With a flutter of a lightbulb, the entire Irvington campus was engulfed in utter darkness. September 27, 10:30 AM will forever remain an annual occasion for a moment of silence at Irvington High School; it marks the historic occasion where Irvington lost power, forever.

The immediate repercussions were met with the same expressionless stare and zombie-gait of a typical student.

“The darkness really supported my nocturnal sleeping habits,” said Patelie Nortman (11). “I slept through all my classes, par usual. However, my Sleep Cycle app tells me that I have had the most uninterrupted sleep since I started preschool. Man, I can just feel all my white hairs turning black again.”

At first, instead of proceeding with normal tests and lessons plans, teachers scheduled focus napping, meditation, and yoga sessions. However soon, the continued lack of electricity and Wifi started to show a visible impact on student anxiety levels.

“Unable to vent their pent up twitter rants at school, we’ve started to see more students donning ‘Antisocial Social Club’ apparel,” said Counselor Ms. Solutionless. “We have seen the central focus of our time moving away from college recommendation letters, which has been a very telling indication of student stress levels.”

Soon, as the blackout subsisted, conditions on campus only worsened. Students in AP Chemistry attempted to use Bunsen Burners to light up their room for their exams only to accidentally ignite the new building aflame. The offender (who shall remain anonymous) blamed his offense on the inability to see while using the flame starter and thereby, he/she started the flame over the school’s 10 gallon ethanol stock instead over the Bunsen burner.  

A similar situation was also noted with all the sophomores and juniors taking the PSAT. When the blackout started to deplete student phone battery supplies, the administration decided to use candles to continue their scheduled PSAT test. Unfortunately, tests were quickly lit aflame, and soon, the entire big gym was set ablaze.

Administration blames both the incineration of the new building and of the big gym on the malfunctioning of the fire alarms, which due to the lack of power, failed to sound.

Within three days, the bathrooms started to fall into disrepair. Without adequate lighting, students have been unable to properly maneuver to the toilets. Thus, new bacterial colonies have sprung up in pockets around bathroom stalls. Students in AP Biology are currently sampling these new populations of bacteria to account for their canceled microbiology and evolution labs.

Some English teachers have brightened the situation by extrapolating on the applicability of their lessons.

“The lack of light has finally given me the freedom to properly explain the vision motif and the Hero’s Journey,” said English teacher Ms. Firefly. “This is the nadir.”

It’s been five years since the initial incident. School is still in session; the power is still out. Nonetheless, this September 30th, Irvington students continued their traditional moment of silence at 10:30 AM (of course because the intercom and clocks were not working due to the lack of power, students were not exactly sure when to exactly begin the moment of silence and had to refer to individual sundials).