CSA platforms for the 2024-2025 school year positions were released on Feb. 12. Following their publication, investigative journalist Ben Ellis was promptly sent to his office, tasked with the mission of figuring out how these bold claims of getting more spring concert (Sproncert) funding could be implemented logistically. After a week of no updates, the Carletonian intern Bileana Morowski was dispatched to the depths of Ellis’ office to retrieve him. This is what they found:
Creaking the door open, a beam of light from the hallway behind me pierced the dimness of Ben’s office. The floor was littered with papers, some flying up as the being within scurried away from the light, making a loud hissing noise as they went.
I hesitated only slightly before flicking the lights on; this led to substantially more hissing. I wasn’t sure if I had stumbled upon Ben or a rabid raccoon, but whatever creature I found was not happy to see me. As my eyes adjusted, I took in the hunched form of Ben Ellis. Locking eyes, I failed to find the renowned reporter I used to know and admire. What had brought him to this degenerate state?
As his clouded eyes focused on me, he seemed to recognize me, becoming lucid—if just for a second. He rushed towards me, coming to stop at my feet, clutching the end of my pant legs and murmuring, “It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, the numbers aren’t numbering…it just—I can’t—no.” His eyes begged me to understand the sentences he couldn’t form.
Crouching down to his level, I tried my best to help him. “Hey buddy, calm down. Tell me what happened to you,” I said. Searching the floor around us, hands wildly reaching at anything and everything, he eventually landed on a coffee-stained scrap of paper and thrust it in my face. On it was written a jumble of phrases: “sell frogs,” “dig into the ground and hope to find a treasure chest” and “cause U.S. inflation by printing more money.” “What is this?” I asked incredulously.
“More funding for Sproncert, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. But they never said how!” Ben’s voice grew louder and more high-pitched with every word. “So I figure it out, right?” A crazed laugh jolted out of him, sounding like a box of metal screws being kicked down a staircase. “How naive, how foolish,” he spat. “It’s impossible. My brain…it hurts.” And then he collapsed into my arms.
Ellis has since been taken to SHAC where he is receiving 24/7 emergency care. Until his full recovery, his medical team requests no one use possible trigger words around him. These words include: Sproncert, Carleton, money, the, funding, Carletonian, gorgonzola, frog, inflation, currency, the concept of the self and the Buffalo Bills.
