The Easter Story (concluded)

Scene: the office. Corporate America at his usual place with Yes Man on the left and Idea Man’s empty chair on the right. Lackeys are seated around, etc. etc.

Lackey #1: C.A., have you read the papers? Easter Nimrod is wrecking havoc on the city!

Lackey #2: C.A., the reports are in! Sales of our Easter pork eggs are down 100%!

Lackey #3: C.A., a recent poll shows that Easter has become the most frightening holiday on the calendar. It’s that Easter Nimrod!

Lackey #4: We’ve got to do something! Nimrod is killing us!

Idea Man: (entering) Have no fear, gentlemen!

Corporate America: Where the crap have you been? It’s been almost a week!

Idea Man: Sorry, C.A. The boys and I have been trying to think up something to counteract the Easter Nimrod and I think we’ve finally got it. I give you…(removes drape from nearby figure)…the Easter Judas!

Corporate America: No, no, NO! No more crazy people!

Idea Man: But sir—

Corporate America: What does he do? Give good children pieces of silver and deliver bad ones over to be crucified?

Idea Man: Actually, just the opposite! Isn’t that a great twist?

Corporate America: No, no, no. It’s all wrong. Our Easter mascot can’t be some ancient warrior king or some back-stabbing turncoat. Did you read his gospel, by the way?

Idea Man: No, sir, I have no interest in early gnosti—

Corporate America: Great book. Changed my life. Praise Allah. No, what we need is something that appeals to families. To children of all ages.

(a crash from outside. Some unimportant building topples at the hands of Easter Nimrod)

Corporate America: Tell me about this Nimrod.

Lackey #2: No more Nimrod! He’s going to destroy the city!

Idea Man: Well, he was a hunter…according to myth he was really into architecture and was the one who built the Tower of Babel. His wife—

Corporate America: Waitaminute…he was a family man?

Idea Man: Yes. According to these ancient manuscripts, anyway. (pulls papyri out of his pocket and blows the dust off them) “And lo, Nimrod, the Great and Mighty, knew his wife, Ishtar, mother of all whores, and when her time came, she brought forth Tammuz, father of all heretics and Roman Catholics.”

Corporate America: Aha! So Nimrod had a kid! What was he into? Baseball? Football? We can sell that…

Idea Man: No, actually, Tammuz is featured prominently in the development of the Babylonian Mystery Cult and a number of pagan fertility orgies. And (reading) “to make his virility known before all the world, Tammuz became thus known far and wide for his use of fluffy bunnies in his pagan rites.”

Corporate America: Fluffy bunnies? That’s stra—(lightbulb). Waitaminute…did you say "fluffy bunnies”?

Idea Man: That’s right, sir. Fluffy bunnies.

Corporate America: Bunnies…bunnies…Do bunnies like chocolate?

Idea Man: Why, sir, everybody likes chocolate.

Corporate America: (to Yes Man) Do you like chocolate?

Yes Man: Oh, yes.

Corporate America: Tell me, do children like bunnies?

Idea Man: Oh, most definitely. Especially if they’re surprised by them. There’s nothing like being surprised by bunnies.

Corporate America: Surprised by bunnies, eh? Supposing…supposing we took one of these…pagan Tammuz orgy bunnies and made it three parts Santa Claus, four parts cuteness and springtime, six parts corporate greed and twelve parts chocolate…what would we have then?

Idea Man: (scribbles on a pad of paper for a moment, then stops breathlessly as the idea washes over him) Why…sir! Y-you’d have…

Lackeys: The Easter Bunny!

Corporate America: Bingo.

And that, my dear children, is how the Easter Bunny was born. As for the Easter Nimrod, well, he’s still out there making sure bad children get what’s coming to them. But, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say, he's just bringing balance to the force. So when next Easter rolls around, be sure to buy as many Easter pork eggs as you can. That makes the Easter Bunny happy and keeps Easter Nimrod from hurting your family.

THE END...?