The Triumph of Science

The people began to feel restless and uneasy. It had been forty-five years since the first lamb, Dolly had been cloned and twenty-five years since Sally and Bob, the first couple, had been cloned and fifteen years since the Pope had been put on Prozac and only ten years since NASA had first received an extra-terrestrial transmission in response to the gold record message that had been sent into space. It was loosely translated as “We are unable to take your call at this time. If you wish to listen to the menu again push the number nine and then the pound sign.” It was a disappointment. The NASA officials looked at each other with blank stares. Their funding was cut a week later.

It was shortly after that that a New York Times editorial piece first voiced a discontent with having to put up with the darkness at night. Somehow this touched a responsive chord among the populace and a ground swell of bottled up resentment began to build, until finally the President was forced to organize a special commission to investigate options. After several months of indecision there were renewed cries for action. Bitter debate raged on Capitol Hill with the conservatives accusing the liberals of wanting to keep the night in order to pursue their unchristian agenda of wanton self-indulgence and licentious pleasure under the cover of darkness where they would not have to be held accountable for their actions and the liberals accused the conservatives of wanting perpetual daylight so that they could increase surveillance of the ACLU and prolong daily work hours to maximize the national productivity.

Finally Lauren the barber voiced his anger to Hank the mechanic and they went back to their wives who went over to their neighbors and the neighbors went to their co-workers and eventually there was a popular uprising of marches and demonstrations across the land. Retired veterans and impotent husbands and angry anti-sex feminists began taking the law into their own hands. People bought hand guns and semi-automatic rifles and formed community organizations and draped themselves in white sheets and began holding nightly vigils where they would fire up at the night and still the darkness came and the peoples anger at this intransigence grew until it was out of control of even local law enforcement.

Eventually the President was impeached and former President Reagan was called back into office and he called it a national emergency and called up the national guard and the 101st Airborne and the stealth bomber and launched operation ‘LIGHT’ and they attacked from all sides and still it grew dark and then the President called for a pre-emptive nuclear attack and all the sleeping Minute Men missiles rose up in deadly silence from their dark caves and the President spoke to the nation and urged everyone to pray and be patient and he assured them that this nightmare would soon come to an end