strand, his errant idea was poised to split off and replicate into the
collective consciousness, trampling down cultural flowerbeds that
had managed to withstand all sorts of challenges over the years but
had not reckoned on this grave new development: That a child might
actually lead them.
Gareth’s original plan had been vastly different than Bob’s. He
had planned to choose a group of the most intelligent, enlightened
human beings in the world as well as a group of the most horrible,
backwards idiots available, to represent two extremes of humanity,
and then have them lead armies of their constituents in a global war
in which only two-millennia old weapons were used. When the dust
cleared, whomever was the victor, the evolved or the backward,
would then be allowed to plead their case to the gods as to why the
human race should be allowed to live on. This way, he figured, he
could promote the most violent spectacle ever staged in the history of
mankind, and still remain true to the bible—a massive confrontation
between good and evil, after which the victor would be responsible
for the fate of the world. This way, even if the good side won,
presumably sparing mankind, he would make immense profits off of
the show and would have furthered man’s fascination with violence
and would help show that violence wasn’t evil but rather an inherent
facet of the human experience. Alternatively, if the evil side won, the
world would be destroyed anyway and he would travel unscathed to
the realm of the Gods.
As terrible as this sounded, Gareth’s plan was not half as bad as
the one Bob had come up with. At least in Gareth’s plan there was a
strong possibility that good could triumph over evil and that man
would be saved, despite the likelihood of vast amounts of casualties.
What Bob’s vision lacked in violence and grandiosity, though, it
made up for in sheer stupidity. But since sometimes the seed of
genius lay hidden in the jackfruit of stupidity, the human race’s
greatest weapon may have been hiding in the skull of Bob Rigmaroli.
With Gareth at the helm, the world would certainly have gone out
with a bang, but with Bob surreptitiously taking over, there was the
possibility of the bomb going off like a whoopee cushion. Life
imitated art, and also sometimes cartoons.
“Okay, I’m gonna tell you what we’re gonna do,” the media mogul
eagerly began, “But first, let me ask you—have any of you guys seen
any television game shows lately?”
H O L Y S H I T !
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