Calamity Gain
A Three Minute Screenplay
(Aerial view of the United States, panning to Lake Michigan, where the water is a sickly yellow and bubbling, and the fish are screaming.)
(Next scene: It is a beautiful morning in Washington, D.C., and President Bush and Vice President Cheney are enjoying the day by waterboarding a butterfly.)
VP: They take a long time to drown.
(Suddenly the shrubs stir and Karl Rove sticks his head out of the foliage.)
Karl: You know our friends at Amalgamated Entropy will be at your next fundraiser. They’re willing to have a bad table.
VP: Why?
Karl: Think of it as an apology. Remember Chicago?
(Image of a Chicago signpost half corroded away. Yellow fumes waft through a city of skeletons wearing Cub caps and holding pizza boxes.)
Karl: Our friends made an honest mistake. Amalgamated Entropy was complying with your new environmental waste laws.
The plutonium and the arsenic were all doubled bagged, and 50 tons of toxic waste really is not very much when you consider the size of Lake Michigan.
The company is truly sorry, but it would be unfair to the stockholders to take the blame for four million dead.
Pres: Could we blame the Capone Gang?
Karl: No, the Mafia bought three tables at the fundraiser.
VP: Four million dead, eh? We must order troops immediately for clean-up operations.
(Image of soldiers in Hazmat outfits going through the pockets and purses of the corpses for money.)
Karl: Can we trust the soldiers with the money?
VP: You’re right. We’ll use Boy Scouts instead.
(Image of Boy Scouts robbing the corpses.)
Pres: They’ll earn a merit badge.
VP: Now, how can we sell the corpses? I can always use a few donor organs.
Karl: Pet Food companies will buy some of the bodies. It’s gotta to be better than what they usually use. China might buy the rest-if we don’t ask any questions.
Pres: Well, Karl, we now only have Four Great Lakes left. I hope that in the future our friends will be more careful with toxic waste.
Dump it on the Canadian side.
(Image of the Canadian flag with the maple leaves crumbling.)