Reimagining "On Thursday We Leave for Home"
Recent events have inspired me to present this reimagining of "On Thursday, We Leave for Home."
On Thursday, We Leave for a New Home
After an attempted coup on President Trumpet ends in his acquittal, the conservatives and the leftist in the fictional country of the Joint Territories of Amerigo are more divided than ever. A Scientist, Rod Sterling, then announces a scientific discovery. Time and space do not travel in straight lines as we believe. Every year at a specific moment, everything on the Earth is instantly duplicated and transported to an identical world without anyone being the wiser until now. It has happened for millennia, but this year something different will happen – the Earth will be duplicated twice and sent onto two separate new worlds – Earth Alpha and Earth Beta. Further, a solar flare will occur blanketing just the JTofA with a minute long-burst of radiation. It is harmless to humans, but it will cause each person in the JTA to only be duplicated once – going only to Earth Beta and leaving the JTA on Earth Alpha empty. But using his newfound technology, everyone can wear a belt with a switch on it. If they activate the switch, they will go to Earth Alpha. If not, they will go to the Earth Beta. Rod suggests that with our differences, all the conservatives go to Earth Alpha and all the leftists to Earth Beta. There, each party can then run the JTA as they see fit.
The idea is broadcast nationwide and the nation agrees with it. Everyone gets their free belt from the government with a week to spare. But this creates a quandary for one Romney Mitteen, a lifelong bachelor now in the Senate in the state of Huta. For years, he has been a conservative – even ran for President once, but lost. He dislikes the current conservative President Trumpet, though, because he’s a bit of a showboat and so has consistently voted against him. Recently, the leftists launched a coup where they tried to use impeachment to take the President out, but they didn’t have enough votes to oust him. Mitteen was a big hero with the media, who are controlled by the leftists, for being the only conservative to vote to remove him. Now he’s the darling of the leftists. But he’s known the conservatives all his life and doesn’t have any real leftist friends. He doesn’t know which world he’d rather go to.
So, Mitteen tries first to stop the world-change plan from going through. He makes a speech urging people to throw away the belts and all stay and switch over to Earth Beta. “We should all stay together,” he urges, “Together, Together.” But people walk out of or tune out his speech and his idea.
Next, he tries to smash the master control machine there in D.C. with a baseball bat. But the machine is made of tough stuff and isn’t even dented by the time the police arrive and escort him off.
He then tries to tell the conservatives at a rally preparing to go to their new world that it would be Hell on Earth to live in a world with just conservatives. But a speaker for the conservatives named Rush Sloane reminds them that they’ll have freedom in the world – freedom of speech, with no PC nonsense, Freedom of Religion, and freedom to own and carry a gun - plus an immigration system based on merit and not people sneaking in over the border. And they will treat every life as a sacred gift from God. Mitten sees he has lost the argument, but the others still invite him to be a part of their new world. “You said you were conservative once, Romney,” Sloane reminds him. “Come and join us.”
(To be concluded in next post)