By Mac n’ Cheesus Christ
New Brunswick – A slushy snow fell on Rutgers campuses Monday prompting the university president to shut down all school activities mid-afternoon. To get the word out as efficiently as possible, an alert was sent to the student body through Rutgers’s emergency text channel, RU-Alert. Soon, all students received a text message declaring the school closure. Most read the message and thought no more of it, but one student, sophomore Mark Cornett, had a slightly different reaction. This was the first text message he had received in months, and Cornett was so lonely he decided to respond.
Mark Cornett lives entirely isolated due to his lack of friends and the absence of his family (who he definitely did not murder). Cornett is a full time student, but not only does he not have any roommates on campus, he doesn’t even have a dorm. In fact, no one has ever been able to track his whereabouts after dark. It is because of these life circumstances that when Cornett received the RU-Alert, he responded, “Nice to hear from you”. And when the RU-Alert number didn’t respond, he further questioned, “What are you up to? Wanna hang?”.
It is at this point that Rutgers’ administration noticed the responses and, out of concern, attempted to contact Cornett’s family. Unfortunately they could not be reached (because they were unavailable, not because he murdered them). Then, in what seemed like an ethical 360, they reached out to local news correspondents to sell the story. But, still, there is hope for Cornett as winter break is just around the corner and he is free to go home where there are, for sure, living people in his house.
The Medium 