Most Implausible Story Since ‘Lost’

 
By Andrew Klavan

In what Shakespeare called “the dark backward and abysm of time,”—or 2004 to you and me—I began watching what was then the new television show “Lost” with my wife and son. After around five episodes of following the adventures of plane crash survivors on a mysterious island, I turned to the family and said, “I’m done.” As a professional teller of tales, I explained, I could guarantee them that there was no plausible way to explain the story’s twists unless it all turned out to be a dream or the characters were in some supernatural afterlife where the rules of logic didn’t apply.

As good writers know, every amazing twist in a story comes with a price in explanation. “Lost” simply borrowed so far against future credibility that the debt could never be paid.

Some who will not be named did not believe me. They had to spend five years discovering the truth of what I told them after five weeks.

Which is why you should all listen well when I tell you: I’m done with 2020. The story is just too implausible. The end can never be reasonably guessed. Either I’m going to wake up next to Bob Newhart’s wife or I died and am now either in Purgatory or a state run by Democrats—in either one of which the rules of logic don’t apply.

As I write, the President of the United States and our lovely First Lady have tested positive for the Chinese Flu. My first thought when I heard this was, “Wow! I didn’t see that one coming!” As if I were watching some TV show with one plot twist too many. Afterward, of course, I recovered my wits and prayed for the quick recovery of the first couple. But I have to admit, there lingers in the back of my mind a question I have asked myself during many a movie and television show: “Who wrote this crap?”

Our story so far is both absurd and awful. A bumptious and philandering businessman and TV personality wins the presidency against every possible odd. A malignantly corrupt deep state tries to bring him down with the help of a dishonest media. He still manages to restore the economy, promote constitutional judges, and bring sanity to a foreign policy mired in the unfathomable idiocy of experts.

Then, a pandemic hits. The economy tanks. Leftists riot with the approval of the establishment. The opposition nominates a walking houseplant to run against him. And suddenly, the president comes down with the big disease.

Perhaps the most dispiriting thing about the whole implausible mess is that when I asked myself: “Who wrote this crap?” The answer came back at once: “We did.”

It’s on all of us really. The Left is to blame for following a failed philosophy into hatefulness and evil. The Right is to blame for standing by while the Left took over our cultural institutions, and for failing to stop the economic and social decadence the Left brought on.

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