One bright and sunny morning everyone woke up and got ready for their days and they were all so preoccupied with all the little things that needed to be done that it took them almost half an hour to realize that the sun had gone out. This caused some concern.
The first order of business was clear: establish confusion. So every human awake and aware on the planet that could see the sky turned to the nearest other human they could see and had the following conversation:
“Hey, do you see that?”
“Do YOU see that?”
“I think I do, do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Woah.”
“Woah.”
“Know what’s going on?”
“I’ve got no idea – do YOU know what’s going on?”
“No.”
“Actually, wait – I bet I know what’s happening!”
And then began the second order of business, which was much more complicated and delivered with a lot of certainty and had a LOT more permutations all around: declaring why the sun had gone out.
The conspiracy theorists said the sun going out was a hoax to keep everyone’s minds off the truth, which was being hushed up by the FBI.
The cults declared the sun going out was a sign that the end was upon humanity, and that it could be forestalled if people gave them all their worldly possessions and maybe did something horny for them, just like every other day sun or no sun.
The FBI said the sun going out was the CIA’s fault.
The philosophers said SOMETHING about the sun going out but nobody understood except for other philosophers and they all said they were talking complete horseshit.
The CIA said the sun going out was probably the fault of that wily bastard Fidel Castro.
The physicists, astronomers, and astrophysicists said that the sun going out was all very exciting and changed everything but they didn’t know how or why because they had no funding and could they please have some.
Fidel Castro didn’t confirm or deny his responsibility in the sun going out.
Many of the great religions of the world said something about the sun going out, but most of their adherents couldn’t agree on what they said and got very upset with each other figuring out the fine details.
The government of the United States of America said the sun going out was the fault of China.
The government of China said the sun going out was the fault of the United States of America.
The government of the United Kingdom said the sun going out was definitely the fault of the European Union, or so reported the people who were paying attention to them.
The government of Canada presumably said something about the sun going out. The Canadians weren’t sure exactly WHAT they might have said, but were pretty sure the USA had said it was China’s fault.
Meanwhile, the citizens of each nation were pretty sure the sun going out was the government’s fault, what a bunch of goddamned clowns, can’t do anything right.
The elderly wisely informed their youthful peers that back in their days the sun went out twice as hard as this and they didn’t complain because they were busy doing real work because that was how you got ahead in life, and maybe the sun wouldn’t have gone out if they had more work ethic.
The youth rudely informed their elderly peers that the sun going out wasn’t a big deal and they were busy doing more important things like peer pressure and internet and the sun had probably gone out because it was sick of hearing old people talk.
The staff of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology said that the sun going out was something they could not comment on as it had very little to do with the Campanian fossil beds of Dinosaur Provincial Park or the science of paleontology in general.
The wealthy said that the sun going out was caused by too many goddamned handouts to the greedy and undeserving parasitic masses of the poor.
The middle class said that the cause of the sun going out was none of their business but they hoped it wouldn’t make their taxes go up because they barely had enough to go on vacation twice a year as it was.
The poor asked if they could have a spare dollar to buy a thicker blanket so they wouldn’t freeze to death between their shifts, since the sun had gone out.
This request was broadly not heeded, but it DID raise a till-then-unspoken concern: by this point things were becoming a bit chillier. People began to wonder if perhaps there should be a third order of business where they did something about the problem of the sun going out.
The president of the USA suggested firing nuclear missiles into the sky and using them instead of a sun. ‘The sun will never set on our country as long as I’m in power,” he told the press.
The billionaires suggested giving them more money so they could try fixing the sun with ideas they saw in science fiction novels when they were twelve. “Maybe we could take apart the solar system and use the bits to build a ringworld around Alpha Centauri,” said one exceptionally tedious wealthy dipshit. “It’s very feasible with current technology.”
The preachers and the pastors and the hellraisers and the prophets suggested listening to them, but couldn’t agree on who should be listened to, or what they were saying. But they WERE absolutely sure everyone else was incorrect.
The oil companies said that the sun was always a waste of time and money since it was solar powered AND nuclear powered and the real solution was always to burn twice as much oil twice as hard twice as often, leaving the globe warm and comfortably gaslit.
The political hard right said the sun was unnecessary as long as you exterminated all social outgroups and underclasses, which would make a perfect society that would definitely NOT immediately designate new outgroups for persecution and extermination.
The political hard left said the sun was unnecessary as long as you exterminated the moderates, who were undoubtedly responsible for the sun going out in the first place.
The political moderates said that maybe the sun would come back so long as you let everyone exterminate everyone else a little bit but not too much or too hard. Maybe they could all take turns?
The farmers said the sun would come back if it had the spine to get up at the crack of dawn and do a real job that society couldn’t survive without.
The artists said maybe the sun would come back when it had some new inspiration for fresh ideas and pushing it would just ensure you got sloppy and derivative work.
The economists said the sun would come back if everyone did something about something something index something something consumer confidence something something inflate the stagflation whatever who cares.
The sober and cool-headed policy wonk realists who advised the leaders of nations said the sun wasn’t coming back anytime soon so the only reasonable and rational decision was to annex everyone you felt like and anyone who argued otherwise was just being a silly billy polyanna numpty-neener-hoo.
The beleaguered penguins of Antarctica said little that was intelligible.
The management said that if the sun didn’t come back before its sick days were up it would be let go.
The internet said whatever would sell advertisements.
But after that, during that, before that could finish, last of all came the fourth order of business, and it came when the Sun sheepishly staggered in to work a whole day late, disheveled and pale and looking like death warmed over.
“I went out for drinks and lost track of time,” it said. “It won’t happen again.”
Nobody believed this.