#fictoid

The air being clear and dry, there was no logical reason for the rainbow to be hovering over the Apostolic Church of Dynamic Christianity.

Nonetheless, hover it did.

“It’s a miracle,” the pastor said.  “A miracle sent by God to reclaim the rainbow for His people.  Hallelujah!”

“Did they have rainbows over Dachau?” the artist asked.  She lived in a small bungalow across the street from the megachurch, her front porch festooned with dream catchers and wind chimes and other gewgaws the AC / DC pastor deemed satanic, thus only reinforcing his determination to force her out and use her property to expand the parking lot of his church.

“What a silly question to ask,” he said.

“Is it?” she asked.  “Physics and meteorology and optics being what they are, there was almost certainly a rainbow over every death camp in the Third Reich, the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the killing fields of Cambodia, the bombed out homes of Gaz.,  Did those rainbows indicate God’s blessing on those places?”

“But our rainbow is different,” said the pastor.  “See?  It doesn’t touch the ground on either end, it just floats above the church.”

“Yeah, almost like it doesn’t want to touch it,” said the artist.  “As if God is rebuking you by dangling it over your heads, not bringing it down to you, but keeping it forever out of your reach.”

The pastor glared at the book the artist held, her index finger in the middle of it as a placeholder.  He tilted his head sideways to read the title:  The Communist Manifesto.

“Hmph!  Should have known.  You’re a godless commie artist.”

“If I was -- which I’m not -- wouldn’t ‘godless’ and ‘atheist’ be redundant?”

“You should read the Bible,” the pastor said.

“I have, several times.  It has quite a lot to say about greed and wealth and mercy and justice.”

“God helps those who help themselves.”

“The Bible doesn’t say that.”

“You’re just envious because you’re not the one blessed with a megachurch of your own.”

“What would I do with a megachurch?  I have a roof over my head, food in my pantry, clothes on my back, and shoes on my feet.  I make art all day long for others to enjoy.  Why would I want a megachurch?”

The rainbow suddenly blinked out.  The pastor gaped in amazement then turned angrily on the artist.  “See what you did?”

“What I did?  I didn’t do anything!”

“Your attitude forced God to withdraw His wondrous sign!”

“I wouldn’t bet on that rainbow being from God.  It violated several known physical laws.”

“All the more proof God was behind it!”

No, God was not behind it.  The test team for Ariel Night Glow Electronics were behind it.  They were testing out their new light show drone swarm and opted to do a rainbow as something that would draw the least amount of attention; they chose the airspace over the church if its large parking lot.

Later that day they saw the pastor on TV, telling viewers about the miracle of the rainbow and how God wanted the AC / DC church to chastise all sinners but especially sexual ones and most especially homosexual and transgender.

So the next day when the team test flew the drome squadron over the AC / DC campus in the shape of a giant penis.

When will this meeting ever end? Senator Don Boogle wondered.

They were entering the 7,300th year of the Senate Select Committee on Facial Identity Recognance Markers (FIRM).  The committee had be in session so long thanks to NASA’s time-warping Stretch-Out-Forever-Technology (SOFT).

NASA initially started SOFT as a way of allowing interstellar travel by mucking with the space-time continuum but it worked out exactly the opposite as intended.

While creating a bubble in the cosmic fart of time, SOFT actually made time stretch out longer for those inside said bubble.

Eager to turn their scientific sow’s ear into a budgetary silk purse, NASA fobbed SOFT off on bureaucracies that hesitating to committing themselves to any course of action until after the issue had been thoroughly analyzed, debated, discussed, and dissected.

Thanks to SOFT, a meeting could take place over hours -- days! -- years! -- in subjective time yet only a second would elapse in objective time.

The FIRM committee convened to discuss the legislative proposal that everyone should have their birth certificate tattooed on their forehead in the form of a barcode visible only under ultraviolet light.

Needless to say, this provoked quite a degree of outrage among various groups and special interests:  Civil libertarians, defense lawyers, religious fanatics of all stripes, etc., etc., and of course, etc.  In fact, the only people supporting it were the tattoo artists and ultra-violent ink suppliers.

Senator Boogle didn’t flee the Senate cloakroom fast enough and got trapped on the committee.  Thanks to side-effects of SOFT, people in the space-time bubble didn’t need food, air, water, or bathroom breaks.  Sleep was also impossible unless one was already asleep when SOFT got activated (they thought Senator Ditch Drainage managed to figure out how to snooze and take a 500 year nap while in SOFT but it turned out he was just dead, lucky bastard).

Senator Boogle hoped the committee would last only a few days at most, but here they were, one third of the way into their eighth millennia and the bureaucrats running the show couldn’t care less about wrapping things up, they were still obsessing over whether the microphone cords should fall on the left or the right, fearing one choice or another might reflect political bias.

The class challenge was to list three things that should be extinct.

He wrote three things on his list:  Racism, the Sony Walkman, and a dinosaur.

His teacher frowned.  “You failed to do the assignment,” she said.  “For instance, dinosaurs.  They’re already extinct.”

“Except they’re not,” said the boy.  “They evolved into birds.”

“Not the same thing,” said his teacher.

“I say they are and it’s my list.”

“So you want birds to go extinct?”

“No, you’re not reading it close enough.  I wrote ‘a dinosaur,’ in particular the woodpecker that wakes me up every morning by rapping on a tree limb outside my window.  That great-great-great-grandson of a tyrannosaur needs to go extinct ASAP.”

“All right,” the teacher frowned, “but the Sony Walkman?  They haven’t made those in decades.”

“All the more reason to make them go extinct.”

“But they’re not being made -- “

“What they represent still exists:  people shutting themselves off from the outside world and other people.”

“They did that long before Walkmen – “

“Walkmans,” said the boy,  “It’s a proper noun, so it ends with an ‘s’ not in ‘-men’.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“As sure as I’m standing here.  You’re the teacher, you should know that.”

“Harrumph!  Even so, transistor radios with earplugs long predated the Sony Walkman.”

“Not the same thing.  Transistor radios tuned into local radio stations.  Radio stations were a shared community experience.  Everybody listening to a specific station heard the same thing at the same time.  Furthermore, radio stations reported on local news and events.  They built community, they didn’t destroy it.”

“Well, finally racism.  People will always be racist.”

“Racism is a modern system.  I won’t deny people in the past didn’t exhibit bias and prejudice and chauvinism, but racism is an established cultural practice deliberately designed to prop one group over and above other groups specifically by denying those other groups opportunities the favored group enjoys.

“It is intrinsically unfair and unjust and we can take steps as rational human beings to undo it.”

“You are a cockeyed optimist,” said the teacher.

“My sexual orientation has nothing to do with it,” said the boy.  “As long as thoughtful people exist, hope and optimism will never go extinct.”

For generations tensions brewed in the city.  Different neighborhoods, different classes, different ethnicities viewed each other with increasing suspicion, egged on by politicians and exploiters and influencers who stood to gain from the disunity.

It started small as a kindergarten class project one year. 

“This year we are all going to share one Halloween costume,” Miss Mangione said.

“Yuck,” said the kids, “who wants to squeeze into one big smelly costume?”

“You don't understand,” she said.  “We will be the costume, a beautiful necklace made of all of us.”

They made chain links from construction paper, connecting themselves together at their wrists.

“The chains link us together,” Miss Mangione said, “but they're made of paper so they will break if we're not careful.  We can go anywhere and do anything if we're careful and respectful of each other.”  

To prove this they spent the rest of the day chained together, playing games on the playground, doing art, eating snacks.  If student at one end of the chain wanted something all they need do was say, “Please pass it to me.” and the other students would pass it along.

Needless to say politicians and exploiters and influencers Did Not Like This, No, Not One Little Bit.  They denounced and ridiculed Miss Mangione, eventually dragging her before the school board to give an accounting of herself.

“This is collectivism!” they screeched.

“No, it's interdependence,” Miss Mangione said.

“You're teaching them individuality is wrong!

“No, I'm showing them how we are all linked to one another.”

“You made them sleep and go to the bathroom together!”

“Don't be silly.  For nap time and bathroom breaks we slid the chains off.  Those are personal times.  For all other times -- the public times, the social times -- we recognized our links.”

“You made them wear those chains the entire year!”

“No, only for a day and only to teach a lesson.”

“You're teaching them to be sheep.”

“I taught them that we are always linked even if the links aren't visible.  If anyone teaches them to be sheep, it is you, constantly hammering people to fear one another, to value and respect only material wealth and property, to run in headlong panic either from something you demand they fear or towards something that will benefit you even if it harms them.”

“Harlot!” politicians cried.

“Heretic!” exploiters screamed.

“Homeless!” influencers sneered.

And so Miss Mangione lost her job and her home but not her standing in the city.  Bit by bit her message sunk in.

Of course the school system banned it which meant of course all the students secretly participated in it.

Soon politicians and exploiters and influencers were denouncing paper chain link parties where kids put on the links to see how they connected with one another.  It started with rebelling teens then spread down to younger kids. 

Concerned parents, not wanting their impressionable youngsters to get the wrong ideas, started organizing paper chain link parties they could supervise and from that learned the links posed no threat and soon began incorporating them in adult parties as well.

Several years after Miss Mangione was fired and driven from the community, the city decided they would become a giant diamond necklace for Halloween. 

Whether using real diamonds or rhinestones or crumpled up aluminum foil or even just paper cut in diamond shapes, they all dressed up, linked wrist to wrist, home to home, block to block, neighborhood to neighborhood, sharing joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains. 

Joyous music and the rich aroma of a myriad of foods wafted through the air.

The only ones who didn't attend were politicians and exploiters and influencers.

Even though they were invited, they chose to spend Halloween shuttered behind closed doors, blocking out the bright light and happy sounds.

Outside in the world the real world -- not the phony one they conjured up for money and power, clicks and views, shits and giggles -- the city rejoiced in their linkage.

As for Miss Mangione, the city bestowed the highest honor they could think of on her. 

They named a school after her.

The honorable congresswoman (she insisted on the term) from Sheethill, Alabama came to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation ostensibly looking for answers but in reality to preen on camera for her imbecilic voters.

“I want to know what you commie reds are doing on American soil!” she screeched.

“First off,” the Lakota chief said, “we are not ‘red’.  That’s a term white people imposed on us to justify taking our land.

“Second, we were here before there was a Soviet Union, long before there was even a nation called Russia, much less anything resembling communism.

“We were here before the Europeans named these continents the ‘Americas’.

“And why are you down on communism?  Doesn’t your party adore Kim Jong Un?”

“What’s he saying?” the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama asked her aide.  “Why doesn’t he say ‘ugh’ and ‘how’ like he’s supposed to?  Why is he talking like he’s better than me?”

The aide cleared his throat.  “The honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama is here on a fact finding mission.”

“What facts does she hope to find?” the Lakota chief asked.

The aide looked acutely embarrassed.  “Actually, we were hoping you’d tell us.  We don’t know anything about your reservation.”

“Ever think of Googling first?  We’ve got a website and there’s also an entry for us on Wikipedia.  Or you could always go to a library.  I would recommend Federal government websites but your party leader took them all down.”

“The honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama eschews public libraries.  She maintains there’s only one book with all the answers.”

“The Bible, huh?”

“No, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.”

“Has she actually read Atlas Shrugged?” asked the Lakota chief.  “If so, I am impressed at her perseverance.”

“She didn’t actually read it,” said the aide, “but she watched the movie.  To be honest, she didn’t actually watch the movie, she asked a cousin who saw it to tell her about it.”

“Really?  Who is this cousin?”

“A five-year old related to her by blood and marriage.  He gave a rather colorful rendition of the movie, embellishing on all the boring parts.”

“And by ‘boring part’ you mean the entire movie.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Enough of this pow-wow,” screeched the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama.  “Show me some facts I can get outraged about.”

“Funny, I would have thought you’d keep a make-up mirror in your purse for that,” said the Lakota chief.

“What did he say?” the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama asked.

“He said he would try to find something for you,” the aide said, looking at the Lakota chief with a plaintive shrug.

“Let me show you the lake of Forgetfulness,” said the chief.  He took them over to a small, muddy cattle watering hole surrounded by barbed wire and skull-and-crossbones signs.

“This is their Lake of Forgetfulness?” sneered the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama. “Doesn’t look very impressive.  This some primitive native superstition?”

“No,” said the chief.  “This is where some frat boys from Bringham Young University threw their fentanyl stash when the DEA helicopter chased them.

“They were smuggling it in via private plane when the DEA gave chase.  They dumped their load over our lands.  Luckily it landed here.  We fenced it off to keep people safe.”

“What did he say?” the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama asked her aide.

“He said, ‘Ugh!  Big sky bird put bad medicine in lake.  Heap big trouble.”

“Just like I said, silly native superstition,” said the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama.  “Look, I’ll prove it.”

She squeezed between strands of barbed wire.  “See? Nothing bad happened to me.”

“Tell her not to drink the water,” said the Lakota chief.  “In fact, tell her, “Ugh!  Heap big chief say no go swimming in lake.”

“I heard that!” said the honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama.  “You can’t tell me what to do!”

With that she kicked off her shoes and waded in.

It took the fentanyl only seconds to work through osmosis.  The honorable congresswoman from Sheethill, Alabama looked more vacant than usual and began swimming in the muddy pond, taking in big gulps of water. Soon she forgot all about swimming and sank to the bottom like a stone.

“Well, that settles that,” said the Lakota chief.

“You mind if I take a few gallons of this back to D.C. to share with our party leaders?” the aide asked.