“He’s an absolute madman, I’ve never seen anyone this committed to their point before, it’s pretty commendable.”
“You can tell the TA really had to pee, but she just kept at it like a champ.”
“I don’t know what it is about him, but there’s something about an intelligent man with Velcro shoes and a stubbornness with ideology that just drives me wild, is he single?”
These were only a few of the statements from the students who were present during the standoff, the duration of which has set a campus record.
Clarence Locke rarely speaks up during lecture, but when he does, every set of eyes widens. It is unknown at this point whether Locke woke up that day determined to make history, or whether it occurred spontaneously.
He arrived as he always did: thermos of herbal tea in one hand, and a book that wasn't even on the reading list in the other. Wearing a thick beige flannel underneath a down-vest jacket, and the kind of hat that the kids from Newsies wear (with just as many holes), he settled in, and wrote his Jordan Peterson ‘Quote of the Day’ in his agenda.
Things were on track -- until the clock hit 30 past the hour. Teaching assistant Amanda Stevens made a claim that flew under almost everyone's radar:
“It’s probably just me, but I just don’t think Stalin’s economic policies of 1920’s are that applicable here, or substantial to the fabric of history for that matter.”
“Actually…” Locke began. Jaws dropped, pens stopped writing, laptops were closed, a girl in the back actually began sobbing out of pure shock. “Just to play ‘devil’s advocate’ here, if I may…”
Gasps around the room. Stevens shuddered.
And so it began: a long-winded filibuster from Locke, intricately elaborating on the framework of Stalin’s economic ideologies, and how they evolved in other countries in varying forms, involving details and premises I wouldn’t dare to report. The emotional range of the other students in the room encompassed a wide spectrum, from laughs and cheers to boos and screams. According to our sources, Locke and Stevens maintained eye contact during the entire ordeal.
At the fifth hour, everyone involved was visibly struggling to grasp what was really happening. Disengaged bystander Laurel Phelps chronicled the madness in a Facebook post, stating, “you could hear the drops of sweat hitting the floor like rainfall in April.”.
Students were losing it quickly, beginning to hallucinate that Stalin himself was in the room, massaging Locke’s shoulders like he was Rocky. “It was becoming an absolute shitshow, and the standoff could not continue at the expense of others,” claimed the campus police, as they evacuated the bystanders.
They then sealed the door to prevent any unwanted leakage of opinion into the hallway. Will they ever come to the conclusion that no one cares? And that Stalin’s been dead for 75 years? We may not know for weeks.
Stay tuned for updates.