Vincent Ta/HIGHLANDER
Vincent Ta/HIGHLANDER

The giant yellow orb in the sky had spoken. Some confusedly walked around campus in a heat-induced fervor. Other attendees screamed as they ran for shelter under campus trees, regardless of their smell. A gigantic voice from a leader of event organizer SCUBA (Scotty’s Convenient Underwater Basket-weaving Association) echoed over the PA system, “Due to extreme sunlight, this year’s RAIN music festival has been canceled. Do not panic. I repeat, do not panic.” In spite of these directives, the festival, which was set to feature headliner Ice Cube, along with Cloud Nothings, Smallpools and Noah and the Whale, the campus devolved into absolute chaos as the water-plentiful, frequently cloudy campus dried up before our eyes.

As the heat intensified, students, induced into a crazed, feral state, rushed to find the performers to demand they play their songs, despite the blistering weather.

As they mobbed Ice Cube’s tour bus, the rapper opened a small window on his door to try and calm the crowd. “I cannot go out there,” he explained. “You don’t understand, I told SCUBA it needed to be a very specific temperature for my performance, and they could not meet it. I absolutely cannot perform because of these conditions. However, I have arranged for every student to receive a free copy of ‘Are We There Yet?’”

Unsatisfied, angry students tipped the bus over, busted through the door and pulled a profusely perspiring Ice Cube out. Immediately, everyone could tell something was wrong. “Somebody get me a freezer,” he shouted as he desperately struggled against the swarm of berserk students attempting to move his jaw up and down to force him to perform. As he kept slipping out of their grasp, he appeared to be diminishing. The students had apparently not considered exactly why he had named himself Ice Cube, and with the temperature far above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, he began to melt. “Today was not a good day!” he sorrowfully cried, as the mob lapped up his liquid remains to replenish themselves. ASUCR President Eugene Cangrejo could be seen trying to frantically hand him a school sweater in an attempt to fix the situation.

On the other side of campus, Scotty the Bear led a cohort of students to knock down the Bell Tower and use it as a harpoon to kill the whale from Noah and the Whale, who had been beached after the massive heat surge lead to the evaporation of much of the school’s water. A surge of about 2,000 students chiseled the top into a spear point, and sent the historic campus object rocketing toward the whale. Band members and students alike then took refuge inside the whale as they ran from the evil brightness that engulfed them.

On threat of planting UCR’s famous Pyrus kawakamii trees in their backyards, the crowd forced the band to perform in the belly of the beast that was their former bandmate. English professor Geoff Cohen could be seen muttering incoherent “Moby Dick” references to himself in the corner of the refuge. As the entire whale collapsed, random cries of “Call me Ishmael!” could be heard in the darkness.

“We have to work together,” Dylan Baldi, lead singer of Cloud Nothings told Sean Scanlon of Smallpools from their hideout underneath the toppled statue dedicated to the leader of the school’s water revolution, Squidward Tentacles. The two bands had managed to sneak out of their tour buses before the students got to them, but it was only a matter of time before they were found.

“I have an idea, but it’s risky,” Scanlon said. “Evaporation.”

“We have no other options left,” Baldi said. “I understand.”

Baldi and his bandmates climbed to the top of the enormous statue, exposing themselves to the mob and the sun. “Quickly!” Scanlon shouted. “You’ve got to do it now!”

“May the wind take us to a better place,” Baldi said and he and his bandmates started speaking in tongues and raised their arms to the sky. Scanlon and the rest of Smallpools ran out underneath, and in a display of defiance against the madness, Smallpools reverted to their water states to allow Cloud Nothings to absorb them to become Cloud Somethings. Students chased the cloud, shouting obscenities as the lightest of breezes blew them away, but they escaped unharmed as they floated away into a brave new world.

As of the time of this writing clouds have reemerged, the campus waters have been restored and everyone has been miraculously cured of their ailments, simply because enough water was saved to restore campus sanity. An event that has been a fierce reminder of school pride in the past will now serve as a deadly reminder of the evil deity, the Sun. We cannot, and will not let it defeat us.