Unmasked

By Doug Dworkin

Vice President Mike Pence finally wore a mask today but,  unlike most people, I was not at all alarmed by his recent maskless appearance at the Mayo clinic. I know something that escaped the notice of even the most perceptive observers:  Pence’s face IS a mask.  He is, in fact, not a human but a secretly developed cyborg planted on earth by persons unknown.  U.S .intelligence agencies are fully aware of this, but the President is not.  They decided to keep this fact from him by putting it in the President’s Daily Briefing, which he never reads.

Oddly enough, it was not the intelligence agencies that first discovered this astonishing fact.  One day, while entering the White House Briefing Room for one of the daily updates, Dr. Birx was walking behind the Vice President and noticed a string hanging out from under his jacket.   Thinking that it might be a loose thread, she pulled on it and it just kept coming.   When she released it, it retracted and the Vice President suddenly blurted out, “But what’s remarkable to me as a layperson, Mr. President, is because of this partnership you’ve forged, we’re almost there.  And we’ll be there very, very soon for the American people.”  Curious, Dr. Birx pulled the string again and Pence uttered, “This is one more step where we, literally, as the President said from early on, are leaving no stone unturned, and we are delivering a whole-of-government approach for our states as they deal with the coronavirus outbreak.”  

Because of social distancing, no one but Dr. Birx heard Pence speaking (perhaps the cyborg has an automatic control that increases volume when he’s near the President)   In any event, Dr. Birx suddenly realized that the Vice President is some kind of sophisticated other-worldly “Chatty Cathy.”  Alarmed, but fearing for her job if she told the President, Birx dutifully reported her findings to US intelligence agencies, where the secret remains until Trump decides to read his daily briefing.  

It’s possible he already knows.  Some in the agencies have theorized that the Pence cyborg may not be from another world at all, but an artificial intelligence device secretly developed in China at the request of Trump so he can always count on having a dedicated toady at his beck and call.

Doug Dworkin is a former junior high school teacher, encyclopedia editor, and IT executive at IBM. Now retired, he Is beginning a new career as a professional dabbler and dilettante.