Following their mandated reading of the Sparknotes for Homer’s Iliad in their LitHum classes, several freshmen have found some modern thematic resonance that was most certainly not on the administration’s approved thought list. In a move apparently protesting the continued gate closure here at Columbia, students constructed in one manic night a three-story wooden horse that now ominously stands at the 116th and Broadway gates, already collecting excessive amounts of pigeon droppings.
“We have a gift for Claire Shipman,” proclaimed one student leader, Jonathan, son of John, slayer of exams. “The agitators have accepted defeat and offer this horse as tribute, to stand between Alma Mater and the oddly-phallic fountains as a symbol of the dominance of President Shipman, fiancé of soccer player and squasher of resistance.” When The Fed reported to the scene, public safety appeared to be making a careful inspection of the wooden horse by repeatedly demanding for it to scan an ID.
Other leaders of the student group are working hard to dissuade beliefs that the horse might be something more than decorative. “I assure you,” stated Bailey, daughter of Bryan, conqueror of five coffees a day. “There is no basis for the rumors that the horse might carry protestors, guests without QR codes, or burly Greek men within.” Though there has not yet been an official response from the University’s president or administration, it is rumored that Barnard President Rosenbury has offered to fight a chosen champion of the freshmen in nude single combat to determine the fate of this horse and possibly the policy on gate closure itself.
