Good Friday, 2033
It was Friday, March 29th 2033, Good Friday, and the nation's picnic parks and beaches and shopping malls were jammed with sweaty vibrant Americans all celebrating the 2000th anniversary of Christ's death on the cross.
There were balloons and hot dogs and cotton candy and carnival rides
and warm, sweet apple cider.
Parents enjoyed the spring weather with tiny toddlers swinging from their shoulders and everyone wore loose and colorful clothing.
In Washington DC the president, an enormous lumbering man ravaged by various degenerative skin diseases, paced circles into the maroon carpet of the oval office.
Vice president Friend the Robot sat nearby, silent, watching, tapping his
metal fingers on the presidential coffee table.
Earlier, the president had spent most of the morning in the men's room passing sperm and snorting a fine white powder which he thought was drugs but which later turned out to be ground up human skull.
Now, the tension in the forehead was forcing tiny beads of sweat out of his pale white scalp and down the back his neck.
His hands wobbled in his pockets.
At precisely 5 o'clock the sound of tolling bells spilled across the White House lawn and in through the open window.
The president spun sharply on his heels and Friend tilted his head slightly and began to rise from his seat.
Outside they could hear the sound of a seething, expectant, happy nation.
The president shot a glance towards Friend's sidearm, holstered to his hip and, for a brief moment felt he was going to vomit and crash into the floor.
The curtains drew in a tiny breeze from the west and Friend ushered him
towards the balcony.
He walked out slowly and deliberately, head hung low and over towards the parapet.
A special podium had been installed here just for this occasion and
weakly now he climbed its two wooden stairs, stopping for a moment to deliver some husky phlegm into a presidential hanky he carried at all times.
Then, he stood a second, eyes closed, running several thick, fat fingers
through his tight and dirty hair.
When he opened his eyes again he surveyed the endless sea of fresh young faces in front of him spilling out over the lawn and down either way on Pennsylvania avenue.
He glanced over at the vice president, now with metal fingers hovering
over the side holster, ready to draw at a split second's indecision.
The president grasped the microphone in front of him like an asp.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he wheezed, turning now for the first time to face an enormous fleshy rendering of Jesus directly above and behind him, dripping as it was with the blood and ooze of 2000 years of nail wounds.
"You filthy dogshit liar. You filthy fucking dogshit liar!"
And the applause rolled in like cloudbursts.
And after all was said and done, after everyone had left the public areas to return home and eat pie, Friend placed a knowing electronic hand on the president's shoulder and the two of them returned indoors to make love.
The End