Gather ’round, my children, for it is time to speak of The Age That Was. Before this fallen world, in which we huddle for warmth near the burning fires of discarded Nintendo Switches we scavenge for fuel, and the glow of melting plastic controllers illuminates the walls of our caves, there was a different planet. Generations ago, it was a brighter world, one where food was available at the touch of a screen, delivered right to your brick- or metal-carved dwellings. (“Air BnBs,” we believe they were called.) Children would attend centers of learning as opposed to working 14 hours a day on the moon farms owned by Musk Inc. And humanity lived in relative peace, rather than in constant fear of the 750-foot-high air-breathing octopus that was once the internet.
But in the decaying years of the Trumptation era, when nihilism was ascendent and people were looking to something—anything—to give their lives meaning, the eyes of a worried population began landing upon the seductive imagery of a new soothsayer, promising redemption in the form of a symbol—a “staple.” These mighty tools were slices of a hard material that could literally fuse together the beliefs and stories written down for preservation, collating them into a singular entity. Such power may seem beyond our imagining now, but these “staples” served as the unifying force for the scattered scribblings of an anxious society. Small wonder, then, that the beguiling power of such an item would be the basis for a new death cult, one intent of transforming every aspect of our lives. Come, join me in a circle around the last remaining Samsung Galaxy, and let us watch anew the herald of our demise: