This past week the McGill health clinic saw unprecedented line ups as confused students reported cases of sudden colour-blindness.
“I was just so confused when I attended the AUS GA suddenly all the red felt squares turned white,” Julie Stevens, U4 art history student, said.
At first Stevens tried to ignore it, but as the days continued, the problem didn’t go away. “My condition got worse, especially on March 22 when I stopped seeing the squares altogether,” Stevens explained.
Coincidentally, March 22 saw an influx of students reporting the same sudden colour-blindness as Stevens. McGill security was called to the scene due to rumours of a potential health clinic occupation.
Reported symptoms included only seeing white squares, and not seeing the squares at all. More severe cases reported constant ringing in their ears.
“All I could hear was a constant high-pitch hausse ringing sound,” Kyle Johnson, an anglophone U0 student, said. “I freaked out because I couldn’t hear my prof over this constant ‘hausse’ nonsense.”
An email sent out to the McGill community warned students not to look directly at the red squares.
“While we support students in their endeavors to look at whichever shaped objects they so desire, it has recently come to our attention that some shapes may be detrimental to good order and we ask you to look with caution when you see felt in the shape of squares,” the email read.
“I’ve never seen a case like this in my whole career, let alone multiple cases,” Nancy McHeely, McGill health clinic worker and leading pseudo-kinetic-anomaly expert, said. “The combination of auditory and visual symptoms could occur when a person’s sensory system has been constantly and repeatedly inundated with the same experience, which in this case appears to be red felt squares.”
The body’s system physically rejects the image of the red square due to the sudden overwhelming frequencies with which they appeared on campus, McHeely explained. McHeely hypothesized that seeing white was the initial symptom, and as the red squares continued to persist, the next stage of the yet-to-be-named condition was full visual rejection of the red square.
“I’m not sure what the ringing in the ears means, but I fear it can’t be good. Those students who suffer from the ringing have also been seen dedicatedly attending class and fully sequestered in the library regardless of the affliction. I worry they’ll suffer vitamin D deficiency along with retina-strain as they never step into daylight anymore.”
Alternately, students wearing the red squares never enter the classroom and receive plenty of vitamin D. “I’m not worried about their health, they’ve been seen enjoying the outdoors, going for walks hours on end, as well as exercising their vocal chords in group sing-a-longs. They’re the vibrant youth of tomorrow,” McHeely said.
