So when the catastrophe hit, first thing everybody's like all "See! I told you so!" at each other.

Then they calmed down a notch and started screaming their fucking heads off.

After a while, rationality wore itself out and people started getting all suddenly righteous (even more than usual) in their phone conversations.

The phone lines and cell towers were all down, as befits global catastrophe, but calls still went through -- by sheer force of callers' will, apparently. "I can't believe this is all really happening," someone said during one of these miracle calls. "It's like we're in a movie."

The easy illogic of special effects ruled the day. Survivors clung to their roofs in the rain, as huge rivers of mud and debris gushed through their streets below.

Cars, from standing stock still, just up and did exceedingly graceful multiple rollovers. Busses bounced up off of buildings like mass (m=FR2/GM; m=E/c2) was no longer an issue for gravity.

The face of the planet was changing and everybody's jaw was all dropped open when they saw the smashed skylines on their home DVRs or CVS-Rs or DVTs or whichever standard of recording protocol ruled that week.

"But why are you all so fucking angry and upset about this," the well-respected news anchor chided them, staring directly into the camera in extreme head-on close-up, as was not normally done during the nightly newscast but after much discussion in the production meeting for that day they had agreed that an extreme camera angle was necessary to get the point across -- why, after all, have stuck to the same old boring set of camera angles for so many years consecutively if not to suddenly, one day, take advantage of the mind-crushing novelty of a totally DIFFERENT camera angle when it's most needed, to drive home a point that's crucial to the survival of the very viewing audience, if not the species.

"Why are you all so fucking upset by this anomalous and unrelenting string of catastrophes," the anchor whined at the home viewers, incredulous and almost condescendingly.

There was a slow dissolve on his face as he spoke, a slow dissolve to an overhead shot of the whole planet (the circumferences of world and anchor head matching, like, EXACTLY, so the dissolve is almost imperceptible) where the catastrophe is seen from outer space, from the moon, from mars -- from where it's all brilliant colored jagged swirls and sparks.

And in case it wasn't obvious to everyone -- maybe some of them had forgotten their art history or were absent the day Impressionism (or whatever) was covered -- the anchor explained it to the people in the voice he'd held in reserve for 20 years, saving it to match the day when the first extreme frontal close up on his face was used for maximum impact during time of crisis:

"I mean -- folks -- stroke for stroke -- the whole damn planet looks exactly like a fucking VAN GOGH!! -- Who could ask for more? -- After thousands of years of just being lame, distanced, unfeeling, dilettante, bourgeois observers of great art and history and science -- now, finally, we are A REAL FUCKING PART OF IT! -- Art and nature finally AGREE! -- A new world is being born!"

At which point, of course, on cue, the studio collapsed around him and the image blipped off on the final shot of the "V (for Victory)" sign, emerging on a pair of middle fingers stuck up through a hole from underneath the rubble where the anchor desk used to be.

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