Black Friday

It would seem that we are living in a perpetual, 'day after'--it rained and then it didn't, it's sunny and then it wasn't and so on.

Banking regulations have been eased, in favor of the bankers. Student loans are forgiven, and then unforgiven. An economic study is commissioned to compare the price of things--water, wheat, a Tiffany necklace--from one era to another to determine if there really is any relationship between consumer habits in the past and the present, as well as to determine the effects of these habits on world-wide climate patterns. People are sent into outer-space once again, both in movies and in real life, to demonstrate mankind's relentless progression from Columbus Day to Black Friday. The space suits and the looks on faces of the actual astronauts and the actors portraying the astronauts are identical.

The President invokes Jesus in his proclaimation. Thank you Jesus, he says, I know you'll come through for me, as I came through for you.  I'm strong, I'm coming through for you strong, I know you won't let them do this to me. Oddsmakers in Vegas take bets: will more people attend the President's funeral than attended his inaugeration?

Somebody's brought a pie to Thanksgiving dinner. Is it pumpkin or some other root vegetable native Americans once harvested? No one at dinner can say, and the man who made the pie had to leave the dinner early.

The pie is primarily orange, an oozy orange, ringed by dark matter to resemble, quite possibly, an asteroid floating around somewhere in outer space, or a toilet bowl in a Chinese restaurant. It's impossible to tell which.

Everyone at dinner is allowed one guess as to what kind of pie it is: a tikka masala pie; a pie made of wild yams harvested in Plymouth, Massachuettes; a cooling pool of nuclear waste from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in Avila Beach, California...

The pie goes untouched; no one dares to take a bite, not knowing what it's made of. Everyone at the table agrees that the unknown is more than a literary concept. The unknown is the real thing: it comes for everyone of us and takes us where we thought we wanted to go.

This all happened last night, when Black Friday was tomorrow and the shops had yet to open.