Intrepid journalist Anna Johns and Adam Walsh (the other one) uncover the cheesy truth behind the no confidence vote last Thursday.
Upon last week’s discovery of Doctor Geronimo Clancy using hangman chalkings to steal his students’ souls, possessed by the Great Old One Azathoth, we, the intrepid duo of Anna Johns and the other one, have set out to solve the various capers carried out by the Clancer and his cronies.
In our multitude of stakeouts in Clancy’s bathroom, we came to the conclusion that Clancy, armed with rambling sentences and a dangerous lack of self-control, had become feral.
His pheromones, which were previously kept in check by his baller cologne, had intensified. The smell of new car leather and old, shredded Mexican party blend cheese wafted behind him like a second shadow, casting all following him under a pallor of stench. Oddly enough, even with the relentless assault of pleather, the smell incited old memories of parents arguing in the Taco Bell drive-thru, then mysteriously quieting as they order. An odd combination that ruined several of our stakeouts as we uncontrollably started crying and depression napping. Those churros always did taste of marital problems and unrealized trauma.
On one of our stakeouts, Clancy went mobile. So there we were, Adam hunched over like a hunting dog, tracking the smell of cheese and a midlife crisis. We saw the Clanster gliding across campus, and although it was just shy of three in the morning, his stride beheld a dark purpose. While we weren’t privy to that night’s goal, we definitely recognized his firm gait for what it was: the Old One’s gift.
As the clock struck three, Clancy’s long legs made contact with the faintly painted tennis court, striking the clay surface with his fashionable leather moccasins. He took in his surroundings, almost like he was expecting someone.
A meeting on the tennis court was rather dangerous, anyway, because the frat houses had recently factionalized the land, attempting to recreate the conditions of the traditional Oklahoma land runs. It was a horrific failure, with frat boys rolling out of beer cooler wagons like the Sooner Schooner drivers and their antics upsetting the giant rat colonies living in the dumpsters. After a long settlement process, the rats gained control of the Greek life political arena by brutally arguing their lawsuit in a civil court, becoming the dominant force in frat alley.
Clancy, removing a light blue bag from his pocket, began to create a complex symbol on the court, laying cheese in precise lines and symbols as if it were a summoner’s salt. In a short few minutes, the previously faint smell of chedda grew into a heady miasma of cheap cheese as the solitary cheesemeister continued creating a grand diagram.
As we watched, something tingled in the back of Anna’s mind; the symbol looked familiar. Then, after consulting her Wicken 101 guide that had been, uh, borrowed from a local witch, she leaned in and whispered, “He’s drawing Solomon’s Seal … in cheese.”
Adam replied faintly, his head still in the nose-pressed-to-dirt position. “Sounds, well, it certainly smells about right.”
While Adam quipped from his Scoob-like spot, a white light began to erupt out of the cheese and the faint sounds of Clancy chanting in a foreign tongue permeated the very ground.
“Huh, I didn’t know Clancy spoke Latin,” Adam said.
“He is a doctor. Didn’t you know?”
The minutes dragged as we waited with short, anxious breaths until a faint scurrying sound announced the presence of new arrivals.
A Renaissance-like tableau vivant played before our eyes: rats curiously sniffing Clancy’s luminous offerings until he outstretched his finger, silently directing his rodent audience to feast. Still, the rats looked up at Clancy, a quiet impasse settling in the November air. An odd Mexican standoff, if you will, around the cheap not-actually-Mexican cheese.
The rats parted like the Red Sea, and a humongous figure — you know, for a rat — stalked its way toward Clancy. The king of the rats moved his gaze from the cheese to Clancy’s hopeful form, pondering him.
As if in response to an imperceptible question, Clancy released a firm grunt, gesturing at the outer circle of his occult cheese wheel.
The king sniffed, inspecting the bribe, and offered, in all of His Ratliness, a solid, triple-chinned nod.
We were at an impasse. As Clancy walked away, we had to decide whether to follow His Ratliness or continue to stalk the president of the university.
Odds were this strange rat-man negotiation was all on Clancy’s well-organized, very colorfully coded planner, and so we waited as the cheese was swiftly portioned out and eaten by the mischief — yes, that’s the actual term — of rats. Hiding felt prudent, as there were also cops on campus that night busting up a party and neither of us really wanted to get a good look at the inside of a prison. Middle school had been enough for the both of us.
It took a real long time for those ratlings to eat all of that cheese, and so we slept in shifts, probably freaking the hell out of some poor anthro prof, until the sun crept up.
The sun rose blood red on the morning of Nov. 13, the day of the no confidence vote. We agreed that whatever Clancy had planned, it would occur after the votes were gathered. Well, that was part of the rational. The other half was that Adam’s a big nerd and didn’t want to skip any of his classes. Pussy.
After the conclusion of the day’s festivities, or classes, we reconvened in the upstairs loft of McFarlin, overlooking the atrium where the no confidence vote was taking place. While we got some weird looks from the library staff, there was little to no rat movement. We thought we saw His Ratliness, but it was just an actual tumbleweed rolling down the hallway.
“How?” Adam said.
“No clue,” replied Anna.
“Dude, this place is the twilight zone.”
“Was it the cafeteria food or the Lovecraftian horror that gotcha to that conclusion?”
We held our collective breath, but nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing. Adam made several dozen paper cranes, and that was pretty cool, even though we are trying to cut down on our paper waste.
So, after the voting period expired and multiple discussions about the Pepsi machines passed, we followed a courier, some coffee boy intern, as he retrieved the sealed votes and brought them to the Kendall Hall auditorium. With the importance of the vote, several couriers were used, each one given a third of the ballots in order to preserve their legitimacy.
Whether it was pure luck or a feint in Clancy’s plan, as we followed the oddly young-looking coffee dude (from a safe distance, of course, we aren’t stalkers), he ducked into a bush near Kendall, sliding underneath the foliage feet first.
“Well, that’s some shady shit,” Anna said eloquently. “Stick your head in there.”
And so Adam stupidly did as he was told, fulfilling his role as the lesser detective in this duo, immediately whipping back up and whispering, “Anna, he’s dead!”
Not only was the poor coffee carrier super toast, his box of no confidence ballots was gone. What remained was the faint odor of partially-digested Mexican shredded party blend cheese and the vibrant and rich smell of a mystery.
The rank dairy cut through us like a knife, leaving nothing but questions. Did Clancy conspire with the Rat Frat to sway the vote of no confidence? Did he conduct that dark rite to use them for his own bidding?
And furthermore, what poor fate befell this unfortunate soul? Will the Possessed President Clancy complete his nefarious scheme? Find out in the following editions of The Collegian!
