No news today, because everyone already knew that Obama was an alien. When the starship came down and hovered above the Whitehouse the cameras turned to watch a single stubborn leaf fall into the newly fallen snow. The last leaf of autumn! they all cried. The first leaf of the apocalypse! All the cameras watched one another carefully plod toward the downward escalator, not running, not running, infinities of static spiraling on their screens. Underneath the First Lawn, golden worms squirmed half-exposed, then disappeared one by one as, the camera’s imagined, they were sucked up and used to fuel the President’s journey home.
No news today, because laughter had already filled the air, and choked those of us still trying to breathe. Fortunately, the new apparatus kept our dead bodies productive. They had use for the motion, but there was no use for the heat, so it just rose. The cameras watched it escape, recording this on blank tapes, and broadcasting it into the stars. The stars, knowing something about heat, were not impressed.
No news today, because the war had already gone on forever.
Shya Scanlon is the author of In This Alone Impulse, and Forecast.
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