[Side A] [ hold music from a government phone line. a Casio preset labelled BOSSA NOVA plays one chord, endlessly] NARRATOR [deadpan male, educational tone]: The following is a public service announcement composed entirely of statements made by an elected official on a social media platform between April 5th and April 8th, 2026. No words have been added. Some have been removed. The pauses are ours. [hold music continues. a television is being channel-surfed in another room] VOICE 1 [reading, flat, as though from a cereal box]: Tuesday will be Power Plant Day And Bridge Day All wrapped up in one [three-second pause. casio chord] In Iran [five-second pause] There will be nothing like it [jingle from a mattress commercial, cut to half-speed] VOICE 2 [female, cheerful, as though reading a weather report]: Open the fuckin' strait You crazy bastards Or you'll be living in hell [pause] Just watch [long pause. drone. someone tunes a radio through static] Praise be to Allah [pause] President Donald J. Trump [the Casio BOSSA NOVA preset resumes] NARRATOR: This was posted on Easter Sunday at 8:03 in the morning. The President skipped church. He later explained the profanity was quote only to make my point unquote. [Sound of a congregation singing a hymn, recorded through a wall. muffled. fading] VOICE 1 [same flat delivery]: A whole civilisation will die tonight [two seconds] Never to be brought back again [four seconds] I don't want that to happen [three seconds] But it probably will [long pause. shopping mall ambient noise. an escalator. a child asking for something] Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen [two seconds. Casio chord] WHO KNOWS [Side B] [tape flip sound. a microwave beeping. someone adjusts a television antenna] NARRATOR: On April 4th the President misspelled a word. He wrote that hell would, quote, reign down, unquote. R-E-I-G-N. As in a king. As in a reign. This was in a message about destroying a country's infrastructure. Nobody corrected it. The post remained. [a spell-check error sound effect, looped four times] VOICE 2 [reading, still cheerful]: Time is running out 48 hours before all hell will reign down on them [pause] Reign [pause. a crown is placed on a table. or a book is closed. some small domestic sound] NARRATOR: Reign. To rule. To hold dominion over. VOICE 1: Rain. Water falling from the sky. NARRATOR: The difference is two letters. The difference is also everything. [fifteen seconds of rainfall recorded through a telephone] [Side C — THE MORNING AFTER] [a printer. an office. fluorescent lighting hum] VOICE 1 [reading, same flat tone, no emphasis on anything]: A big day for world peace Iran wants it to happen They've had enough Likewise so has everyone else [Casio BOSSA NOVA] The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup [pause] Big money will be made [a cash register. held for four seconds] Iran can start the reconstruction process [sound of a building being demolished, recorded from very far away] We'll be loading up with supplies of all kinds [pause] And just hangin' around [seven seconds of nothing] In order to make sure everything goes well [a school bell. or an alarm. something institutional and distant] Just like we are experiencing in the U.S. this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East [sound of a gas pump. the price clicks upward. $4.11] VOICE 2 [still reading, still cheerful]: Our great military is loading up and resting Looking forward actually To its next conquest [all sound stops except electrical hum] NARRATOR: The word he used was conquest. Not mission. Not operation. Not deployment. Conquest. As in a thing that emperors do. As in a thing from before. As in a word that admits what the other words were trying not to say. [Casio BOSSA NOVA. one final chord. the tape runs out. the machine keeps spinning in silence] VOICE 1 [barely audible, as though the microphone is being carried out of the room]: President Donald J. Trump [click]
