THE ONION: Who among you wouldn’t do the same exact thing if an evil 400-year-old witch had trapped your father’s eternal soul inside a cursed iron lantern, flickering faintly each time his agonized moans escaped the murky, otherworldly ether that is his prison?
Look me in the eye and tell me that you would not heed the crone’s disgusting instruction to divert attention away from Donald Trump’s glaring conflicts of interest, nor undermine the nation’s entire intelligence apparatus to salve your boss’s ego, nor categorically deny objective reality time and time again if so doing released your father’s tortured spirit from the in-between realm and at last let him be at peace. […]
Know that when I work up the courage to look myself in the eye, I see the ghoul I have become. Please understand, it makes me blanch and tremble to even think about what I’ve already done, and what I yet still must do. But I don’t have a choice, and neither would you. Had you yourself tried to kill the witch and smash the lantern for the hundredth time and seen your own mother transformed into a millipede for your efforts—finally coming to terms with the fact that the crone’s magic is simply too strong—you too would find yourself standing up for Trump’s attack on a celebrated black U.S. congressman and Civil Rights icon. Do not claim that you wouldn’t.
Could I have avoided this fate? Certainly. Though I warned my father time after time of the dangers of stealing mandrake root from the mystical garden of a powerful hag so that he could once again briefly feel the strength of his youth—oh, your vanity, Papa!—clearly I could have and should have done more. But I can’t dwell on the past now; I simply don’t have time. I’ve completed seven of the 12 tasks and now must shore up Trump’s acceptance of anti-vaccination theories and steal a newborn foal’s first breath before the witch draws the moon down from the sky and sets in motion the Final Degradation. MORE