Iowa State's Chasm of Fire

        I’m inquisitive by nature, so it only seems natural that I snoop around my campus and the dorm I live in.  “No harm in exploring my surroundings,” I assure myself. No door goes untested, no window unlooked , no hallway not wandered through, nor room unexplored by my standards.  So yes, this means one so inquiring as myself will be faced with certain negative ramifications that goes along with the character trait. These may include but are not limited to: being trapped in the library on two separate occasions, trapped in a stairwell, stranded in the Agronomy building, followed by presumed creepers near Friley, fleeing from areas where one is not permitted to be in, and lost while afoot in various parts of Ames.  But in the end it’s all fine and dandy and I come out of my little adventure virtually unscathed with a new understanding of the world I live in.
         But what happens when my wanderings lead me to the basement of my very own residence hall? One may think this would be a relatively boring and safe place to explore, but oh how wrong they are!  If you can find your way through the maze-like halls and stairwells, and manage to get passed the arsenal of locked doors, the horrors that await you will plague your mind for the remainder of your life.
        Right now you are all thinking that I’m being silly. So what if the hallways are dark and creepy, and the showers in the basement bathroom resemble a WWII gas chamber?  But little do you know what lies behind a seemingly innocent door…

                                                                  BEHOLD! THE INCINERATOR OF DOOM!!!

        Why the bloody hell does our residence hall house an incinerator in the basement!?  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic, it’s just a garbage burner,” some of you may say, but I am not convinced.  The room itself that the incinerator is housed in is enough to provoke a sense of dread. The dim lighting, brick walls, the demonic wolf/fox painted on the far wall. “What, what!? Demonic wolf/fox!?” You heard me right.  Am I any more convincing of how terribly dreadful this place really is?
Now going back to my question; what the hell is this thing doing here!?  Upon discovery, my morbid mind immediately flashed to images of campus officials stuffing the bodies of freshman who either got lost or ended up where they weren’t supposed to *cough cough* into the mouth of the dreaded thing. “But that is absurd.” I tell myself, but before I can come up with a logical explanation, I suddenly remember the gas chamber showers one room away.
Then it hits me.
Iowa State is an active combatant in the fight against the zombie apocalypse.

I mean, if you think about it, it only makes sense… Wait…you mean it doesn’t, and you are now questioning not only my validity BUT my sanity? Fine. Whatever. I don’t care. I know the truth, and every night before I go to bed I can feel a little safer knowing my very own college is keeping us safe by killing and burning flesh eating zombies several floors below me.
         Okay okay, going back to the point and, as much as I don’t want to, all joking aside,  I seriously want to know what this thing is, why it’s there, and what it’s used for, and telling me that it’s a simple garbage burner is not going to satisfy my curiosity. There also has to be a reason why a demonic wolf/fox is painted on the brick wall next to the accursed thing.
Now one also wonders what uses can be gain from this incinerator, which apparently looks to be no longer in use (which foils my zombie burning theory). Locking people that make you angry into it is one idea, but the consequences that proceed if/when you get caught outweigh the delight of doing so. No no no, I don’t want to burn people alive in it! You sick people! How could you think such a thing about me!?
        Some fun could be had with this thing, such as seeing what happens when you burn certain object in it and recording it for all of YouTube to see, as recommended to me by a friend. But this means turning it on, and by my observations there is no longer an exit for the smoke generated by utilizing the fire, and we would inevitably smoke the whole building out. Consequently, there would be wide-spread panic, fire trucks, and who ever involved would likely die from smoke inhalation. The whole ordeal would be quite tragic.
        So obviously, we don’t want to burn anything in it. “But what good is an incinerator if you can’t burn something in it!?” You may now ask.  Well for one, such a thing is a good topic for writing a long and pointless journal/blog/story entry about.  If your imagination ever needs any exercise, just think of the incinerator and Viola! You’ll be up all night imagining the fun and horrors this incinerator could create. It can also be used as a valuable tool in scaring incoming freshman or anyone else with a great deal of ignorance.  Just sayin’