"We interrupt your
regularly scheduled programming to bring you late breaking news," the
anchor, Bob, announced. "Widespread flooding has invaded our
cherished city, after being hit with torrential downpours due to a storm
system, which has paralyzed and wreaked havoc on Toronto and its
surrounding areas. Stranded in cars quickly deluged by overflowing sewer
waters, many a high-end over-priced luxury automobile has been transformed into
a makeshift Titanic, sinking to the bottom of the underpasses where they were
driving, now turned into new lakes. Luckily, the hot air contained in the egos
of their drivers allowed their owners to float out of their rolled down windows
to make quick escapes out of their Ferraris and Corvettes. While waiting for a
water rescue, these men were found clutching on to the exposed pipes and rods
of the overhanging crumbling Gardner Expressway and various disintegrating
bridges, once a blight on this city’s good name, this shoddy infrastructure has
become a hero during this natural disaster. Now, we are cutting to our street
beat reporter, Calamity Jane Mundane, reporting live from the rooftop of the
Toronto Star building with an update on the situation. Tell us Jane, what do
you see?"
A panoramic view of Toronto
swept across the screen to find a life-jacket clad Calamity Jane standing on
the rooftop of the Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge Street, holding on tight to
the structure’s fire escape ladder, so as not to be carried away by gale force
winds.
"I don't know if you
can see this, Bob, but where Captain John’s Harbour Boat Restaurant once
resided in its final rusting resting place, now is empty," Jane advised
showing an empty dock slip.
"Has it sunk?" Bob
inquired.
"No, just the
opposite. The thunderstorm broke the Captain John from its Lakeshore shackles
and barnacle-clad anchors to set sail finding life anew as Noah's Ark
reinvented," Calamity Jane explained, as the camera provided viewers with
a view of the Captain John magesitcally sailing up what was once known as Yonge
Street. "Like Noah's Ark before it, the Captain John has been picking up
stranded motorists, tourists, bike riders, pimps and hookers, two-by-two,
trying to protect themselves from the rising one hundred millimeters of
rainwater."
"Sorry Jane, but we
have to cut you off as we have live footage streaming in from the Toronto
Transit Commission's closed circuit monitors bringing us live reactions of how
trapped riders are coping with being held hostage by the storm in unventilated,
non-air conditioned and overcrowded subway cars," Bob interrupted.
"Known for their civility and manners, I am sure that Torontonians are
showing how they are lending each other a helping hand and trying to make good
of a bad situation."
Deep from the bowels of
Toronto's underbelly, grainy black and white footage jumped on to the
screen depicting the scene unfolding in one subway car.
"Give me your
seat, or I'll cut your fat ass bitch!" a heavily tattooed,
bandana-clad, knife-toting gang banger shouted at a woman sitting in a seat
near the doors.
"I'm pregnant,
asshole," the lady cried, "you don't get to take my seat."
"I'm the
one with a knife and if you don't give me your seat, I'll cut
that baby out of you and I ain't no OB," gang banger cried.
"Come any closer
and I will force my water to break," the lady screamed.
"Just give him
your seat," a Bay Street businessman barked trying to protect his
Tumi briefcase from the dirty water.
"There are snakes
on this train lady and I am scared of snakes," the gang banger cried
ominously threatening the pregnant lady with his knife. Unwilling to see
the waters turn red, the businessman hoisted the woman out of her seat allowing
the gang banger to jump onto it and into the fetal position, so as to avoid the
snakes circling the passengers like sharks. "Hey man, pass me your Tumi. I
wouldn't want to see it ruined," the gang banger offered the businessman.
"He's coming! He's
coming!" a man sporting a blue CAMH-hospital gown and pink and
red checked golf pants shrieked before the pregnant lady could retaliate
against the newly formed old boys club in her railcar.
"Who's
coming?" the pregnant lady asked. "A subway worker?"
"Jesus!" the
CAMH-escapee announced.
"What does CAMH
mean?" the gang banger asked no one in particular.
"Center for
Addiction and Mental Health," the businessman explained.
"Oh fuck, we got a
crazy on here!" the gang banger shouted.
"You're the one
afraid of snakes. I think there is more than one crazy in our midst," the
pregnant lady retorted.
"Jesus will come
and save you all! But, until he gets here, you better watch out for Satan's
little helpers," the CAMH-escapee warned as he shook two snakes at the
gang banger.
"Get those
murdering mother fuckers away from me you psycho!" the gang banger
screamed. "Come any closer and I will cut your fucking hands off!"
"But, then you'd
have to get out of the seat you stole from me. Come to think of it, you'd have
to touch your slimy scaly relatives and you'd get blood all over your new best
friend's precious briefcase," the pregnant lady chortled loudly. Suddenly,
she clutched her belly after feeling a sharp pain. "Oh shit, my water
broke! Get me help!"
"Jesus is coming!
Jesus is coming!" the CAMH-escapee gleefully cried pointing at the
pregnant lady's belly.
Everyone aboard the
train began to flail their arms about wildly in the hopes of finding some cell
phone service, to no avail. Out of nowhere, a geriatric woman emerged, like an
angel from heaven, bringing forth her new black market Verizon wireless Android
phone with built-in CDMA technology.
"Use mine it
works," the granny offered. "I've been live tweeting to the transit
authorities this entire time and just updated them about your labour
situation."
"Maybe you should
sit down," the gang banger suggested to the pregnant lady, throwing the
Tumi case overboard. The businessman, busy taking a shot from his flask made
the Sophie's Choice to let Tumi drown rather than see his eighty year old
scotch drown. "I know sitting down helped all of my baby mamas when they
went into labour."
"Now you're a
gentleman?" the pregnant lady stated rhetorically.
"Circumstances
changed," the gang banger advised. "Hey man, give me your booze. I
have to sterilize my knife in case we need to cut the cord. Don't worry, I've
cut eight cords."
Sirens, at first faint,
became louder and louder as they approached the subway car. The closed circuit
video footage focused on an approaching EMS canoe, paddling down an adjacent
tunnel, illuminated by the bright light of its flashing light signaling
that the paramedic cavalry was coming to their rescue. Upon sidling up to the
subway car, all of the passengers rallied around to grab hold of the canoe
as the gang banger and businessman helped squeeze the pregnant woman through
the window into the boat.
"Jesus
saves!" the CAMH-escapee cried as the granny videotaped the entire scene
for her iReport for her Huffington Post blog.
"As you can see, while
it may have seemed as though all hope was lost in Toronto's darkest hour of no
power, Torontonians rose to the occasion and worked together in multicultural
harmony," Bob sermonized. "Shortly after EMS workers arrived, transit
authority rescue crews arrived on the scene to evacuate every rider to safety.
Well, almost every rider. Unfortunately, the snakes were Toronto's sixty-third
and sixty-fourth homicide victims of gang-related violence. And now, back to
your regularly scheduled broadcast of Canada's number one rated program:
American Idol."
© 2013 Naomi Elana Zener. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment