Zimmer Reaches Into Student’s Rib Cage, Pulls Out Heart

By Daniel Moattar

Oct. 26, 2014

University President Robert Zimmer was sighted Thursday indulging in an unusual snack – for the fifth time in recent memory. According to eyewitnesses, President Zimmer once again reached into the ribcage of a passing student to excise and devour his still-beating heart.

“I was just coming out of class in Harper and there he was. He walked out of his house with a, I guess a sort of carnivorous gleam in his eye,” said a third-year witness who declined to give her name. “He brought the heart to his mouth, and all of a sudden he was gripped with some kind of rictus, or possibly rictuses – ricti? It’s hard to know. Then the heart shimmered and disappeared.”

In an email to the student body, Dean of Students John Ellison alluded to the incident. “This day marked the commencement of a major component in the University of Chicago’s twelve-year fundraising program: President Robert Zimmer’s I Heart Chicago Initiative. As members of the University of Chicago community, we are sometimes called upon to have to give the whole nine yards, two ventricles, aorta, and vena cava. I hope University students, staff, and faculty will provide President Zimmer with their full and enthusiastic support.”

“The heart knows No Barriers,” President Zimmer proclaimed through a diminutive, one-armed spokesman. “You have grown soft. Now, day and night, I offer you the bilious gut-churn of fear.”

The student, who claimed through a University spokesperson to be “privileged” to share this “intimate moment” with Zimmer, is a fourth-year economics major. He is alive and well at the University of Chicago Medical Center. President Zimmer has billed him $200 for his time.

The Board of Trustees responded immediately to news of the heart-eating, convening an emergency session to grant the President a five-percent raise. At press time, President Zimmer was consuming his regular lunch of liver and onion.