Friday, April 20, 2018

public service announcement


by nick nelson



billy got up, as he usually did, about an hour before peggy and dave.

he liked to have some time to himself to eat his cereal and stare into space, before he left for his job at the regional office of cassandra’s, a startup ice-cream shop franchise.

there was a tv in the little kitchen, and he turned it on, as he usually did, to the traffic and weather channel. he usually took the bus to work, but sometimes walked if it was a nice day, so he liked to know the weather forecast.

but this morning, just as he was pouring skimmed milk into his cheerios, the foxy weather girl person disappeared and a screen came up saying - we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special public service announcement.

a swarthy man with a neatly trimmed black mustache, about 35 years old, wearing a dark blue suit with a blue and red striped tie, appeared on the screen, seated at a traditional anchorperson’s desk.

“good evening,” he announced, “or morning, as the case may be in whatever area of the world you are listening from. allow me to introduce myself. my name for your purposes, is ali jones gonzalez-lee, and i am, and have been for many years, the true ruler, or more accurately the steward or overseer, of this planet.

let me begin by saying that everything , and i do mean everything, that you humans have ever been taught to believe, is a complete fabrication.

the persons you are used to seeing on television and in other media do not exist and never have existed, but were simply holographic projections . and the historical personages you have been taught to believe in likewise never existed, and the events they have been portrayed as engaging in never happened.


donald trump, hillary clinton, taylor swift, saddam hussein, mao zedong, margaret thatcher, hitler, stalin, albert einstein, eleanor roosevelt, amelia earhart, jesse james, billy the kid, napoleon, marie antoinette, joan of arc, cleopatra, confucius, alexander the great, moses, hammurabi, tilgath pileser iii - none of them ever existed in the sense that you humans understand “exist” to mean

the reason for all this - which might seem to you chicanery and subterfuge - need not concern you, as it is beyond your comprehension. in any case, our work here is done, which brings me to the real purpose of this announcement -

beginning next week, ships will arrive and the entire population of this planet will be relocated to other galaxies, where you will be assigned new identities and new purposes. different portions of the globe will be embarked according to the following schedule:

monday, the 13th - north america including the carribbean islands
tuesday the 14th - south and central america
wednesday the 15th - africa below the sahara
thursday the 16th - africa including and above the sahara and europe excluding turkey and russia
friday the 17th - russia and the former soviet republics south of russia

saturday the 18th - turkey, and asia east of suez up to india
sunday the 19th - india
monday the 20th - southeast asia
tuesday - the 21st - china
wednesday - the 22nd - australia, the phillipines, japan, and korea
thursday - the 23th - all other


all travel between these designated zones is halted immediately. we regret any inconvenience this new arrangement might cause.

for any questions , log on to relocation.com/faq

we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

peggy came into the kitchen. she looked at the screen which still had the printed message: we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

what was that all about? she asked billy. it sounded like walter cronkite returned from the dead.


just some bullshit announcement, billy told her. i wasn’t paying much attention.

peggy opened the refrigerator, she took out a carton of orange juice and shook it,

we are almost out of orange juice, she told billy, are you going past store 24 today?

maybe.

if you do, pick up some orange juice. and some of those peanut butter cookies that dave likes. i’ll give you the money later.

i’ll try to remember.



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