2010 George MacDonald Award to Katherine Thompson
The 2010 Anonymously Sponsored
George Macdonald Award
Goes to:
Katherine Thompson
The Plains, OH
Third Place
(category: 19 and up)
Bio:
Katherine Thompson is a punster who always wins family poetry contests. Writing is however, an endeavor that can only be pursued in the corners of her life. She has strong opinions about humor and has made an intellectual hobby of refining and defining her sense of the absurd. She really enjoys Agatha Christie and is in the process of writing a book length analysis of the Christian worldview found therein. Her foremost vocation is music, specifically the violin which she plays (odd word for it!) whenever and where ever (except nudist colonies) anyone will pay her. She just finished her MM in violin performance and will be working at Shar Music as she auditions for orchestral work.
To contact Katherine Thompson you may seek his contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.
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They Left Us the Moon
Katherine Thompson
“More teeth than IQ, for all the people’s plaudits,” muttered old Professor Doctor Billy T. Kidd to himself as he read the evening news.
“These people! What a mindless mob of plebian drones…don’t they see that the fluctuations in the magnetic field are probably normal? How many thousand years have people populated the planet? Now, they think they control the magnetic field. A few years of data on what may or may not be a dwindling field is hardly enough for the panic of the politicians and the prophets of the people! Worst of all, here is this pathetic, pompous, half-baked, pickle-faced…..personage…. going to the UN with a possible “solution” to take 5 years and 42 quadrillion credits from all over the earth. I wonder what kind of solution he has.”
———————
Three days later the world went wild over the Great President’s plan to preserve the magnetic field. The world breathed a sigh of relief. They could stop the shifting and dwindling of the magnetic field. It was, after all, a worldwide crisis; one for which every last human on earth was responsible. Not since the popular demise of the doctrine of original sin had the collective whole of humanity felt such a dense burden of individual wrongdoing.
The weight of transgression was oppressive and the grief of the multitude unthinkable. Their radios! In their cars and in their homes, their offices and laptops: their lives! Their lives and their fathers’ lives before them.
Their radio waves were causing such a strong atmospheric disturbance that the whole magnetic field of the entire world was dwindling. It was their fault, theirs and their fathers guilty radio waves that, in the next ten to seventeen million years, would ultimately cost our lovely home planet our beautiful moon. Yes, and without the moon, our eco-structure would implode and we would surely die.
It was possible, the prophets of the people proclaimed, that those first people with radios were ignorant of the depth of ecological depravity they were sinking us into. They are no less to blame, proclaimed the prophets of the people. They perpetrated and perpetuated a perfect calamity upon posterity. The fault is our parents’, though we willingly participated. Until now!
Salvation from the great Unified States[1]! The luminous Great President and his sagacious staff of scientists had discovered a way to redeem the earth’s magnetic field and wipe the slate clean! Five years of penitential toil, the world over, and the wealth of the universe for the redemption of the people, but the whole world wholeheartedly and unanimously agreed. It was a small price to pay. It was the least they could do.
In the 24th year of the luminous Great President, the Unified States presented the world with the Global Magnetic Repositioning System. The unified people’s party of Republicrats praised the perspicacity and unprecedented perseverance of the President and his sagacious staff scientists. The plan, patiently produced by the premier physicists of the President’s panel, was to dig a hole to China. It sounded like a child’s dream, but it was the whole plan. Apparently, if a preposterously prodigious passageway were produced, spanning from Pennsylvania to Peking[2], the problem would correct itself perfectly, permanently and promptly. The dirt was packed off to Holland, Louisiana, and Venice to shore up the seashore and preserve the historical anomalies that had particularly fond memories for the Great President and his counterparts in Europe, Asia and Africa. (No one asked the continent of Australia for input. Doubtless they agreed.)
———————
Meanwhile, back at the ranch… the Texans were deeply concerned. In July of 2036, Texas had unanimously voted to secede from the Union. The Great President was distressed and insulted and consequently decided to allow the secession. And so Texas was no longer a part of the Union, but the President did not give up his sovereignty. Instead, he decreed all Texans outlawed; denied them the right to vote and fenced them in. Since then, Texas had served the Unification as a penal colony and general cesspool. Over half the military force of the Unified States was stationed at the Texas border to prevent the outlaws from getting out into the law.
After that date, all heretical dissenters were sentenced to life in Texas. New arrivals were summarily baptized by whichever branch of Christianity picked them up first (unless it was redundant).
By the year of Our Lord 2051, or the 24th year of His Luminescence’s reign, Texas was crowded with every imaginable sort of dissenter. The principal dissenters were the Christians, but there were a fair number of old Hippies, anarchists, and various outraged intellectual individualists as well.
Two old gentlemen from the first wave of convicted thinkers sat stewing over their dinner and the problem of the presidential solution. Professor Doctors Billy Kidd and Wilton Lettuce had ignored the roast in the oven while agreeing and counter-agreeing that the whole situation did not ‘withstand the test of reasonableness’.
“It doesn’t withstand the test of reasonableness!”
“That’s not English, Billy, what do you mean?”
“Of course it’s not English. It’s something Candy says when her arithmetic explodes and gives an extraordinarily stupid answer, like 2057 minus1988 equals 969.”
“Your sister is a piece of work.”
“No kaka Sherlock-ah.” Professor Doctor Kidd sniffed the air and opened the oven. Waves of smoke rolled in like a vengeful tide.
“Crappety-crap, we’ve killed dinner.” He choked.
“It was dead to start with!” Professor Lettuce never missed an opportunity to present the facts.
“Well, now it’s very dead. And we will be too, if we can’t stop his Lunacy the President.”
“But we don’t know what’s wrong yet.”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ve got a little while before the Braunschweiger hits the fan. This is a five year plan for the new redemption of man. It looks more impressive than the old Redemption, but it will accomplish nothing.”
“If we’re very, very lucky.”
“Eh?” Professor Kidd poked the beefy brick meditatively, wondering if it were still somewhat edible.
“We’ll be very, very lucky if it accomplishes nothing.”
“Oh.”
They ate at MacDonald’s that night before returning to their lab to begin to commence to start unraveling the knotty problems in the sagacious staff scientists’ singular solution. They didn’t hurry. They were old.
Three years of thinking, experiments and Candy’s mathematical ‘help’ passed quietly in Texas while the digging of the Ecstatics continued in the world outside. The pride of the President in his well run world was prodigious. His panoptic network of people’s prophets reported that the populace was well pleased with the President’s proactive plan. The Pennsylvanians were two thirds done with their half of the tunnel, and the Chinese were two thirds done with theirs. That ought to mean there was only one third left: in the center of the earth. It’s reasonable. At any rate, the end of the tunnel was in sight, though there was no light yet.
“Eureka!” Professor Doctor Lettuce was galvanized into dance. He jigged around in the glory of discover like a mad Pan. He sang hymns about the end of the world. He hauled Professor Doctor Kidd off his lazy posterior portion and galloped arm in arm around the laboratory without telling Professor Doctor Kidd why they were rejoicing.
“Oh, mine esteemed colleague! Oh, brother in arms! Oh, frabjous day! Oh! CRAP!!!”
Reality hit Professor Doctor Lettuce across the solar plexus (not a good place for an old professor doctor to get hit.)
“Let go of me, you oaf! Explicate!” Professor Doctor Kidd was not as flexible a dancer as his friend and he was inclined to resented this sudden interruption to what he styled ‘his thoughts’. It was more nearly a nap, but why split hairs? Napping was good for thought, and thinking had long been his habit after lunching.
“It’s like this.”
Professor Doctor Kidd eventually got the drift of his friend’s learned discourse. He wanted his afternoon tea. Suddenly, all that seemed trivial and insignificant! Why, if his friend was right, and good old Lettuce was always right, why then…!
“Wilton! Dear friend! If this be true, we must warn the President. He’s the only one who can put an end to this and prevent chaos from ensuing! If only he had nearly as high an IQ as the number of shiny teeth he appears to posses! I hope he’ll understand your high rhetoric.”
“You are always saying that, but I think the President is a very savvy politico who knows exactly what he’s doing, and will listen to pure reason and its fruits.”
“Humph. Well, Watson, we can but try.”
“Are you quoting Sherlock Holmes again?”
“Obviously. Is your name Watson?”
———————
“Excuse me, your Luminosity, there is an urgent letter from Texas just arrived by pigeon.”
“Pigeon? That’s nonsense! Stop wasting my valuable time, Sebastian, can’t you see I’m preoccupied?”
“Yes, Sir, nevertheless, Sir, there is a letter, Sir, brought in installments, Sir, by carrier pigeon, Sir, and it does seem rather important, Sir, if you’ll excuse me, Sir.”
“Don’t grovel. Bring me the fragments and leave me to my preoccupations.”
“Yes, Sir, sorry, Sir, at once, Sir.”
“Oh, and Sebastian, I’ll probably need some tape while you’re at it. Sebastian? Sebastian? Oh, curse the idiot! He’s never where he should be!”
“Sir?” the accursed was at his side.
“Gah!!!!” The President had not known.
“Sir, if you will wait a moment, your staff of taping professionals will do that tiresome task for you, Sir.”
“Fine. Now get out!”
“Sir.”
———————
A few hours passed in Washington D.C. and suddenly a great peal of laughter resounded from the Conical Office[3]. It echoed off the improbable walls and wafted into the street. A stray passer-by wondered if the Great One had lost his mind. Shortly thereafter, the stray found himself in Texas, very wet indeed; having been dumped too near the full immersion Baptists and the conveniently located Gulf.
“Sebastian!”
“Sir?” from the omnipresent idiot.
“Gah!!!!” Sebastian’s proclivity for catlike movement disconcerted the Great President. He was a puppy person.
“I have a short message for the pigeons. Take it down, cut it up, attach it to the pigeons, and send it to these Professor Doctors of Hilarity.”
———————
The pigeons were the special pride of Candy Bahr, Professor Doctor Kidd’s elder sister. Her arithmetic was shaky but her house was clean, and that is more than could be said of her brother or his friend. The pigeons came back to her one Thursday afternoon, and she rejoiced to see her pretty poultry return. At least for a little while the earth was normal, and Candy was a smiley person who looked for the bright, happy things everywhere. She sang extracts of ironic arias to the little birdies while she fed them and untied the strips of paper from their scrawny ankles. The birdies cooed. Abruptly, she turned from the birds and began to unravel and tape together the Great President’s luminescent letter.
“Dear Professor Doctors Kidd and Lettuce,”
“You are unmitigated asses, both of you.”
“Your suspicions are those of lunatics and I will”
“not regard them further. I must say, however, th”
“at your concern seems genuine and though it is”
“unnecessary, it afforded me a pleasant afternoon,”
“so thank you, gentlemen and goodbye.”
“His Luminescence the Great President”
“of the Unified and Glorious States of”
“America”
Candy sighed. Her brother would be so very full of himself now. He’d run around and say ‘I told you so — the President has no brain’. He’d probably dredge up that old line about IQ and teeth. Hopefully he’d forget that he once equated the title “Luminescence” with the shiny-ness of the leader’s teeth.
Professor Doctor Wilton Lettuce came in from feeding the rabbits. Glancing at the table, he divined the problem.
“So, Candy, Billy was right.”
“Sure thing, old buddy old pal.” Candy shook her head and continued.
“Do you think it was a bad idea to send it by pigeon? Did that make it worse? I mean, would he have been more likely to take us seriously without the poultry motif?”
“Slow down, Candy. No, I don’t think he’d have taken us more seriously. I think he’d never have seen the warning at all. You know the ramifications of this plan of his. We had to try.”
“Actually Wilton, I have no idea what the ramifications are. You told the President in clear English, but you two old dodgers always try to tell me scientifically. What in tarnation ARE the ramifications?”
“Oh dear, Candy, sit down while you can.”
“What?!”
“In plain simple boring English,”
“English is not boring, Wilton. Be polite.”
“Yes. Anyway, without its lovely mathematic proof, the trouble is that this hole through the center of the earth will erase the surface gravity of the earth.”
“You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not. It’s true. Billy and I do not know if the trauma will be permanent, but there is no doubt that gravity will cease to exist at least for a while as soon as the Pennsylvanians and the Chinese meet each other at the center of the Earth.”
“Well, the Texans will listen to us. We still have a little while to strap ourselves down.”
“Well, straps are good, but a gravity machine would be better.”
“Got one lying around?”
“Goodness, Candy, don’t be silly. We’ll invent one.”
“You’ll need help. I’ll call Billy.”
———————
Far away, around the world, the digging and delving continued. People planned parties and invited their local prophets and Republicrat representatives. The President prepared his panegyric and the staff scientists were serenaded with songs of success. The day of salvation from the terrors of dwindling magnetism was at hand. The sweat of man’s brow would save mankind from the hell of the moonless apocalypse. As the final year of work approached, more and more people proceeded to Pennsylvania to proffer their pennies and prowess to speed the progress of the plan of salvation from their own self-inflicted terror. Mass hysteria was replaced by mass pride in a job well done and few, if any good citizens of the Unified States of America were conscious of any doubt at all. The few who entertained such silly thoughts were sent to Texas and dunked. (The continent of Australia remained confused and hoped for the best.)
Happily blind, humanity sped toward destruction in pursuit of redemption.
———————
The whole world scampered with activity. The Texans invented straps, buckles and clamps while Professor Doctors Kidd and Lettuce created a gravity machine. The world dug furiously towards its doom. Australia shrugged her shoulders. Time passed. Two years, one year, and then the day dawned when God looked down on Earth and saw right through her, as through a cored apple. Heaven wept, for Professor Doctor Lettuce’s math, as always, was correct.
———————
“My fellow Americans! On this peculiarly hallowed day, we have achieved our goal! We, yes we, have overcome our past. We, we alone, have transcended our wrongdoing. We have erased the past and may embrace the future. The effect of the irresponsible radio waves is eradicated. We have created the remission of the past’s transmissions, if you will permit me to express myself so. And now, citizens of the world, in just 13 seconds the final break will be made and we shall know ourselves to be the conquerors of our world and even of our very nature!
Citizens of the world, I give you redemptiooooooooooooon!!!!!!!!!!”
———————
His Luminescence and all his fellow Americans, people’s prophets and sagacious staff scientists flew into the air, through the air, past the air, beyond the air, and met the Redeemer.
———————
“For goodness sake, Billy, turn the thingummy-widget on already!”
“Candy, if it’s on before gravity stops, there will be double gravity and that would be bad.”
“Understatement, Billy.”
“Yes, Wilton, and we could tell her exactly what would happen, but then she would get mad at us.”
“Fair enooooough!!! Hit the red button already!!!!!”
The Texans were strapped down and bolted in. Professor Doctor Billy Kidd whacked the red button on the new gravity machine one second after he probably should have, but they stayed on Earth until it was time to go Home to their Redeemer.
Australia held onto whatever it could find. Some folks lived long enough to invent gravity machines with one hand while flying around upside down. By and large, those were the Australian Christians, the old Hippies, and various outraged intellectual individualists.
———————
The damage seems to be permanent. The surface of the world continues without gravity of its own. The gravity machine business is booming and some parts of the world are being colonized again. We cannot reverse the process. They buried all the dirt under water in Louisiana and Venice and Holland. Until the end of time we will have to deal with the disaster of a human solution for the world. But, the magnetic field is stable. It appears the moon will be with us until the end of Time.
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Postscript: Names slightly modified to produce the greatest comic effect. Also, I recognize my debt to a handful of great writers and comedians. My use of their thoughts is a tribute and not intended to damage, but rather bolster their well deserved reputations. This list is short but not included. If anyone wants to see it, write, and I’ll gladly provide the credits.
[1]“ Congress voted to alter the official title of the Nation from ‘United’ to ‘Unified’ in the ninth year of the Great President; 2036 in the old reckoning. This was just six weeks after the little altercation in Texas was satisfactorily resolved.” SourceofallKnowledge.gov
[2] “The Chinese reverted to the old Anglicized spelling to honor the Great President in the 12th year of his light.” SourceofallKnowledge.gov
[3] Naturally there was some amount of remodeling done at the time of the Great President’s fourth inauguration.
SourceofallKnowledge.gov
Tags: Climate Change, environment, evolution, global warming, gravity, Great President, Human Insufficiency, moon, redemption, Salvation, scientism, Texas
Filed under: 2010 Winners
