Guest Contributor: Robert Esposito
Diamondback, NJ – At Diamondback High School, the impossible becomes impossible to deny – on December 18th, Maria Sanchez, age 17, spontaneously combusted in her first class of the day. “One minute she’s taking a test,” Statistics teacher Mrs. Burg said, “and the next she’s on fire!” She reportedly burned for three minutes and twenty seven seconds.
Classmate Jonas Brawns explained to us, “It was kind of neat at first, since the classroom’s pretty cold so it really warmed us up for a bit, but then after a minute of her just sitting there, burning, it got kind of distracting, and I couldn’t concentrate on my test.”
Science teacher Ms. Emerald was consulted on the plausibility of spontaneous combustion. She reported, “If it happened, then it happened; you can’t deny the obvious.” When further questions were pursued, she said that she had to return to her AP Chemistry class in order to keep on a tight schedule to prepare her students for the AP test in May.
The principal of Diamondback High School, Mr. Canebreak, expressed his condolences through a secretary. Every attempt to have a meeting arranged resulted in the secretary seeming to forget that a meeting was requested in the first place, and she became increasingly irate.
The parents of Sanchez are inconsolable. “She was supposed to find out if she got into Harvard University,” her mother told us. “She was so excited, she couldn’t sleep! She just stayed up all night pacing the house! Incidentally, we got a letter in the mail: she got into Harvard! Oh, she would’ve been so excited.”
Her father merely shook his head. “You can’t deny the obvious,” he said. When asked what he meant by that, he only repeated the statement, slower: “You cannot deny the obvious.”
Sanchez’s self-reported best friend, Lucia Karn, told us, “It’s hard to believe that she was the one this happened to. She wasn’t even taking hard AP classes. Apparently she didn’t scream at all, so she had some dignity, but still.”
Sanchez’s guidance counselor, Mrs. King, was also inquired regarding her mental health status. “She was one of the nicest students I’ve ever gotten,” Nikola told us, while she filled out form after form for college applications. “We really got to know each other!”
The circumstances of how spontaneous combustion is possible are being investigated by police, but thus far, there are no conclusions. Is this a virus that is spreading through the teenagers of Diamondback, or possibly something more sinister? Perhaps a sort of spontaneous combustion pact that the teenagers are partaking in? Is this the inciting incident of many more spontaneous combustions to come?
Child psychologist Janet Cascabel was consulted for her opinion on the situation. “We truly need to help our teens in every way possible,” she explained.
In light of Sanchez’s acceptance to Harvard, her ashes will be spread across the grounds of the campus. Funds are being collected to erect a statue in Diamondback in honor of her. Ideas for epigraphs are being collected, but thus far, the leading inscription is: “You cannot deny the obvious.”
