(UNDER) HALIFAX, N.S.— Wednesday morning, first-year student Zack Williams had two of his classes back-to-back, one in the Killam Library and one in the Life Sciences Centre. Williams decided to take advantage of the notorious tunnels that link these two buildings for a quicker walk between lectures but ended up getting lost (as many first-time tunnelers do). While he ended up missing his second lecture, he experienced what he called “a profound discovery of self.”
“I spent so much time in the tunnels that, eventually, I became the tunnels,” Williams said in an interview with The Mackerel. “My madness turned to enlightenment as I realized the identity I came into the tunnels with was merely an illusion, and I was only born in that brilliant moment of concrete suffering.”
What Williams experienced is what several over-ambitious psychology majors have dubbed “Tunnel Syndrome,” characterized by feelings of euphoria and enlightenment after getting lost as symptoms. It affects roughly 12 students a semester and, much like most paradigm-shifting epiphanies, hits hard then fades quickly; only lasting about three days on average.
When The Mackerel reached out to a “real psychologist” to comment on the validity of such a condition, the response back was “Please stop coming to my home. My kids sleep here and your newspaper isn’t real.”
Williams’s particular case of Tunnel Syndrome, however, is very unusual, as his symptoms have persisted longer than usual. He has tried on multiple occasions to create a “Children of the Tunnel Society,” but has failed to obtain 10 afflicted members at one time.
He can still be found in his place of worship, painting what seem to be “vaguely religious symbols” across the tunnel walls. He has been asked to stop multiple times by Dalhousie security, but he has also been championed by art students who believe that all forms of expression are sacred, no matter how stupid.
Most of these developments received less coverage than other events this week, with witnesses overhead saying “this is giving B-story” and “the tunnels aren’t even that hard to navigate what the fuck.”
By Jake Waldner