Haunted by Tuition Increase and Evil Geese.

  

Evil Geese, the Psychological Encapsulation of Students: 

The Haunted Histories of the University of Calgary 

Figure 1: U of C student holding a poster in protest of tuition hikes

“Join our rally against egregious tuition hikes, and budget cuts. The University of Calgary is stealing our livelihood.”

She rips the poster and the maroon from her nails etches into the white wall behind the flimsy sheet. She crumbles the paper and throws it on the floor, moving along to find more posters. She doesn't worry about the mess. She has people for that.

This was a part of her weekly routine. She would start at the top of the Taylor Family Digital library and make her way down, looking in every nook and cranny to destroy any form of rebellion against her university. Her job. Her life. 

She stops in front of the big windows at the end of the 6th floor to admire her wealth. She stands taller as her eyes rake over the old building being replaced with construction sites, nodding in approval. She’s going to buy it all - the land, houses, and buildings. She’s not thinking about the money but of course, that will naturally follow. The cars moving along the streets like tiny ants catch her eyes, distracting her from the blatant display of extravagant capital greed taking place under her nose. 

While she’s fascinated by the realistic toy cars, she feels someone staring at her. Not the kind of staring which sparks your interest and encourages you to look around with curiosity, but the kind which gives you goosebumps as it pushes you away, over, and towards….

She looks behind as the eerie stillness of the library finally creeps into her body in the form of sweat. Quiet is not the right word, no. It’s quiet yet loud. The buzzing clocks, the whispers of the books, and the loud air blasting through the vents. 

The white paper balls on the floor are unravelling and they feel loud. Not just loud. They’re screaming. But she can’t hear them… or maybe she can and was pretending she can’t… we’re not supposed to question that. We’re not supposed to question anything. 

She sees something move outside but before she can look, she feels something surround her. A cold presence. A heaviness settles in her chest and slowly drops to her stomach. It floats back up to her throat, blocking her airways, leaving her unable to breathe and rendering her speechless. 

“Stop!”

She tries to scream but only a groan comes out. She feels a tickle in her throat and a softness slide around her pretty neck. Like a hand. The presence hasn’t left. It wasn’t gone - just out of reach for now. 

She’s rushing to leave the 6th floor, but she can’t remember where the elevators are anymore. The walls are moving closer to her as she stumbles down the hallway, frantically looking for the staircase. She never takes the stairs, but she has to escape, and the elevators are gone.

The library is empty because she shut down the campus due to the protests. She can’t remember how she got in, or perhaps she’s always been there, a part of the library, its legacy. She wants to leave now. 

Will they let her go?  

The more she stayed at the university, the more she was wanted out. 

But the 6th-floor staircase... She has seen things. Felt things. Over time they became more strong and more vengeful.

She had counted 34. It was the cursed staircase of her campus and it had seen 34 so far. She hadn’t seen all of them. She only had the courage to go to one student’s funeral. It had happened by surprise in front of her so she had to go, otherwise, people would have cleaned it up. They always do. 

She finally builds the courage to open the door and walks through, but the unusual sight stops her immediately. The floor is covered in feathers, white, brown, and black. Her eyes fixated on the floor, narrowly missing the noose on the ceiling. Like she did 33 times before. Did she ignore it on purpose? We’re not supposed to question anything. 

The strangeness of the situation overtakes her senses as her eyes dart around frantically trying to find logical reasoning behind the soft blanket of pillows in a library stairwell. Is it a bed? Or a soft landing? We’re not supposed to question anything. 

She backs out of the stairwell and runs towards the window she was looking out before, as she needs to clear her head. She is sure the drugs are working their hallucinogenic magic and everything will be over once she wakes up. 

If she wakes up.

And that’s when she sees it. And screams. A piercing scream through the numbness of the library.  

The eyes of a goose are stuck to the window. Its feathers are splattered with red, and it slowly slides off the window, leaving a trail of maroon behind. Its neck twitches as if trying to say something. The bird’s eyes widen, and it wails. Combined with the horrific sight, that sound had to be the most annoying sound she had ever seen. The goose is making noise, struggling to stay alive, when it’s already dead. 

She doesn’t want to look but she can’t look away. 

If it couldn’t handle the pressure, it should’ve given up before. She can recall 34 other instances of that.  

Fed up with the noise, she walks closer to the window, closes her eyes, and starts to thump loudly on the window. She screams and kicks the glass till she feels the dark shadow in front of her eyes disappear and hears a soft plop sound.  

Alas!

She’s about to walk away from the death-stained window but she hears them before she sees them. They honk, berate their chests, and scream at the top of their lungs. So she makes her way closer to the window, avoiding the maroon marks. 

The window shakes and she feels a slight nudge, and then a push. And then she falls. From the top of everything, she falls to the bottom. The sharp gust of wind cuts through her frail body, slapping her in the face, as tears fall out and she plummets with a permanent smirk etched on her face.

She is pushed away from the stained window, the window closest to the stained pillar.

Over the edge, like the brains of the glassy-eyed children who struggled with the pressure.

Towards their escape, unaware that this escape meant one less child made it home. 

34 times.

When she wakes up, she is surrounded by geese.

34 geese.

And she’s at their eye level, just like one of them now. 

“Hello, President.”