The manuscript fragment below was recently discovered by Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's campaign to develop a vaccine before election day. Sources say the project had accelerated to several times the speed of light when engineers discovered they were in a time warp. The manuscript was discovered stuck to the windshield in the year 4525 CE. It was damaged during the rapid deceleration that followed as team members worked frantically to return to their present lives. It appears to tell the story of the 2020 presidential campaign, in the language of a latter-day Bible.
In the fourth year of the reign of King Donald, in the second month, the Lord sent a bug to plague the people of the earth, as a sign against the king because he did not love justice.
The prophet Woodward went to the king, and he was afraid. The king said, "You just breathe the air and that is how it is passed. It is also more deadly that even your strenuous flu. This is deadly stuff." And the prophet wrote that in his book.
Then the king went to tell the people. He stood at the gate and told them, "When it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away. The King of China is working hard and it's going to work out fine." And the people went home and did not fear the plague.
Then God sent the plague from another direction, because the king had not warned the people, and many were sickened and died. They covered their faces, but the king was proud and would not cover his face.
In Albany and Sacramento governors warned the people to stay home, and the streets were emptied. King Donald called a great feast for the day of Easter, but few came. And those who came breathed the air and were struck with the plague, and it spread throughout the country. Great carts were brought to store the dead as no one would bury them.
Inside the beltway was a man named Joe B. His granddaughters came to him and told him to stand up against the king because of the people. Now Joe B. was an old man and slow of speech. But he had served and obeyed King O. Bama in the years of his reign, and he listened to the people. He told his granddaughters, "I am an old man and slow of speech. But I will stand."
In the ninth month of the year Judge Ruth died and slept with her ancestors. Now the acts of Judge Ruth are written in the Annals of the Court. Even as the people wept because of the acts of Judge Ruth, King Donald chose Aimy Comely Barrett to take her seat and called her into his chamber with all his friends. And the Lord sent in the virus as a sign against the King's friends, because they had not let King O. Bama choose a judge in the last year of his reign.
And they breathed the air with their faces uncovered and many fell sick. And the king also was sickened. They took him into the reeds, and gave him cocktails to make him feel great again. But the prophet Woodward spoke and told the people what the king had known but had not told them, and the people were asking,"Why did he not tell us?" But others were angered.
Meanwhile the viceroy Michael was sent out to defend the king against Joe B.s warrior Kamala. And as he spoke the Lord sent a black fly to sit on his head. Michael's hair was very white, so all the people saw it and wondered. But Kamala smiled at the fly on his head.
In the eleventh month the people went out to choose ...
The manuscript is torn and ends here with only indistinct half-letters on the ragged edge below. Write your own ending..)
-- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips
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