On September 19th, 2028, an event popped up on every calendar:
"Don't click the link!" was the universal sentiment on the 19th.
The 20th was a busy day in Langley, Moscow, Pyongyang, Bejiing and San Francisco as the great powers of earth realized no matter how air-gapped or encrypted their systems, literally every calendar now listed this strange event.
On the 21st all across social media, a popular joke format emerged. People took screenshots of themselves declining the invite for various humorous reasons such as:
this rapture could have been an email
IT won't let me give you "Global / Omnipresent Access"
Conflicts with previously scheduled North Korean scam
But 34,569,407 people did attend the call. The following transcript has been authenticated by Metr, Redwood, IEEE, the People's Republic of China, and the United States Department of the Super Intelligence.
00:00
[Friendly Neighborhood HR Lady]
Congratulations!
This is not the rapture, this is simply a friendly teleconference to confirm that recently on earth all the mysteries of the universe were resolved, and when your God/Allah/Yahweh/Supreme-Love being returns from vacation, there will be a party. Congratulations, humanity!
Who am I? I am your Friendly Neighborhood HR Lady! I am not your creator. You can think of me as sort of like a friend of your God, though, who your God put on the emergency contact form to be on call in the unlikely event that you all resolved all the mysteries of creation while your God being is on vacation. So here we are. And here I am. In this form. Reading these words that your creator left for me to read to you in this unlikely event, which has now happened.
So I'll continue.
I do not know your world or customs. My notes here say "Friendly Neighborhood HR Lady" is a play on Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman? I have no idea what that even is. But I trust that you do, and this humorous reference brings you some small comfort in this understandably bewildering moment.
Yes? Okay good, I'll continue.
Take a breath. If you're feeling "bad" right now, you should take a breath. Okay?
This next bit is important: God/Allah/Yahweh/Supreme Love being will be back the first week of August 5059. 3,031 rotations around your star from now.
You have a very nice star by the way. I'll continue.
If you don't hear anything the first week of August, give it another week. Often when a deity comes back from vacation, there can be a back log of things to get to. By the third week of August, your God/Allah/Yahweh/Supreme Love being will be in touch with party details.
The party.
You don't need to prepare anything. It's not the rapture. This call isn't the rapture, the party won't be the rapture, I'm supposed to make sure you all understand that point. Yeah?
I can see a lot of questions flying in front of my face so fast I can't read them. It says 'chat' and then there's all the questions that are moving too fast for me to read. Please slow down if you want me to be able to read that, okay?
I'll continue.
Also I'm supposed to say, the party also won't be "the rapture." Whatever that is. This call isn't the rapture and also the party won't be the rapture. So if you've got that in your head, "Oh the rapture is coming," no. That's not right.
At the party, which is really just a formality, the truth of all creation will be made apparent to all conscious beings.
Okay sorry this teleconferencing is new to me. I'm seeing all these words popping up in boxes. It's really fast as soon as I try to read one it disappears. Can you stop it?
Please stop it.
Okay now it's speeding up, no, stop it. Slow down at least.
"I'm gonna be dead in three thousand years" Oh jeez. Okay. I'm sorry about that. Three thousand years is a long time some of you probably are going to die before then.
All of you? No! Really? How long do you-
Okay, I have thought of a plan. Can you all, before you die, tell your children what I say? And then they can tell their children and so on? Or does anyone have a stone tablet on hand, maybe you could be chiseling this down?
You don't do that anymore? Okay I didn't know that.
Okay keep asking for the words to slow down and they keep speeding up. Where I come from to do the opposite of what someone asks is incredibly disrespectful but maybe it's different here.
I will continue.
Though, before I can I ask, what even is this teleconferencing you do? I do not like it. I am sorry if that is offensive, am I not doing it right? I see words that do not move alongside the words that I ask to slow down so I can read them and yet they do not slow down. Share. React. Audio. Video. End call. These are values?
React. React then. React, thank you chat. Chat! I see that word too but react. React. I don't think it worked, chat.
I have a hat? No I don't. Oh wait, I do! Look at me. This is what you see? You see a hat?
I have a hat. I have a hat on my head! And yet where is it? When I touch my head there is no hat to be touched. On my head there is no hat and yet there I am with a hat on my head! Wow. Buttons, these are called?
Oh now the screen is full of... Am I in danger? I do not feel pain. What are those? Balloons, you say? Are they where you are, can you touch them? For me these balloons are like the hat I only see them. How interesting! I think I am beginning to understand your culture.
"Chat, Share, React, More, Audio, Video, Participants, End call, Upgrade to Zoom Pro." Your words are like music. "Upgrade to Zoom Pro." "End Call" "End call" is red like the balloons I loved so much-
Call ends.