Night crew custodians making their rounds through the DM building last night were startled to find a live student trapped inside classroom 144. The quiet student, clad in a white button up shirt, black jeans and New Balance sneakers, was polite in informing the janitors that he was simply waiting for the professor to arrive.
“I think he’s late,” said Philip Chao, who is a computer science major in his Junior year. At first, the night staff were frightened at the unfamiliar sight of a student in a dark classroom so late in the night. “I thought it was a ghost or something,” said Lourdes Sanchez, a member of the custodial staff, “He was just sitting still, with his hands folded on his desk.”
University records show that Philip has never missed a single day of class. In fact, our reporters found a campus police report showing that he was accosted reportedly trying to break into a classroom on Martin Luther King Jr. day. He was quoted as saying, “But the professor might come.”
Philip refused to leave the classroom and some custodial staff claim they heard faint hissing noises the closer they got to him. “I think we should should just leave that guy alone, he’s skinny, but I still think he could hurt me if he tried,” said Frank Gibbons, another custodial employee. Efforts are being made to lure Philip out of the classroom. “At first we just tried to make stuff up just to get him to leave,” said Frank. “We told him his girlfriend was waiting just outside the building, but he just stared straight ahead. I don’t think he even has a girlfriend.”
“We stood to the side of the door and pretended to be his father, we kept on saying how disappointed with him we were and how we wanted him to go home. He looked up for a second, but after a while he just went back to staring straight ahead.”
University Health Services staff were informed of the incident and sent out a nurse to make sure Philip was in good health. “I honestly tried to help him,” spoke Gwenn Jennings, “I got there and the janitorial staff were all crowded around the door whispering and pointing inside. I started to walk inside the room towards the guy, but then he started to grip his pen really tight and looked really angry. I don’t know if he would’ve done anything, but I didn’t want to risk it.”
In the Summer B term of 2009, Philip’s ENC1102 professor died mid way through the semester. There were rumors that Philip was seeking the services of mediums to submit papers. One particularly damning rumor was that Philip was thrown out of the professor’s funeral after trying to shove an overdue assignment in the casket.
We hope to have more as this story develops.
