout the only shady corridor on campus, she crooned over her daughter’s lost opportunities.
“I should’ve just had her to go to a trade school so that she would’ve learned something useful and beneficial to society,” Mathers said. “Instead she came here and all she learned about was ‘The Feminine Mystique.’”
“This time around, the entrance appears to be in some sad, shallow alleyway instead of some ancient oak wardrobe,” said Vinny Regus, president of AU’s Fantasy Club. “Additionally, rather than attracting the souls of four traumatized children, the gateway seems to be alluring young adults plagued with insomnia and the inevitable institutional-induced destruction of their mental state.”
Students are now recalling their lucky escapes having passed through the alley on various occasions throughout the years.
“I used to cut through that way to get to Subway more quickly,” Larissa Thompson said. “Once my boyfriend vanished after going through there, I realized that it wasn’t worth going that way just to clog my arteries with some greasy footlong more easily.”
To the University’s surprise, despite it being closed off from our side of the universe, hundreds of mythological creatures have still managed to find their way to our world.
“The kids here keep asking if we’re international exchange students,” said Rick, a 14-foot tall centaur who sought to escape the war-ravaged land of Narnia. “I guess this is payback for abducting those four British kids a century ago. I mean, why would anyone want to end up here?”
It is suspected that these students, lost to some vicarious nether, may be forced to fight in an eternal onslaught against forces even greater than college rigor.
“It’s like World War III has already started for them,” Grover Redfield said, a satyr and inter-dimensional culture consultant for the worlds of Narnia and AU. “The only way for winter to return to D.C. is not through the fight against climate change, but with victory against the armies of the White Witch.”
Aslan, the famous lion leader of the Narnians, has also reportedly been seen sneaking in and out of the gateway on numerous occasions. When confronted about his purposes behind opening the gateway, he had this to say:
“Oh, uh, it’s time to stop climate change.”
Justin Poulin is a sophomore in the School of International Service, and is a satire columnist at the Eagle.
