brad pitt, andre the giant, walter cronkite,/walter brennan, walter matthau, walter mondale,/gomez addams and cousin itt,/and famed nasa mathematician katherine johnson/all awaken in an enormous chamber.

“a new war is being waged,” says the voice of hal 9000. “a reality war.

“you have been gathered, the living, dead, and fictional,/to keep your reality from being erased.

“your enemy is a phalanx of four hundred zombies./in an hour you will be moved to a battlefield designated the plain of maguffin.

“it is there that you will engage in single combat with the zombies./battle will continue until all of one side or the other/is wiped out.

“the zombies have one weakness./contact with hair or fur or feathers/over at least a third of a zombie’s flesh/causes that zombie to be vaporized/into pure oxygen./but that is their only weakness./they cannot be burned, nor shot, nor blunt-force-traumatized.

“your ideal foot soldier, therefore, is cousin itt./but one of itt is not nearly enough,/and as of now/you don’t have any.”

with those last words cousin itt disappeared.

hal continued, “there is a way to get an army of itts/sufficient to defeat the enemy./you must find a slight variant/of one of the passages in the king james new testament/and with your present personnel/take a simple action that will generate such an army.

“you have fifty-six minutes. good luck.”

brad and all four walters and gomez and andre looked at each other, stunned. but katherine johnson’s brow was furrowed. she was calculating and collating furiously.

suddenly her brow unknit and she smiled.

“Messieurs Brennan, Mondale, Cronkite and Matthau, please gather together.” Startled, they did so.

“mr. andre the giant, please gently pick up mr. brad pitt.” and instantly pitt was in the giant’s arms, dwarfed by andre’s bulk.

“gently as you can, sir, throw mr. pitt at messieurs matthau and cronkite and brennan and mondale. gentlemen, don’t try to catch him, but do try to ease his landing.”

andre tossed pitt at the four, and they managed to break pitt’s fall without injury to any.

gomez suddenly grinned, his pop-eyes gleaming. his zany fictional brain had deduced what would happen.

suddenly the chamber, huge as it was, was crammed with cousin itts.

“what just happened?!” walter cronkite asked katherine johnson.

“mr. cronkite, possibly the worst pun of all time just happened.

“‘cast your brad upon the walters, and itt shall be returned a thousandfold.'”

All Reality groaned.

The End

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Happy April Fool’s Day, Friends!!