The City of New York, still reeling from falling cranes, broken water mains, and the Republican presidential ticket, was forced to cope with yet another hard-hitting reality last Tuesday, as a giant human fetus of indeterminate sex and race suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began a rampage through midtown Manhattan.
Estimated to be over fifty feet in height, with nubby, half-formed limbs, the fetus stomped on city buses and Yellow Cabs, drooled on Mini-Coopers, hurled manhole covers into skyscrapers, and overturned baby carriages, leaving puddles of amniotic fluid in its wake.
“It’s – it’s hideous!” screamed one bystander.
“It’s cranky!” exclaimed another.
“It’s horribly, horribly dangerous!” cried someone else.
“But we can’t kill it!” declared Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an apparent attempt to curry favor with his conservative Republican base. “A fetus is life. In fact, I proclaim this one a miracle.”
Chancellor Joel Klein of New York City Public Education agreed. “I think we should let this innocent youngster alone and watch tenderly as it develops. Then, when it’s ready, we enroll it in a public school. That should finish it off.”
After assuming the fetal position for a short nap in Times Square, the miracle-fetus started a trek south and eastward, through the Garment District, where it stopped for a minute to spit up on Macy’s. Rounding a corner at West 34th Street, it slouched off toward the Empire State Building, followed now by a small but vocal group of admirers – chiefly fundamentalist Christians who are usually found on 42nd Street with enlarged plastic models of the female reproductive system, decrying homosexuality and abortion. “He’s back!” sobbed one of the followers to a reporter. “Our precious Lord was reborn unborn so that we who are born again can smite the un-born-again! Take THAT, theory of evolution!”
Indeed, modern science has not yet explained the origin of the miracle-fetus. Some say it is the result of a nuclear accident; more cogent is the thesis that it was conceived at the moment Republicans chose Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate.
According to the New York Times, McCain’s campaign was considering Senator Joseph Lieberman or former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, both moderates on abortion. However, when the Pro-Life movement got wind of these prospects, it swamped the Republican campaign with protests, leading to the selection of Palin, the fecund pit bull with lipstick who can see Russia.
As the miracle-fetus lumbered east on 34th Street toward the Empire State Building, journalists jostled to get an interview. Reporter Juan Gonzalez, of the New York Daily News and Democracy Now, elbowed in to ask the first question.
“Sarah Palin would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape or incest,” began Gonzalez, “yet she calls sending U.S. troops to Iraq a ‘task that is from God.’ As a fetus, how do you feel, knowing that a Pro-Life candidate is unconcerned about the deaths of thousands in Iraq and –”
“Shut up, sexist,” snapped Bill O’Reilly, reactionary Fox News pundit. “God doesn’t care how nice you are, or how many lives you destroy – as long as you’re a primitive aggregate of unborn cells, you’re golden. It’s time someone in a position to nuke Russia realized that.”
“I wish you’d tell me when the life of a woman begins,” interrupted Rachel Maddow, liberal commentator on MSNBC and Air America. “Anti-choice forces have gone too far – by tampering with our right to autonomy, they’ve created a monster. Actually, this thing kind of reminds me of John McCain. What is McCain, really, but a fetus in a suit? Except his brain isn’t so highly developed…”
It was at this point that the miracle-fetus, probably tiring of the media melee, began its preordained ascent up all 102 stories of the Empire State Building. Before moving on, however, it paused to seize Bill O’Reilly and tuck him, shrieking, under its moist arm-bud. Now, at the top of the building, the miracle-fetus remains – waving O’Reilly around and using him to swat at the occasional off-course bi-plane.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg has put out an all-points call for help. “A community organizer,” pleaded the Mayor on national TV. “Jesus, what I wouldn’t give for a community organizer!”
Community organizers, however, stung by the Republican Convention’s repeated ridicule of their work, have chosen to remain aloof from this issue. The City of New York has therefore been forced, at great taxpayer expense, to hire a consulting group to solve this problem. Every morning around 8:30, a man from Merrill Lynch appears in a handsome three-piece suit, pushes through the growing throng of sobbing fetus-worshippers, hoists a megaphone to his lips, and calls:
“How is pwecious widdle Life Form today? Is ‘oo going to come down fwom dat big, bad building?”
The standoff is now in its fourth day. Will the McCain-Palin ticket be elected? Will most of New York City flee to Montreal? Or will Barak Obama regain respect as a community organizer, rescue Bill O’Reilly, and stave off Armageddon for another term? All that New Yorkers can do is wait. Wait and vote. Vote and pray. Pray for the born.
SUSIE DAY can be reached at: sday@skadden.com
© SUSIE DAY, 2008