The First Thanksgiving
“We thank thee, O Lord, for it is by thy will alone that we are blessed with this magnificent bounty.”
The Tyrannosaurus bowed their heads reverently, for they had travelled half the Earth to find this sanctuary: a place where they could live as they wished, and observe their rigid interpretation of Christianity, and wear floppy hats with buckles on them without criticism or recrimination.
"Amen," said the pastor.
"Amen," said the Tyrannosaurus.
"Praise Jesus!" shouted the maple-glazed Diplodocus from atop the carving board.
The Tyrannosaurus whipped around, nostrils flaring, eyes aflame with righteous indignation. "Heretic!" they screamed. "Smite him! Smite him!"
"Eh," said the Diplodocus, with a shrug. "It was worth a shot."
Poultryworld
"Behold!" the Architect proclaimed as he made a sweeping gesture toward the rust-colored horizon.
The Visitor gasped. "Extraordinary . . ."
An entire Old West town had been replicated in painstaking detail—from the blown glass bottles to the out-of-tune piano to the rusted nails jutting from the floorboards. But even more extraordinary were the inhabitants: hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly rendered turkeys. There were turkey shopkeepers, turkey cardsharps, farmers, schoolteachers, whores, deputies, outlaws, even a pious turkey preacher gobble-gobbling in front of the steeple.
"Out here you can do whatever you want, be whoever you want—make love to whomever you want."
"Right," the Visitor said, rubbing his chin. "And what if people don't want to have sex with robot turkeys?"
"Ha!" said the Architect, doubling over with laughter, until he realized that the Visitor wasn't joking.
There was an awkward pause, and in a single, devastating moment of clarity the Architect understood that this place was never going to turn a profit.
The Mayflower Code
It was nearly 3 A.M. by the time Robert Langdon arrived at the Sistine Chapel. Sophie was waiting with Inspector Viviani. A body was splayed under a tarp beneath Lucifer's throne in "The Last Judgment."
"A priest?" Langdon asked.
"Yes and no, professore," Viviani said. He took a deep breath and lifted the tarp. A gasp arose from the carabinieri; a Swiss Guard vomited. The priest had been deboned and stuffed inside a bishop, who was deboned and stuffed inside a cardinal, to form a macabre trinity. At the victims' feet, the words "Ad maiorem Dei gloriam" had been painted in cranberry sauce.
Langdon winced. "Somebody wake the Pope."
Twenty-four hours later, the assassination plot had been foiled, Bishop Alfani was securely behind bars, and Professor Langdon was back on an airplane, high above the Atlantic.
"Happy Thanksgiving," Sophie whispered, touching his hand.
But Langdon did not respond, as he was deeply engrossed in the animated film "Finding Dory."
You're Thirty-Seven Years Old, Charlie Brown
"Are you sure?" Charlie Brown said. "And you promise that you're not going to take it away at the last moment?"
"For crying out loud!" Lucy exclaimed. "It's just a thirty-year adjustable-rate mortgage! If I took it away, I wouldn't get my commission, now would I?"
Charlie Brown hung up the phone, then dialled Linus.
"It sounds good to me, Charlie Brown," Linus said. "Although there's a lot to be said for a fixed-rate mortgage, too. It really depends on your appetite for risk. Maybe you should take one of those online surveys that help you make decisions."
"I tried," Charlie Brown said. "But I couldn't decide which one to take."
There was a long pause, followed by a click as Linus hung up on him.
Charlie Brown sighed. He shuffled over to the medicine cabinet and swallowed two pills. After a few minutes, a familiar, jazzy piano riff started playing inside his head. The world slowed down, and suddenly everything seemed a bit more manageable. Charlie Brown smiled. It turned out happiness wasn't a warm puppy: it was Xanax.
The Second Thanksgiving
This year, there was no Diplodocus. Nor were there any Ankylosaurus, Oviraptors, or Iguanodons, for that matter—the result of unsustainable hunting practices and rampant smallpox. Because they lacked the patience or aptitude for farming, the Tyrannosaurus' food supply had dwindled, and the only two dishes on the Thanksgiving table were kelp and something called "tofurkeytops," which, suffice it to say, tasted nothing like the real thing.
The rawboned pastor had not even made it halfway through saying grace when he suddenly threw up his tiny arms and said, "Screw this!"
He led the scrawny Tyrannosaurus to the shore, where they piled onto their wooden ship, tossed their floppy hats into the water, and sailed back to the Old Country.
Once resettled in Europe, the Tyrannosaurus remained close-knit, but they had clearly mellowed: prohibitions became "suggestions," exorcisms were supplanted by mindfulness workshops, the pastor invited everyone to call him Dan. Eventually, the Tyrannosaurus' stark theology softened into something more akin to secular humanism—which, in time, would prove to be equally obnoxious.
