by Kilian King

The JCR President and porter looked at each other, then back at the gently smoking crater in front of them, then at each other again. After an awkward silence, the porter cleared his throat and looked at her impatiently. ‘Are you not even going to try and explain yourself?’ he asked, in the voice of a man who had stayed up till three organising taxis to ATIK. The President put on her Talking with the Grownups face. ‘I am just as puzzled as you about what happened here, and I commit all the resources at my disposal to help you find the culprit and repair the—’

‘Oh, I don’t give a shit about the stupid hole’, the porter interrupted, peering over the edge. ‘What’s one more permanently disfigured quad among friends? But when Neil sees that, he is going to go fucking ballistic.’ Puzzled at what he was gesturing at, the President re-adjusted her glasses and squinted through the perfect circle in the lawn. Then she saw it. A shiny, hardwood crate, nestled on the bottom of the hole, on which was printed in black letters the phrase ‘Ori-Gin’.

‘Do you know how hard it is to get rid of all of that bloody 697 beer, even without students pedalling knockoff college spirits?’ the porter asked impatiently.