Across campus, a hush can be felt. This hush, this silence, is not one quiet of words but of a lack of a significant presence. Walking through the streets and buildings familiar sights seem to disappear daily. Once a specific copyrighted character sparked joy, but now this feeling has bled into a sense of quiet mourning, mixed with a fear of speaking out for the injustices so plain to see. All across campus, disenfranchised and oppressed campus residents have one unanswered question resting on their lips: where is Garfield?  

This disappearance was not unplanned. Over the break the Hill News investigative reporting team obtained, through heavy investigative reporting, a recording involving President Kate Morris and the Alumni board. In this meeting, Kate Morris plainly outlined a new policy: the extermination of Garfield on the St. Lawrence campus. Beginning the session with a speech, President Morris declared: “From Dean-Eaton in the center of campus to the Sullivan Student Center 250 feet of center, an iron Garfield has descended across the campus… This is not a battle between St. Lawrence University and Garfield. It is a battle between the free and democratic world and Garfield.” After heavy posturing, Morris obliquely declared, “Garfield must be purged of this campus, through all means necessary, up to and including removing stickers, removing more stickers, and tactical nuclear strikes.” The board reacted to this decree with astonishment, with our recording detecting audible gasps as well as one board member breaking down, repeatedly stating, “May god forgive us.” Sadly, our reporter who recorded this meeting was found out and is now on trial in a secret St. Lawrence Alumni military tribunal. We can only hope for their safety, with their charges extending to death, but thanks to their reporting, we can preserve cheap Chinese stickers on our campus.  

Students across campus have seen this destruction, with the facilities team using the recent Facilities Enhancement Initiative (FEI) as a guise for the wiping of Garfield from our campus. Any well-informed reader would understand the claims of the FEI to be false, such as ‘renovating residence halls’ or ‘making a beautiful campus.’ Instead, savvy readers such as yourself will notice in the release statement the footnote of, “Campus will spend 28 million dollars of this 30 million on Garfield removal.” Our campus must think us to be fools not to notice. Safety note: For all savvy readers, please do not look up the FEI; investigative reporters have found it to contain a memetic kill switch that, through unknown machinations, makes readers’ heads explode. 

Our investigative reporting team at The Hill News discovered the source of the Garfield presence on campus: the Garfield Ichnographic Liberation Front, or GILF. Through an interview guaranteeing their anonymity, we were able to secure a consultation with one of their many representatives around campus. The GILF representative told us this isn’t a simple game but rather a lifestyle, with an end goal of achieving an autonomous Garfield state on our campus. Commenting on the recent arrest of three GILF members, the GILF representative stated, “President Kate Morris, today we were unlucky, but remember, we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give us a Garfield statue and there will be no more war.”