Even in his restless sleep, area man cannot forget / Anonymous
Police report that a student of Orcas High School was severely injured when he stepped in front of a car trying to avoid a teacher’s glare. The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, was struck by the car when he heaved himself into a busy intersection in Eastsound on Wednesday, March 15. The driver, who would also like to remain anonymous, saw a worried, anxious student walking on the sidewalk who suddenly planted both feet on the ground and leaped suddenly, launching himself into the intersection “like a disabled pit vaulter.”
“I was having a great day,” the student mumbled, wrapped carefully in gauze and put together with glue. “It wasn’t until I had the blood-curdling realization that I hadn’t completed my free-verse poetry assignment for my English teacher, Mr. Austin, that I promptly threw myself into oncoming traffic.” Witnesses say that he looked like a secret service member in front of a bullet.
The situation stimulated an ongoing investigation regarding Austin and his spine-tingling presence. Students reported being “completely, utterly petrified” by Austin’s gaze, alluding to situations where they were helpless at the hands of Theia, the Greek Titaness of Sight. “It got to a point where I was putting lime in my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at his beady pupils,” recalls a student who took three years of Austin’s classes.
Police now understand how an otherwise normal man could fling himself into traffic like a wildebeest crossing the crocodile-infested Mara River. “It seems that Austin’s eyes have a reputation for shocking students into a state of panic,” says an anonymous police officer. “Different students behave different ways. When the danger is too great, there must be a solution.”
The family of the injured, hospitalized student wishes to express gratitude to the many people who have donated sunglasses to Austin so accidents like this are avoided in the future.
For now, students are left in perpetual anxiety, taking extreme measures to avoid contact. The Viking Voice recommends to heighten your pace of walking, expand your vocabulary to incoherent mumbling, and prepare two to five excuses for needing to be somewhere.