Further, and this is something Adam would have learned if he’d paid attention at the ‘Feeding Governor Christie Training’ the previous night – while bacon suits are perfectly fine for esophagus spelunking, it is important to wear a miner’s helmet with a light on it covered by a shower cap, as it is brutally dark inside a person’s belly, especially people filled with an unholy amount of empty space. See Picture Number Two:
Finally, it crucially important to enter a person’s mouth with your eyes closed as the acids lining the esophagus can cause permanent damage. No picture here – you get the point. Safety first, folks.
Adam made two big mistakes while descending into the depths of Governor Christie’s belly. For one he didn’t keep his hands at his side; now his right arm is scraped up by the governor’s hippopotamus teeth, an actual bloody mess. Also, he’s been partially blinded due to the acids in the governor’s esophagus. But this doesn’t matter at the moment – there is no light inside Christie’s tummy anyway.
***
‘Who’s there?’ Eve also can’t see anything in the dark, but at least she knew enough to go down the gov’s throat with her arms at her sides and her eyes closed.
‘Eve!’ Adam feels his way around, past something sticky, over something slimy, next to something still breathing and finally feathers his outstretched fingers along something that feels human. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes,’ she says, her voice stifled by the humidity.
‘The governor’s acid blinded me and my right arm is pretty scraped up,’ he says. ‘Boy does it reek in here!’
‘You’re so selfish,’ comes Eve’s reply.
‘What? Why’s that?’
‘You’ve come to rescue me, have you not?’
‘I have.’
‘Yet you are only worried about yourself. You didn’t even ask me how my trip down his esophagus went.’
‘But I’ve been blinded and I’m losing a lot of blood over here!’
‘Whatever.’
The governor laughs and his belly shakes up and down. Something that resembles a snake hits Adam’s shoulder. The breathing hose.
‘Put this in your mouth!’ he says, waving the hose in the dark.
‘This is hardly the place for that kind of talk, Adam,’ Eve says, in a tone that is borderline flirty. ‘Hardly!’
‘Dammit Eve, I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the breathing hose. It will save you if…’
(I don’t know the best way to describe the fart that the governor unleashes next. For our purposes, imagine the sound of Mount St. Helena exploding.)
‘Put the tube in your mouth, Eve!’ And so focused he is on his girlfriend that Adam doesn’t realize that the mouthpiece on his scuba mask is still hanging at the side of his head. Luckily, as the air zips out of the governor (and a vacuum is created), Adam remembers to put the snorkel in and is able to save himself from suffocation.
Once the flatulence vacuum has ended, Eve takes the tube out of her mouth and asks, ‘Why did you really come?’ She puts the tube back in, even though air is already starting to fill the governor’s belly again.
‘Because…’
He feels something touch him and realizes it is Eve’s hand.
‘Because why, Adam? Do you have something you’d like to tell me?’
‘I’m sorry…’ he finally says. ‘I’m sorry for liking my ex’s photo yesterday.’
‘What about today?’
‘I didn’t like her photos today, I swear.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I don’t know. My phone is in the kitchen…’
‘I bet it was one of the illegals,’ Eve says.
‘Why do we automatically assume it was one of them?’ Adam takes another sip of air from his scuba mask. The bacon suit is starting to bother him. It stinks and the fatty pieces are sticking to the gaping wounds on his arms.
‘Who else could it have been?’
‘Maddie,’ they both say at the same time.
Maddie the waitress used to be in love with Adam (remember: he has elfish features). She always gives him a double look when he walks by and sometimes she hugs him, from behind, in a way that resembles that picture of Janet Jackson’s Rolling Stones cover from the 90s.
‘That bitch,’ Eve says.
‘Yeah…’ Adam says.
‘I don’t like the way you didn’t agree with me whole-heartedly,’ Eve says after taking another sip of oxygen.
Adam cries, ‘I’ve been blinded by the governor’s stomach acid, my arm is bleeding profusely and I’m wearing a bacon outfit. Cut me some slack here!’
‘This isn’t all about you, Adam.’
‘OK, let’s hash this out then. What’s the problem, the real problem?’ he asks.
‘You liked your ex’s photo. Regardless of what that super slut Maddie did, you admitted to liking her photo yesterday. Why?’
‘We were at the training and I was bored.’
‘Good, you are using your words now.’
‘I saw the photo and my hand…’ Adam is about to say “accidently” but decides against it. ‘My hand pressed the like button. Is that so wrong? Is it wrong for me to be attracted to other girls but…’
‘But what?’ she asks.
Adam feels the word buzzing on his lips and he knows he’ll regret saying it one day. ‘Is it so wrong for me to be attracted to other girls but madly in love with you? Is that so wrong?’
‘You’re in… love with me?’ she asks, her voice raising an octave.
‘Yes, Eve, I am. There, I said it. I’m in love with you. Happy?’
‘Well you just ruined it by asking me if I was happy, but I’ll let that slide. I’ll also let slide the fact that you are attracted to other girls.’
‘Women. We are in our twenties, we should call them women.’
‘Whatever.’
The governor’s belly quakes and both of them brace themselves for flatulence. None comes.
Adam is about to go off on a spiel about how biologically speaking, it makes sense that men are attracted to a wide variety of women and that societal norms on both sides of the playing field have cast us, most of us anyway, into monogamous relationships that may or may not go against our very nature. Instead he takes a deep breath, realizing he has the upper hand right now by successfully wielding the L-bomb and that it would be best to keep his trap shut. ‘Let’s not get into it, Eve, I love you and that’s all that matters. That and getting out of here.’
‘Good,’ she says, moving closer to him. ‘I love you too.’ Eve pushes Adam’s scuba mask off his face and kisses him passionately in Governor Christie’s belly.
***
Adam starts tugging on the breathing hose with hopes that Yamo Ricado will get the message.
‘That won’t help.’
Adam kicks his foot against something that feels mushy.
‘That won’t help either,’ Eve says.
‘How do you know?’
‘He’s too busy listening to that nutjob from Texas talk about guns, illegals, the cost of freedom, the risks of freedom, the fragrance of freedom and how he is the most qualified candidate to represent a nation of millions, many of whom stay clear of Texas for very obvious reasons.’
‘Eve, you’re from Texas.’
‘I’m from Austin, it’s different.’
‘Semantics,’ Adam says, using a word he learned in one of his pottery classes. ‘Watch out!’
Partially chewed hunks of ham fall from the proverbial sky, landing all around them. ‘He’s feeding!’
‘This is so gross!’
A hunk of ham lands on Adam’s shoulder, slides down his chest. The sound of falling pieces of masticated ham resembles the sound of a person tenderizing a slab of meat. For her part Eve is covering her head with her hands, trying to avoid getting pelted by the chewed-up pig flesh. Finally, after another minute of swine showers, Governor Christie stops eating.
Adam looks up, even though he can no longer see.
‘A fart goes one way, a burp the other,’ he says, remembering something Neil deGrasse Tyson once said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Eve steps on something that pops.
‘Well if he farts, it will suck the air out towards his intestines, or however a body works I have no idea. That’s how a body works, right?’
‘For fictional purposes, yes.’
‘Good! If we wait for him to burp, maybe we’ll be sucked out the reverse way…’
‘And shot out of his mouth?’
‘Exactly!’ he says. ‘The only problem then is making him burp.’
‘Burps are caused by bacteria and other gasses that have built up in a person’s gut.’
‘There must be tons of bacteria in here…’
‘We need the bacteria to release methane gas,’ Eve explains, ‘then he’ll burp.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I subscribe to The Livestrong Foundation’s e-mail newsletter.’
‘Did they say how to make someone burp if you happened to be trapped inside their stomach?’
Eve thinks for a moment. ‘Not that I can remember, but I have an idea. Let’s just jump up and down – I’m sure that will cause the bacteria to release some methane gas plus it will irritate him.’
‘Great idea!’
Adam and Eve begin jumping up and down in Governor Christie’s gut, laughing as indescribable smells spurt through the squishing and squashing of digestive bacteria. Garlic, hard-boiled eggs, rotten broccoli, boiled mutton, fermented cabbage, Beef Wellington.
‘It smells sooooo bad,’ Eve says on the tail end of a giggle. ‘Soooo bad!’
‘Hold your nose – these fumes may be cancerous!’
Miraculously, something shifts in Governor Christie’s belly and he burps, a jarring belch more whale than human. Air begins whipping past Adam who is barely able to scream, ‘Hold onto me, Eve!’
Up they go like Santa through a chimney, their arms at their sides this time, embracing like reunited lovers as Eve screams, and Adam holds her closely to his chest to muffle the cries and boom! They’re on back of Governor Christie’s tongue now, running towards the small opening at the front of his mouth.
‘Hurry!’ Eve says, yanking Adam’s hand.
‘I can’t see!’
Another burp explodes out of the back of the governor’s throat, tossing Adam and Eve to the front of his mouth. Yikes!
‘Grab onto me!’ Adam shouts as fermented air roars in his ears.
‘I’m not going to make it!’ is Eve’s reply.
‘You have to believe…’
Another burp does the trick.
The putrid air from the mahoosive belch catches them mid-fall, spinning the two like a pair of skydivers. Not moments later, they’re sailing out of Governor Christie’s mouth, twisting midair as the clatter of silverware and Texas ramblings replaces the sounds of the governor’s digestive tract.
By chance, Adam is impaled on a steak knife that the governor is holding while Eve’s body is tossed into what’s left of the ham carcass.
‘Hmmmmm?’ Governor Christie says, looking at the impaled man on the end of his steak knife. Adam’s body slides down the knife, his legs kicking as he slowly dies.
‘You killed my boyfriend you fat piece of shit! I loved him!’ Eve screams, beating her fists against what’s left of the ham and crying, crying because of the fact that her boyfriend is now dead (or dying) and that both her legs are broken.
Yamo Ricado scrambles up the table, trying to get to Eve before the governor notices her.
Governor Christie holds the knife upside down, as if it were a tissue covered in mucus. He hands the knife to his assistant, a puny man too tiny to handle the oppressively large steak knife. The knife and Adam’s body fall onto the governor’s assistant, crushing him. Seconds later, Rick Perry hops back on the table and starts doing a ridiculous dance.
Perry points his finger guns in the air and Governor Christie laughs, and the old white men in black suits surrounding him laugh, and Adam and the governor’s assistant die, and brokenlegged Eve is carried to the kitchen by Yamo Ricado as she screams, ‘He loved me! He loved me! He really loved me!’
The kitchen door swings open and Eve is dropped onto the prep table.
‘Keep your head down and your mouth shut,’ Yamo Ricado says, cuffing her mouth. ‘It is the only way to survive.’
The Internet Kill Switch Fiasco
What began as a simple post to garner “likes” quickly grew into something no one could have seen coming. The following is an overview of the Internet Kill Switch Fiasco, its belligerents and the aftermath, with the hopes that it will be studied by future generations. For those needing clarification, notes have been provided.
The Beginning of the War
Broderick Healy went by the name Bruno in high school in Vermont and by the name Brody at MIT, where he created a twenty-first century version of Spacewar in which a small rocket shaped like the Facebook logo fired at random Instagram pictures, producing celebrity tweets as a reward for high scores. The term outsider need not be used to describe him as it is obvious he was an outsider.[18]
Healy developed a small following of hackers with his first blog. Then he created a hybrid blog he called Frogfeet that linked to various social media pages. From there, he expanded Frogfeet to an invite-only website that hosted a stream of user-generated content showcasing trending stories, videos, photos and what was called “ponding”. Ponding allowed users to use the GPS in their electronic devices to see who was “frogging” nearby. Frogfeet wasn’t the first service to do this, but it blew most users away by connecting them with people that had been cross-referenced based on a number of criteria including age, religious beliefs, likes and biases. It was a great hookup app. Naturally, Frogfeet was purchased by Google after having a forty billion dollar bidding war with Facebook and Microsoft.[19]
It should be noted that Healy himself wasn’t very popular on Frogfeet. No one cared if he was frogging nearby. As primitive as it may sound, the people most famous at the time included teen celebrities who posted pictures of their newest tattoos, comedians who excelled in genitalia-based jokes, internet sensations fond of one second videos they called “fasts” and socially charged musicians who commented on things they knew nothing about. Healy, a boring outcast if there ever was one, was easily overshadowed by these competing characters even though he’d created the outlet for them to reach their audiences.[20] He was less Zuckerburg and more Thiel sans the near Randian levels of Libertarianism. Regardless of his invisibility at the height of FrogFeet’s IPO, Healy would soon dominate them all.
His strategic strike against the world started with a Facebook post about how he had been diagnosed with cancer. He chose not to post this message on Frogfeet, as he wanted to prove that he was amiable with Facebook even though his company had been purchased by a competitor. It was a move that would win him some likes; a move that would also garner him some cross-platform followers. It was also the move that started the war.[21]
His “cry for sympathy” was shared by two of his closest friends,[22] 4Chan hackers known only as RedPill and BluePill (more on these two misfits later). This subsequent plea was tweeted and shared. There have been detailed analyses of Healy’s posts, the most notable of which is Jonathan Fistmonk’s, Cancer and the Domination of Healy. There have also been disputes as to the effect of Healy’s fake-cancer posts. I will leave this debate to the experts and continue with an overview of the fiasco.
During high school, Broderick Healy was a Photoshop expert. He’d run multiple regional awards, including the Cincinnati Photoshop Contest and the much coveted, Bristol Photo Manipulation Award. Using his skill of photographic manipulation, Broderick was able to drop his body weight by nearly 175 pounds (79.3 kilos), manipulate his skin color and remove all the hair on his head to appear cancerous.[23] This picture became the most shared photo of 2019.
He quickly gained international sympathy with his Photosh
opped photos. Once his popularity began to take off, people from his childhood naturally began to question the legitimacy of his claim.[24] That’s when the proverbial war started.
Similar to Wayne Knight’s role in the 1990s classic Jurassic Park, Healy loved to taunt people. When he was thirteen, he invented an app that could turn people’s phone alarms on remotely. He would routinely wake his parents and his brothers up at all hours, laughing with his blanket pulled over his head.[25] It is said that this later drove his brother to suicide, although the real cause of his death has yet to be released to the public.[26]
Healy was fond of secretly playing pranks at the Frogfeet offices in Stanford Research Park. He preferred mean pranks, ones that would embarrass the person being pranked. Using advanced government research engines, he’d find childhood photos of staff members. Using his photoshop expertise, he’d doctor up these photos, putting the children in sexual positions with other members of their families.[27] Needless to say, this didn’t win him many friends.
Long story short: the cancer picture spam attack unleashed by RedPill and BluePill, and overseen by Healy, was essentially the Shock and Awe Campaign of the Internet Kill Switch Fiasco. It quickly metastasized into an uncontrollable hack that dismantled internet browsers. It also infested smartphones, taking all their information from GPS locations to credit card numbers. Healy had personally built a special hack in the smartphone virus that kept phones on locked modes. The sheer frustration of many Millennials caused a worldwide increase in suicide rates.[28]
By November 2029, the internet was no longer accessible, not in Safe mode or on at any wifi hotspot. If any internet browser was opened, the machine would reboot itself. It was a global endemic of epic proportions. Most people sat in front of their machines, assuming their internet service providers would fix the problem.[29] Internet corporations such as Amazon and Google lost billions by the day. Yahoo! folded its doors within the first three hours. Without computers manipulating stocks, the stock market crashed in a little under an hour, sending droves of hedge managers into hiding. It seemed as if Healy and his henchmen had truly demolished the World Wide Web.
Dear NSA: A Collection of Politically Incorrect Short Stories Page 8