How About a Coke and Some Fries?

I had a dream. In the dream I was running, I and a thousand others, through the Nevada desert. It’s open range out there: no fences impeded us, but the cows scattering before us slowed our passage, tripping us up. They mooed in terror even as we cried out, but they weren’t afraid of us so much as the Shadow behind us all.

That shadow was an army, led by Ronald McDonald. He was grinning, leering even, blood-red lips frozen in a rictus. At his side was Jack, fell head bouncing. Little Wendy squeezed between them, screaming like a Valkyrie, braided red locks flying. They were a Calvary; they were riding Rainbeer. Their hooves churned up the dust through which burst a million antenna balls, cackling, bouncing, leaping …

Behind them marched a sea of corporate shock troops, wave after wave, briefcases in hand. Trumpets sounded, like something from The Lord of the Rings, heralding the return of the Burger King—

Ahead of us the cows starting vanishing, dropping from the face of the world. “It’s a stampede!” someone cried, terrified. There were screams that fell away sharply.

We had come to a sheer drop-off—a few of us having realized too late. There was nowhere left to run. Above us, like vultures, attack helicopters circled. Turning to meet my doom, I saw that Ronald McDonald had become former President Ronald Reagan.

“Well,” he said. “How about it?”