UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK–The generally positively-reviewed McKeldin library “nap pods” have come under fire recently (no pun intended) after an incident in which library patrons witnessed one pod completely vaporize a student in cold blood.

From what local authorities have been able to piece together, sophomore mechanical engineering student Jonathan Dobert entered McKeldin Library at around 7:21 PM on Monday evening, where he began looking for a place to study. After fruitlessly searching the library for roughly thirty minutes, he eventually gave up, walked into the nap pod room, placed himself in a pod, and pulled out his pen and physics notebook. He was then disintegrated, leaving behind naught but a pile of ash.

After witnessing one of their own ripped from the fabric of reality, fellow students, perhaps unsurprisingly, remained unsympathetic.

“There are nap pods and then there are study pods,” said junior Chemistry major and frequent McKeldin attendee Buck Warm. “You don’t mix the two. If you study in a nap pod, well… he knew what he was getting into. If you ask me, he had it coming.”

This sentiment was generally echoed by others in the student body, many of whom pointed out other unfortunate realities of the situation.

“It’s pretty obvious to me that library staff have finally toughened up and made the hard decisions,” said senior criminology major Libra Regower. “Sure, disintegration might seem a bit much at first. But studying? In a nap pod? We need to think about what would have happened if he wasn’t vaporized. It’s a slippery slope. Starting with a crime like that, we could see the streets running red with blood within a week. This is a clean, humane death, far better than the roaring crowds would’ve demanded if he survived. And that’s not even getting into deterrence.”

Others had their own theories about the event, with explanations ranging from “Dobert’s body was taken as a sacrifice to Testudo” to “Dobert is alive under the SECU stadium.” The University has since sent out an email clarifying the importance of using the pods for their “intended purposes,” or else they’ll “face the same appropriate consequences.” With midterm season in full swing, the University has found no shortage of students volunteering to “thoroughly test what triggers the disintegration.”

Still, one fact seems clear amidst the many questions whirling around Dobert’s death: he entered the nap pod and, one way or another, now he rests.

Image Credits: Kenlynn Ingham