Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Still Life
Page 64
As the pie is sliced, a ripple of uncontrollable giggles spreads through the hall. Surveillance drones short circuit mid-hover. Somewhere, a bureaucrat sneezes and accidentally smiles.
The Ministry; ever vigilant, ever humorless, reacted to the Feast of Forgotten Funny with the full weight of bureaucratic panic disguised as solemn protocol. Their response was swift, convoluted, and unintentionally hilarious.
The Ministry's Response: Operation Earnest Avalanche
1. Emergency Directive 101-Z: The Joy Containment Protocol - Issued at dawn, it declared all spontaneous laughter to be a Class IV Emotional Spill. Hazmat teams in beige suits were dispatched to mop up residual chuckles. Citizens were urged to report any lingering mirth to the Bureau of Emotional Cleanliness.
2. Deployment of the Anti-Giggle Task Force - A new elite unit; The Straight Facers, was formed. Trained in blank stares and monotone rebuttals, they infiltrated improv theaters and poetry slams, armed with irony dampeners and metaphor neutralizers.
3. Reclassification of the Feast - The Ministry refused to acknowledge the event as a "feast," instead labeling it a "Rogue