Into the Depths of the Escalators

“New semester, new me,” the distressed freshie thinks on January 21. “There’s no way it’s still broken… right?” The freshman looks toward the two to three escalator. “Score! The two to three is as reliable as ever!” He slowly paces toward the three to five, fingers crossed, toes crossed, praying for his good fortune to continue. His heart skips a beat. “No way… how is this possible?” he whimpers. He stares at the blank white wall covering the escalator and knocks before sliding down to the ground and putting his ear up against the wall. “Mr. Moran, are you there?”

What could be going on inside? Did the escalators consciously break themselves, knowing they’d just be abused? The addition of the new walls blocking our view of the escalator only makes the construction more ominous. It looked fine before; what’s there to hide now? At this point, with the light never on and the air all humid, it’s probably all moldy and smelly in there.

Hmm, why does it smell like that? It’s quite possible that the rats of Stuyvesant have already made the broken escalators their new clubrooms after their usual hang-outs kept being changed due to StuyActivities approving the same room for two clubs. Maybe a sophomore just fell in by accident; it's not like anyone would have noticed. But maybe the broken, walled-off escalators are just being worked on by some Oompa Loompas singing about Trump’s impeachment. The walls are there to soundproof the area, so we can’t hear their musicals they’re putting on that are delaying the work.

Many expectations were riding on the three to five. It was promised that it would be fixed by January 1, 2020. It is more than two months overdue. An obscure theory formulated by a secret society residing in Stuyvesant maintains that the escalators are now officially the garbage heap where all the discarded apples from the lunchroom “donation table” are dumped (nice doing your jobs, Urban Ecology kids).

And who knows what could be living in the two to four? No one has opened it in a while. Maybe it has a biology project gone rogue. Perhaps it is the resting ground for the souls of freshmen who have Art Appreciation first period. Some have even speculated that it had been intentionally blocked off to prevent any students from gazing at the second floor and generating hope they may one day leave the math dungeons on the fourth floor.

And perhaps Principal Eric Contreras has teamed up with the gym teachers. It’s a well-known fact that moving a lot makes you lose brain cells, which is the reason why many Stuyvesant students actively avoid exercise. Closing escalators leads to everyone having to exercise, a win-win for Contreras and the gym teachers. Contreras gets to enjoy his elevator and save on electricity while the gym teachers get to do less work. Allegedly, it has been leaked from the morning announcement officers that Contreras owns a large red button in his office that he pushes every once in a while, and for some reason, the escalators seem to stop shortly afterward. There has been no evidence to suggest that the two phenomena are correlated as of today.

To conclude our conclusion, please fix the escalators. We beg you. Do it or our editors will burn themselves alive.