Message on postcard:
- This is the story of the thing in the desert. It begins as the sun rises on the Alvord playa. It’s hot and dry. I’m saving water.
- I’m in the van, working on my sketchbook. The dogs are hanging out outside, full of energy after eating breakfast. Then there’s a series of yips, and Skillet runs in with a bone.
- “Great Scott!” I exclaim. Thanks to years of active participation in online paleoanthropology forums, I recognize the bone as soon as I see it. It’s a hominid femur, twenty to forty thousand years old.
- I step out of the van and the dogs eagerly lead me to the site of their find. There in the sun-baked surface of the ancient, dry lakebed is the rest of a nearly complete skeleton.
- But something is wrong. The skull has horns. My dogs have unearthed the unthinkable — a prehistoric race of demon people.
- What’s more, the skeleton belonged to a demon-person who clearly had been laid to rest in some kind of ceremonial burial. He was surrounded by ritual artifacts. In his hand was a bouquet of paleobotanical fossil flowers. And on his finger, a ring.
- I ignore my instincts. I remove the ring.
- The skeleton’s head swivels, and a dusty voice creaks out . “DOOOOOOOD,” he said, “NOOOOOOOOO.” Behind me, Steens Mountain split in two.
- At this point the dogs are seriously freaking out. Eagles are flying out of the mountain. Everything is rumbling. The skeleton is wiggling, big time.
- And that’s when the smooth jazz kicks out, announcing Noam Chomsky’s arrival. He strides forth from the mountain.
- “Noam,” I say, “This smooth jazz? I didn’t realize you were a David Sanborn fan. Also, I thought you lived in Boston, not an underground magma chamber.”
- “Mike,” he says, “that demon skeleton was the linchpin of America’s two-party political system. Thanks to your discovery we can welcome in a new era of tolerance, fairness, and plurality.”
- “Okay,” I said.
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