As classes ramp up in preparation for finals, the search for more focused study environments on campus is growing tenser. More and more students migrate daily to the lower levels of the library, some unlikely to emerge for the foreseeable future. As the students grow more desperate, their actions have grown rash, and, in some cases, dangerous. In fact, it appears that, in an incident dated to roughly a week ago, an unidentified group of students drew a pentagram in first Libe, subsequently opening a gateway to Hell. It has been conjectured by experts that the event was an unsuccessful, stress-motivated attempt to form a study group with Satan himself, known to have performed well in Quantum Mechanics last winter.

While many students feel like this term is a hell on earth already, many of the walls of first Libe have turned into authentic brimstone. Due to the fire hazard, student workers are currently working to contain the spread. However, this process has encountered numerous roadblocks. Since the students are paid so little and work in such proximity to the gateway without necessary PPE, many have quit, explaining their intention to sell their souls in exchange for a better work environment.

In response to Carleton administration’s plea to faculty for help, the physics and astronomy department has donated a high-resolution telescope to look through the gate. They have found what seems to be a road twisting down into a seemingly bottomless pit. Seeing the disastrous consequences of unmanageable course loads, students began to demand apologies and explanations from some of the offending professors. Interestingly, as a group of professors delivered an address asserting that they had assigned such a high volume of work with “good intentions,” the operators of the telescope confirmed in real time that these good intentions were paving the road to Hell.

Again from the PHAS department, a contribution of a high-sensitivity microphone has been made in the hope of hearing something at the other end of the road. However, the operators have notified us that not much progress has been made, as the provided instructions “border on illegibility.” Sources indicate, though, that the paper might just be upside down. 

A few hours ago, readings of distant sounds from the microphone finally came through, picking up strange chants. With some careful tuning, these noises materialized into coherent words, specifically names from the Carleton College Board of Trustees. After further investigation, it was discovered that many of these names belong to those who have, in the past, resisted calls for divestment of the Carleton endowment from fossil fuels. It is still unclear whether casting them into the pit will succeed in closing the gateway. Hell has been known to reject sacrifices in the past, most recently Rex Tillerson, Henry Kissinger and Tex Richman, antagonist of 2011’s “The Muppets.”