In Persuasion Nation

by George Saunders

  “We don’t get it,” says the grandmother who loves Doritos. “What’s your problem?”

  “You took our dignity,” says the orange.

  “You took my fiancée,” says the man briefly involved with the Ding-Dong.

  “You took my penis,” says Jim.

  “You split my head in half, then reduced both halves to piles of mush, completely betraying the grandchild/grandparent relationship,” says one pile of mush.

  “Oh for crying out loud,” says the grandmother who loves Doritos. “Don’t you people believe in the concept of ‘fun’?”

  “In the concept of ‘funny’?” says the bag of Doritos.

  “We just want to express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves,” says the giant Ding-Dong. “We find that fun.”

  “Well, we don’t find it fun,” says Jim the penisless man.

  “Well, we do find it fun,” says Kevin, the man who tricked Jim out of his penis.

  “Looks like we’ll have to agree to disagree on this,” says the Ding-Dong.

  “No,” Grammy says. “This has gone on long enough.”

  The orange, the man briefly involved with the Ding-Dong, Jim the penisless man, Grammy, and the piles of mush, frustrated beyond reason by years of repetitively enduring the same physical/psychological humiliations in replay after replay of their respective vignettes, attack.

  It is a bitter fight, which we know because out of a big cloud of dust fly a number of limbs, a bottle cap, bits of delicious flaky chocolate, and part of an orange peel.

  When the dust settles, we see that the entire Ding-Dong/ Doritos/Timmy/grandparents-who-love-Doritos/Kevin/Slap-ofWack coalition is dead, except for the Slap-of-Wack, who is almost dead.

  “Please, mercy,” the Slap-of-Wack says.

  “When did you ever show us any mercy?” says Jim the penisless man, and finishes off the Slap-of-Wack with a brutal karate chop.

  The orange, insane with pent-up rage, falls upon the Slapof-Wack and tears it asunder with its tiny teeth until the other members of the coalition pull him off.

  The members of the orange/Grammy/man-briefly involvedwith-a-Ding-Dong/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition drag the remains of the members of the Ding-Dong/Doritos/Timmy/ grandparents-who-love-Doritos/Kevin/Slap-of-Wack coalition outside, and bury them in a shallow mass grave.

  Then they leave the area, a little sick at what they have done, especially the orange, who several times becomes so distraught it stops rolling altogether, and must be picked up and hurled down the path by Jim the penisless man, who, turns out, has a very good arm.

  7

  One torn green triangular corner of the murdered Slap-ofWack bar blows across the desert, eventually coming to rest in a cactus.

  Panning in, we see that the torn green corner is still breathing.

  Over the next few hours, its breathing stabilizes. It is alive. It will live.

  Stuck in the cactus hour after hour, day after day, full of shame and rage, the ton corner has a series of deep spiritual realizations concerning the true nature of that supreme power which brought it and everyone else and everything it has ever known into existence, and is the sole reason for their continued existence.

  What does this power want?

  It doesn’t know. How could it know that? It is just a torn corner.

  But surely there is a plan at work. It can feel it. They are born into vignettes, and these vignettes are their homes. These vignettes are what give their lives meaning. If they were not intended to do their vignettes in exactly the way they do them, why would they tel so strongly inclined to do them in that exact way? Therefore, the way to live righteously is to enact one’s vignette with as much energy as possible, and oppose, as fiercely as possible, those who would undercut the proper enactment of the sacred vignettes. This is one way-perhaps the only way-or a lowly being such as itself to be in touch with the supreme power.

  Take me, it prays, humble me, make me more open to your purpose.

  Suddenly it feels a great surge of power, filling it, changing it, and its former identity as the mere corner of a Slap-ofWack bar is all but forgotten, subsumed in this new and greater identity.

  Over the next week, via constant prayer, the corner more than quadruples in size, and begins to subtly glow, while attempting to free itself from the cactus via a series of energetic forceful shrugs, each of which leaves it utterly exhausted.

  Finally it is free, and falls to the ground.

  After several days of being blown around indiscriminately by the wind, the corner learns to adjust its posture in such a way that it can control its trajectory. Soon it actually learns to fly, via kind of hunching itself in the middle while simultaneously straightening its “neck.”

  Over the next few weeks, as it practices flying during the day and meditates on these new great truths at night, it is gradually, almost imperceptibly, transformed, from a mere green plastic-cellophane comer into a beautiful glowing oblong green triangular symbol.

  8

  Abe Lincoln stands giving the Gettysburg Address. Everyone is rapt, except for one guy in the front row, who keeps raising his hand and hopping up and down in his seat.

  “Did you have a question, sir?” Lincoln says.

  “Wendy’s GrandeChickenBoatCombo,” the man says.

  “That’s not a question,” Lincoln says.

  “Wendy’s GrandeChickenBoatCombo?” the man says.

  “I’m afraid I am unable to discern your purpose, sir,” Lincoln says. “I am trying to pay tribute to the brave men who died here.”

  “Pay tribute to this, beardo-weirdo!” says the man, and presses a button on his chest, and suddenly is transformed into a giant GrandeChickenBoatCombo; that is, a giant synthetic chicken product shaped like a frigate, with oars made of celery, and wafer-thin nacho sails.

  Then the GrandeChickenBoatCombo beats its wings and its sails and floats up around Lincoln’s head, ramming his tophat off, spraying him with salsa from its Mini-Salsa Cannons®.

  “Anybody else think a great-tasting poultry-nautical treat is loads more fun than this old fuddy?” says the GrandeChickenBoatCombo.

  “I do,” says General Grant.

  “Me too,” says Harriet Tubman.

  “We totally agree!” say the ghosts of several Union dead.

  “Sandwiches for all!” says the GrandeChickenBoatCombo. “Great taste is what made America great!”

  “Not a bunch of yappin’!” says Mrs. Lincoln.

  Cannons fire from the battlefield and scores of GrandeChickenBoatCombos begin drifting down via tiny parachutes, and the suddenly euphoric members of the nineteenthcentury crowd trample Lincoln and the graves of the Union dead to collect their rightful GrandeChickenBoatCombos. Even the Union dead are trampling their own graves. One sad Union ghost, missing a leg, gets only part of a bun.

  Suddenly another cannon is fired. A cannonball strikes the giant GrandeChickenBoatCombo directly in the chest, killing it instantly, covering the spectators in a grotesque chicken-nacho-salsa spray, pelting them with dozens of the little edible-plastic sailors embedded as prizes in every GrandeChickenBoatCombo.

  “Mr. President,” someone says, “please continue.”

  As the cannon smoke clears, we see the orange/Grammy/man-briefly-involved-with-a-Ding-Dong/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition standing behind the cannon that fired the shot that killed the GrandeChickenBoatCombo.

  President Lincoln nods his gratitude to the coalition, shuffles through his papers, and continues.

  9

  The oblong green triangular symbol is finally strong enough to begin. It takes off, leaving the cactus behind, and soars between mountains, over great cities, along twisting riverbeds, until, as if drawn there by some invisible force, it arrives at the now deserted Gettysburg Battlefield. The crowd has returned to their nineteenth-century homes. Lincoln has returned to Washington. The only thing remaining on the field is the mangled corpse of the GrandeChickenBoatCombo.

 
The oblong green triangular symbol hovers gently above the GrandeChickenBoatCombo, sending down hundreds of thin exploratory compassionate green rays, trying to understand.

  Then a shiver of pity/outrage runs through the symbol, and it speeds away.

  10

  The orange/Grammy/man-briefly-involved-with-a-DingDong/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition is crossing a vast harsh terrifying wilderness.

  Suddenly, in the distance, they see a town.

  At the edge of town they are met by a polar bear with an axe in his head, a puppet-boy whose lower half has been burned to a crisp, six headless working-class guys holding bottles of beer, and Voltaire, who’s been given such a severe snuggie that his eyes are open wider than real eyes can possibly open.

  “My God,” says the orange. “What happened to you guys?”

  “I broke into an Eskimo home and tried to eat their Cheetos,” says the polar bear with the axe in its head.

  “During my puppet show, I got too close to a BurninWarmCinnabon being eaten by an audience member, and burst into flames,” says the puppet-boy.

  “A giant can of Raid gave me a wedgie,” says Voltaire.

  “Snuggie,” says the puppet-boy. “A snuggie and a wedgie are two different things.”

  “A giant can of Raid gave me a snuggie,” says Voltaire.

  “And what about them?” says the orange, indicating the six headless working-class guys.

  “They insulted a T. rex who just really loves Coors,” says the polar bear with the axe in its head.

  “Wow,” says the puppet-boy. “I can’t believe I’m standing here with the orange/Grammy/man-briefly-involved-with-aDing-Dong/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition.”

  “You know us?” says Grammy.

  “Oh gosh, everyone knows you,” says the polar bear with the axe in his head.

  “All over the land, inspired by your example, people are saying enough is enough,” says Voltaire.

  “Just last week, a frazzled overworked new mother rose up against the can of Red Bull which had moved into her home disguised as a giant breast in order to wet-nurse her baby,” says the puppet-boy.

  “A group of Revolutionary War soldiers recently registered their dissatisfaction at having been led into the Battle of Yorktown by a tube of Pepsodent,” says the polar bear with the axe in his head.

  “Wow, we had no idea,” says Grammy.

  “Will you come into town with us?” says Voltaire. “Show us how to organize and execute a successful program of resistance?”

  “We’d be happy to,” says Jim the penisless man. “But it’s only fair to warn you: things may get ugly.”

  The six headless working-class guys make gestures with their beer bottles, indicating: Not to worry, ever since that T. rex thing we’re kind of past the point of worrying about things getting ugly or whatever.

  Then there is a tremendously loud noise and the oblong green triangular symbol, swollen to the size of a city block, powers into the frame and freezes in midair, hovering overhead.

  A deep magisterial voice emanates from inside.

  “Who are you to quarrel with the Power that granted you life?” it thunders. “The Power which made the firmament, put the moon into her orbit, controls the very rules of physicality by which you are bound? The Power which allows bananas to sing and freshly laundered clothes to wink, which bids the very stars come down from the heavens and recast themselves into diamonds on a ring on the hand of a woman who has finally been put in touch with the softer side of herself via TampexGloryStrips?”

  A tremendous walkway thunks out of the triangular symbol’s underbelly.

  Down the walkway stumble the members of the Ding-Dong/Doritos/grandparents-who-love-Doritos/Kevin/Slap-of-Wack coalition, still filthy from the grave, along with the fully restored GrandeChickenBoatCombo.

  “Alive?” says Grammy.

  “Resurrected,” says the symbol.

  “You can do that?” says one pile of mush.

  “It is easy for me,” says the symbol.

  “Hoo boy,” says the other pile of mush.

  “Let me talk to it,” says Jim the penisless man.

  “Careful, careful,” says Grammy.

  Jim the penisless man looks meekly up at the huge oblong green triangular symbol.

  “What would you like us to call you?” Jim the penisless man says politely.

  “Sir,” intones the huge oblong green triangular symbol.

  “Sir,” says Jim the penisless man. “Couldn’t we all, working together, devise a more humane approach? An approach in which no one is humiliated, or hurt, or maimed, an approach in which the sacred things in life are no longer appropriated in the service of selling what are, after all, merely-“

  “Silence!” shouts the green triangular symbol, shooting multiple bright green beams of light into the members of the orange/Grammy/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition, rendering them instantaneously intact, positive, and amnesiac.

  Grammy has a sudden inexplicable desire to use her walker to cross a busy street without first looking both ways.

  The orange, free of all gashes and dents, is suddenly deeply curious about the contents of his good friend the Slap-of-Wack bar, and makes a mental note to ask the Slap-of-Wack about his contents as soon as they get home to their wonderful suburban kitchen. What he wouldn’t give to be once again on his beloved kitchen counter, looking down fondly at the perverted-looking chicken carcass and the two evil empty cans of soda in the trash can, far far below!

  The piles of mush are reconstituted into two human halfheads, which are then reconstituted into a single human head, which goes rolling toward the torso of the grandson, which stands at the bottom of the walkway, summoning its own head.

  Jim the penisless man suddenly has a penis.

  The man briefly involved with the Ding-Dong thinks warmly of his fiancée, who, he feels certain, is waiting for him in a certain meadow.

  The polar bear, the puppet-boy, the headless guys, and Voltaire, terrified, race back to town.

  11

  Hours later the polar bear with the axe in his head is still hiding under his bed, trembling. He’s never seen anything like that before. That green thing can raise the dead. That green thing can brainwash the most powerful coalition in the world.

  He does not want to mess with that green thing, not ever.

  He knows what he has to do. He has to get up, go into the bathroom, take a shower. During the shower, the axe in his head will miraculously disappear. Then he will get hungry, very hungry, specifically, for Cheetos. He will walk out of town, cursing himself under his breath, simultaneously ashamed and aroused. The landscape will suddenly go arctic. An igloo will appear. Will anyone be home? They will not. He will begin madly salivating.

  Oh, he can’t stand it. It makes him so nervous. He must have some kind of anxiety disorder. He remembers the enraged expression on the father Eskimo’s face as he draws back the axe, the frightened yipping of the Malamute puppy, the shocked way the Eskimo kids cover their O-shaped mouths with their mittens.

  His alarm clock goes off.

  I really don’t want to do this, he thinks. Please, God, send me a sign, tell me I don’t have to do this, show me that you are a gentle loving God, who desires good things for me.

  Suddenly the roof of the house flies off, the room fills with green light, and a pulsing muscular green limb, like an arm/ hand but more fluid, extends rapidly down from the hovering green symbol and flings the bed aside, revealing the trembling polar bear, ass-up.

  The polar bear gets to his feet, wets his paw, pats down his hair.

  “I was just, uh, cleaning under that bed?” he says.

  “Of course I desire good things for you!” the green symbol intones. “Such as, I desire that you have the deep feeling of pleasure that comes from doing your job and doing it well.”

  “You can read my mind?” the polar bear says.

  “Do you sometimes have a sexual fantasy involving a vulnerable rei
ndeer who comes to you asking for help fending off a mean cougar?” says the green symbol.

  “Ha, well, ha,” says the polar bear.

  “Get to work now,” the green symbol says. “And don’t think about it so deep. Don’t be so negative. Try to be positive. Try to be a productive part of our team. Do you have any questions?”

  “I can ask you a question?” says the polar bear.

  “Sure, of course,” says the green symbol. “Ask me anything.”

  “Are you GOD?” says the polar bear.

  “I can read your mind,” says the symbol. “I can raise the dead. I can rip off your roof. Any other questions?”

  The polar bear has, actually, a number of other questions. First, what did that penisless guy mean when he referred to devising an approach “in which the sacred things in life are no longer appropriated in the service of selling what are, after all, etc., etc.?” The polar bear distinctly remembers him saying the word “selling.” What is being sold? Who is doing the selling? If there is “selling,” musn’t there be “buying”? Who is doing the “buying”? Are their vignettes somehow intended to influence this “buying”? Are the instances of elaborate cruelty he has witnessed ever since he was a small cub believed to somehow positively impact the ability of the vignettes to cause “buying”? If so, how?

  “How dare you even think of asking me that!” thunders the green symbol. “How dare you get all up in my business?”

  “You said I could ask you anything,” says the polar bear.

  Every vase in the house explodes, all the flowers die. The kitchen table collapses, then bursts into flames.

  The polar bear, blushing, gets his towel, goes quickly into the shower.

  When he gets out, there’s no axe in his head, and no scar. The green symbol is gone, the roof is back on the house. The vases are intact, the flowers alive, the kitchen table is fine, and actually has a nice new tablecloth.