Student Becomes First to Ever Read Traffic Alert Email, Discovers Warren of Madness By ale x andro strauss ‘15. I llustrated by Rita Fang ‘17
Gabriella Garcia Vargas ’17 recently became the first person to read the entirety of a University “Traffic Alert” email, inadvertently discovering a dark hive of unimaginable, soul-shearing insanity in the process. The emails, which do not appear to be sent according to any sort of schedule, have long been known to differ wildly in their formatting, font size and style, and use of capitalization, suggesting that they are written by as many as a dozen different people who have all stumbled upon the same fount of horror. The subject lines of the emails are also highly inconsistent in their formatting and information provided, but all share the words “Traffic Alert” and, at least initially, deal with traffic conditions in
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the vicinity of the University. As Vargas discovered, however, this is only the tip of the iceberg, and scrolling down on any of these emails reveals dozens of pages of disturbing, increasingly unhinged writing. “I opened [the email] because I was worried about being held up in a traffic jam and I wanted to be sure about when I had to leave for my Fall Break trip,” said Vargas of her ordeal. “I skimmed the first line and knew there was nothing interesting. I was about to return back to my inbox when my finger slipped and hit the spacebar. That’s when I began hearing the whispers.” On the next page are some excerpts from the email Vargas opened, which is 44,232 words in full.