Twilight of the GOP – The Breaking Dawn of a Palin 2012 by Michael Saul
Sarah Palin and Stephenie Meyer both had books come out in 2010. But what happens when the eloquent wordsmiths behind The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag meet backstage on the press tour circuit and get to talking? They discover that they have more in common than they previously thought…
Stephenie vs Sarah: FIGHT! (Preferably to the death...)
SARAH PALIN: I’m usually not a fan of witchcraft books. I’ve hosted Harry Potter bonfires. But I really like your pro-abstinence pamphlets disguised as vampire chick-lit. No sex or sucking of any bodily fluid until after marriage. Good work, it echoes Christ.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Thanks, that’s what I was going for… Jane Austen, but less raunchy. By the way, I liked your book too. And I agree, all our problems really are everyone else’s fault.
SARAH PALIN: I know, right? Sure, you’re an LDS Mormon and you have crazy beliefs that don’t jive with my rational Evangelical Christian ones but…anyone that keeps girls off the pill or the penis is good by me.
STEPHENIE MEYER: [coughing into her hand] Bristol.
SARAH PALIN: What?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Nothing.
SARAH PALIN: No, really, what?
STEPHENIE MEYER: You were born into a Roman Catholic family and you attended a Pentecostal church until 2002, which, correct me if I’m wrong, is the church where everyone screams in tongues like Iranian women on rooftops?
SARAH PALIN: I’m sorry, is the woman in magic granny panties making fun of me? Is that what’s going on here? The woman who believes that Joseph Smith read magic plates out of a top hat with redskin Israelite angels and that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri? Although I do like the part about Jesus being born in America… No, no, it’s all Latter Day hooey, you moronic Mormonite.
The two women sit and stew silently for a few minutes. Then their hormones subside and they apologize to each other.
SARAH PALIN: I’m sorry.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m sorry, too.
SARAH PALIN: Can we start again?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Sure, let’s talk about something else.
SARAH PALIN: Anything else. No politics, no religion, and definitely no combination of the two.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Let’s just agree that Jesus is the one true God, the Republicans are the only sane vote, and premarital sex is always wrong under any circumstances.
SARAH PALIN: Well yeah, everyone knows that. Those are just facts. And let me say that all those accursed souls who leak unauthorized books excerpts…
STEPHENIE MEYER: …or unfinished rough drafts…
SARAH PALIN: …should burn in Hell and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Of course! That goes without saying. Amen.
Pleasant silence. Both women picture the multiple zeroes on their bank account statements and multiple rewards in their heavenly afterlives. They sigh contently.
SARAH PALIN: So, what’s new with you?
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m doing great, really great. It’s so exciting to see your words up on screen. Twilight in 2008, New Moon in 2009, Eclipse in 2010, and Breaking Dawn, being my magnum opus, split into two parts in 2011 and 2012.
SARAH PALIN: Oh right, movies. Yeah, good for you.
STEPHENIE MEYER: $1.8 billion worldwide on $155 million in budget for all three films. See? You don’t have to spend money to make money, that’s a lie. All you need is a brand name that people trust for a guaranteed minimum level of achievement. Anyway, we’re trying to stay current by releasing one film at around the same time every year…
SARAH PALIN: Just like the SAW franchise?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Sorry, I don’t understand the reference. I don’t watch R-rated movies.
SARAH PALIN: Wow, even for me, that’s retarded.
STEPHENIE MEYER: …
SARAH PALIN: Well, I never read your books with Bristol or Track, but I did with Willow and Piper. Those two absolutely love your books, they’ll be abstinent for sure. But my youngest, Trig, he’s your biggest fan.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Trig? Isn’t he the one who’s…?
SARAH PALIN: Yup. That’s the mental level you were aiming for, yes?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Uh… yeah, pretty much. Y’know… Track, Trig, Willow, Piper… those names almost make Bristol sound normal.
SARAH PALIN: Thanks. What are your daughters’ names?
STEPHENIE MEYER: I have three sons. Seth, Eli, and Gabriel.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah, I could have gone biblical too but that would have been just so obvious.
A buff, shirtless teenage intern brings the women non-alcoholic beverages.
SARAH PALIN: I’m pro-Prohibition.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I don’t smoke cigarettes or drink coffee, either.
They thirst. But not for diet sodas or blood. Both proper Christian women lick their lips lustily as they gaze upon underage flesh, their eyes smoldering with the desire of a thousand pregnant suns as their religious righteousness fights a losing battle against their yearning desire for atheist sex. (And yes, this description is as poorly-written as the ones in either of their books!) Palin fights her urges with a mental picture of a nude John McCain. Myers soaks her magical G-string. Both middle-aged moms sigh swooningly like tween girls in Team Edward t-shirts who faint at the sight of Robert Pattinson being all English and pasty. They hold their cool drinks to their hot cheeks and continue.
SARAH PALIN: So, have you read either of my books?
STEPHENIE MEYER: No, sorry, I don’t read.
SARAH PALIN: Oh, right, I’ve heard that. Some novelists don’t want to be influenced by other people’s ideas so they refuse to read anything while they’re writing… right?
STEPHENIE MEYER: No, actually, I’m illiterate.
SARAH PALIN: Oh… well, that makes sense too.
An awkward silence. Sarah Palin dreads the inevitable boomerang question.
STEPHENIE MEYER: So, have you read any of my books?
SARAH PALIN: No, I don’t really read fiction. And lately I’ve been too busy reading the memoirs of Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney. That last one is actually an early uncorrected galley proof just for loyal FOX News personnel.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Uh huh.
SARAH PALIN: Roger Ailes loaned me his copy. We’re tight like that. But, uh, FOX News gave your last book a good review so I guess that means I liked it?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Wow, thanks, that means so much to me!
SARAH PALIN: How would you describe your writing, Dan Brown meets Danielle Steel?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Actually, I’ve always thought of myself more as Nicholas Sparks meets Anne Rice meets American Jesus.
SARAH PALIN: Anne Rice. I always hated her when she was an atheist writing about vampires, but now that she’s a born-again Catholic writing about the life of Christ, I can like her again. Now she’s back on our side.
STEPHENIE MEYER: You didn’t hear? She flipped back again!
SARAH PALIN: NO!
STEPHENIE MEYER: Yup.
SARAH PALIN: Well, then I guess I hate her again.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Yeah, well, Annie Rice is good, but I’m universally adored. I’m a god to billions of teen girls. My fans worship me on blogs and chat rooms and the MySpace. Personally, I believe that the so-called “Internet” is a demon-spawn sent to corrupt our innocent children with evil wanton desires, but I appreciate the effort. I still can’t understand why so many women above the age of 20 with IQs over 100 seem to love my bland teen soap opera with pseudo-mythological gimmickries posing as airport novels, but I’d rather not question it, y’know?
SARAH PALIN: Me neither. Never question success. All the opinion polls say people hate me, but all the bestseller lists say they love me—they really love me.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Yeah, well, they love me more! You’re a fad. My popularity will last for generations, well into the Resurrection and Rapture. I have long-term appeal.
SARAH PALIN: Look, dear, it’s not my fault I’m respected and you’re not. And in 2012, when I take back the White House from that Godless socialist n—
STEPHENIE MEYER: WHAT THE FUDGE? What are you smoking, Alaskan snow?!
SARAH PALIN: Both my books were #1 on the Amazon bestseller list.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I OWN the bestseller lists, lady. All of them. I’ve had more bestsellers than you’ve had children, and we’re both pumping them out like mad. But I’m a bestseller factory. Jodi Picoult wishes she was me. I can take any trashy romance novel, remove the sex parts, give the guys fangs and hot pecs, have the main girl act like a needy, obedient 1950′s housewife, and it would sell millions. In fact, that’s how I wrote all my books.
Sarah Palin silently fumes. She’s no match for Meyer. And she knows it. But, like any good Tea Party member, she doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah, well, I’m so successful I gave my daughter a career, and she’s even less deserving of fame than I am! So there! Now she’s coming out with a book and her ex-husband is getting a book deal and both my books generated millions!
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m sorry, how many of your books were turned into movies? Oh, and how much money did they gross worldwide? Sorry, speak up, I couldn’t hear you. What’s that? No movies? None? And they made… nothing?
SARAH PALIN: Movies are a crutch. I sell my books the old-fashioned way.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’ve sold over 100 million books worldwide! And over half of that was before Hollywood made my gravy train overflow.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah, well I’m on FOX News, with 85+ million monthly viewers worldwide!
STEPHENIE MEYER/SARAH PALIN: [simultaneously] I was one of Time Magazine’s 100 World’s Most Influential People! Wait, what number were you?
SARAH PALIN: #79 in 2008 and #27 in 2009.
STEPHENIE MEYER: Well, I was #49 in 2008 and #156 in 2009!
SARAH PALIN: So, who wins?
STEPHENIE MEYER: Me! Because I was #26 in 2009 on the Forbes Magazine list of the World’s Most Powerful Celebrities.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah? Well, in 2008 I was one of Barbara Walters’ Top 10 Most Fascinating People! So hah!
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m responsible for the most profitable movie franchise without the words star, spider, bat, or Harry Potter in the title, so hah back!
SARAH PALIN: [losing it] I HAVE OVER THREE MILLION TWITTER AND FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS!
STEPHENIE MEYER: You really want to compare your Twitter/Facebook Army to mine? Because my Crusaders will vanquish your Cultists any day. Bring it! I dare you!
SARAH PALIN: Your name is Stephanie spelled with three E’s, you idiot!
STEPHENIE MEYER: So? Your name is an anagram for Anal Harpis, you anal harpy!
The women stand up now, temper-inflamed nostrils flaring, getting in each other’s faces like two road rage drivers after a car accident involving cell phones, blood alcohol, and oral sex (or maybe I’m just reading too much into their body language).
SARAH PALIN: I don’t need movies; I’m the official voice of FOX News! I inform the nation. You go write your little celibacy fantasy where everyone sulks and sucks, and I’ll speak the truth and interpret world events for people who think that all print media is run by biased left-wing Jews, and who only recently learned how to read by watching Bill O’Reilly’s “Talking Points” sidebars. Me and Glenn Beck are the only voices of sanity left in a world gone mad! And when the Apocalypse comes, we will rule the world as king and queen of the Post-Apocalyptic New America Christian Evangelical Armageddon Four-Horsemen Wasteland—which, by the way, is a phrase trademarked by News Corp, © 2012!
STEPHENIE MEYER: Hey! I matter! I’m important! Sure, teenage girls now are brainless idiots with disposable income, but someday they’ll be powerful women with important jobs and I’ll join forces with Justin Bieber and we’ll rule the world!
SARAH PALIN: Uh, yeah, you’re delusional.
STEPHENIE MEYER: And you actually think you’re going to be elected president in 2012 so hello, Pot? It’s Kettle.
SARAH PALIN: Hey, don’t hate the Straight Talk Express. I’m right, you’re Mormon.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m so much more qualified than you to be President, and I’m not qualified to be anything, so that’s pretty pathetic.
SARAH PALIN: Let me guess… you were a Romney supporter, right?
STEPHENIE MEYER: What have you done, really? Why do you even exist?
SARAH PALIN: I’m a Christian housewife who married an octo-Native ex-snow mobile champion, won Miss Congeniality in a beauty contest once, and failed upwards into politics before a Republican picked me as his running mate because I’m a gun-loving, camera-friendly, not-intimidatingly-intelligent, patriotic American with a memorized Bible and XX chromosomes.
STEPHENIE MEYER: I’m a lonely Mormon housewife who was fat and unloved in high school so I ripped off Romeo and Juliet, adding glittery albinos who drink animal blood and sulk in the woods and spend 2,000-ish blue-ball-to-wall pages sharing longing gazes and tearful reconciliations because all star-crossed teenager lovers with raging hormones will wait until marriage to have sex.
SARAH PALIN: So, I guess we’re just a couple of hockey moms who made good?
STEPHENIE MEYER: You betcha.
An unholy union is forged. The Mormon Novelist and the Evangelical Politician join forces, pledging that when Oprah becomes the newest member of their group, they’ll be strong enough to conquer Earth. Everyone else on the planet prays that such an event never occurs, knowing it would surely bring about the global nuclear Apocalypse.
The End (?)
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Michael Saul, age 26, is a graduate from York University with an Honours BA in Professional Writing. He writes articles, short stories, novels, screenplays, plays, and anything else that can be rejected. His complete list of credits and accomplishments is far too lengthy to include here. When he’s not off exploring the world or writing about himself in the third person, he lives in Toronto, Canada.
