You might have heard that Cirque du Soleil recently filed for bankruptcy. 

Since that fateful day in June, the whole world assumed that the circus was forever lost. I personally celebrated this discovery because, despite the fact that I cried at my first (and only) Cirque show, they are still a multi-million dollar business that poisons the beauty of small indie acrobatics, not to mention their cultural appropriation! Bad news.

Anyway, I thought that was the last we’d see of them until I walked past an outdoor meeting of the pandemic task force and had to do a double take. Sitting in that elite circle was a bald man that looked strikingly like Guy Laliberte, the now destitute previous owner of Cirque du Soleil. 

I changed course and quickly popped inside the Administration Building. Knowing he was occupied outside, I had free rein of, and quickly located, his office, proceeding to snoop around.  It was a sparsely decorated office, suggesting he had recently been hired and didn’t intend to stay long. 

I gingerly stepped in front of his computer, feeling a sense of foreboding as I attempted to unlock it. Luckily, he had his GC-issued email and password written on a sticky note on the edge of the computer, confirming his identity: glaliberte@goshen.edu. 

The password was far more intriguing, reading CirQuEwiLLnEveRdIE. Luckily, I was prepared to decode this kind of message and quickly translated it to English: Cirque will never die! What could it mean? Cirque had died, hadn’t it? 

My dread increased, but I soldiered on, logging into his email using the same information. What I found there confirmed all my fears. I have leaked the most incriminating email here in the hopes that someone can put a stop to this madness.

 

From: [guylalbear@hotmail.com]

To: [president@goshen.edu]

Subject: position availability

 

Hello Dr. Becky,

 

I was happy to hear your interest in my Reddit advertisement. I have recently come into some assets, having closed Cirque du Soleil under the false pretense of “COVID-19 bankruptcy.” I have begun liquidating the assets of my business into Bitcoin but cannot do so expediently without drawing undue attention from the media and my recently laid-off and disgruntled acrobats. I am looking for a place to store around six circus tents, and understand many academic institutions such as yours have a financial need as well as the capability to discreetly store such structures, framing them as “COVID-19 safe outdoor meeting spaces,” conveniently keeping circus and money laundering out of the picture. You would, of course, be privy to some of the profits, which I could pay monthly in under-the-table cash sums if you create a position essentially “employing” me at your institution. 

 

Waiting for your expedient reply,

Guy

 

From: [president@goshen.edu]

To: [guylalbear@hotmail.com]

Subject: Re: position availability

 

Hello,

 

Yes.

 

Becky

 

I will let you connect the dots. If I go missing in the next few days, you know who to investigate.