As soon as I entered campus, I felt eyes begin to follow me.
When I’d first decided to drive down from Oregon to pick up a few things from my dorm room, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I really only had to clear out a sleeping bag, my massive dab rig, and a couple loose rabbits I’d caught over the year. As I pulled up to Roble, I really only expected to be there for 20 minutes tops — then back on the road.
Of course, in hindsight, there were warning signs all over that something fishy was going on — the dead trout pinned to my door with a bowie knife, for example — but I had just picked up a delicious Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell and was grooving to Thelonious Monk’s greatest hits on Pandora, so you could’ve slapped me in the face and I would’ve just box-stepped my way into a corner-bite without noticing.
Little did I know, that crunch was to be my downfall.
They struck just as I was moving Drake and Josh (the rabbits) into their cage. Two burly students wearing MS&E t-shirts rushed me in the stairwell, threw a sack over my head, picked me up like I was nothing more than a chicken quesadilla, and hustled me to where I am now: the forgotten prison cells underneath the Psych department, where decades ago they did the Stanford Prison Experiment.
My captors say I’ll soon stand trial before a “Witan” for the crime of trying to retrieve my stuff whilst being an out-of-state student — punishable by becoming a ghost-writer for Susie Brubaker-Cole’s 1700-word throwaway emails about Stanford’s coronavirus plans (or lack thereof). For now, though, I’m being force fed pre-packaged Arrillaga Dining meals and made to drink Natties from the same bowl as Brubaker-Cole’s dog Riva. I fear every moment brings me closer to my demise.