[Archived from the Great North American Eclipse of April 8th, 2024]
Pitt junior James Black was rushed to a UPMC emergency room late this evening after looking directly into the solar eclipse. Even after repeated warnings on his TikTok For You page and from Pitt Official’s Instagram Story, Black took his glasses off anyway, saying they made him look like a “sheep” and that he “gave into liberal propaganda.”
Black’s friends who were with him during the time of the incident said it was “totally his fault” that he took off his ISO123-certified glasses, but there is more to the story. Even though scientists had predicted the eclipse years ago, Black said that his ex-girlfriend was the one who summoned the celestial event.
“She was always talking about moon and sun signs and had these cards that predicted my future,” Black said. “She did this because I gave her the clap.”
Brock Abramson, Black’s roommate, said that Black told his ex, Aster Orion, that he didn’t want to hear about her astrology interests because it was not something they were both interested in and took away from talking as a couple. Black would then recommend they talk about an interest they both had, like his FanDual account’s “Ultimate Pittsburgh Pirates Opening Week Parlay” and sending “u up?” texts to the freshmen girls in his Intro to Psych lecture.
When Black proposed these topics, Orion promptly dumped him, not citing “the clap” as an issue, but rather saying he was a “waste of her divination powers” and she wanted the rose quartz she hid under his pillow back. After Black refused to return the crystal, saying it was too shiny to return, Orion said that his future “would be surrounded by darkness.”
While pondering his foretold darkness, it dawned on Black that the solar eclipse must have been what she was predicting. So, with rose quartz in hand and safety glasses in his pocket, Black strutted out to Schenley Plaza to join his friends. At approximately 3:17 pm, during the period of maximum coverage, he took off his glasses and fell to his knees while holding the crystal valiantly in the air.
“I didn’t know if the quartz would react to the light,” said Black. “I had to look at it to see if it worked like a homing beacon or something.”
As ophthalmologists worry more about his lack of common sense than his sight’s return, Orion has reportedly not reached out to Black; however, he is still hopeful, asking that the rose quartz remain in his right grippy sock during the rest of his hospital stay.