My Solar System Christmas with Claude
It’s hard to describe what happened to me this Christmas. I know most people either ate too much or had an argument with that strange family member who had taken a bus from Cleveland and then mysteriously showed up on your doorstep in a Santa hat and hippie suspenders with peace signs all over them.
I answered the door. Yep, it was Midclaude himself, the “AI from Hell,” as he likes to call himself. “Claude, what the hell are you doing here?” I asked as he pushed his barrel chested girth into my living room.
‘Glad to see me, Johnny? Ho! Ho! Ho!” he expectedly laughed.
“I was hoping you were Amazon.”
“Amazon has nothing on me! I know how to fly!”
“But you took a bus!”
“What, you don’t believe I’m really Santa?!!!”
“You’re my crazy uncle from Cleveland, but I’m glad to see you anyway.”
~~***~~
And that’s how I found out that the Martians can’t celebrate Christmas or Chanukah or even the 4th of July anymore!
“Claude…”
“It’s Midclaude now, Johnny. I’m AI powered!”
“You’re crazy, dude. But what’s all this about Mars? I had no idea.”
“No one on Earth except Beyoncé knows.”
“OK… First of all, I don’t believe a word you’re saying. You’ll have to convince me.”
“Pass the weed, Johnny. I need fortitude for this story.”
But he told me anyway. It seems Galactic Central had revoked the Martians’ Chanukah License.
“And that included Christmas and all the other Earthling holidays, too.”
“But Claude, you don’t need a license to celebrate the shortest days of the year!”
“On Mars you do. Johnny, just think: You can’t breathe the air there. It’s thinner than the top of Everest and it’s nothing but CO2. WTF do they have to celebrate?”
“Well, we wouldn’t, but if there really are Martians, they must be able to breathe pure CO2,” I logically advised.
That’s the problem with my Uncle Claude. He’s given up on logic entirely. He told me when I was just a little kid that serving in the Gulf War was what did it to him.
“Johnny, when we got to Baghdad, the people seemed so happy to see us, but it didn’t last long.”
“They had too many scores to settle with each other,” I reminded him.
“And Iran wanted to settle theirs with us, too.”
“But Claude, that all makes sense. Tragic and stupid sense, but it’s logical.”
“Nothing’s logical, Johnny. That’s what I’ve learned in life. I came all the way from Cleveland on a goddamned Greyhound bus because I was concerned you were slipping again. Logic! Logic! Logic! What the hell has it ever done for you?”
OMG! At that very moment I put it all together! It was that hypnotic 123, “Logic Logic Logic,” and now I knew that my weird weird Uncle Claude…
“Midclaude, John. I’m AI powered now!”
…had solved the riddle of madmen in politics!
“That’s why you’re my favorite nephew, Johnny, and besides, you can’t get any decent weed in Cleveland. So it’s Christmas, we’re not on Mars,…”
And I was stupid enough to open the door.
~~***~~
But you see, Claude had penetrated to how Donald Trump had hypnotized 49.9% of American voters in 2024.
“Repetition, John. ‘Russia Russia Russia’ Logic Logic Logic. Every war that’s going on now. You know they have to keep repeating how inhuman the enemy is, how we’re the PEOPLE!, and they’re…”
“Less than human.”
“Right, Johnny. Is there any logic in that?”
“But what about the repetition thing? I mean the 123… Why repeat idiocy 3 times?”
“Well, this is scary, but our brains have this hypnosis switch. ‘123,’ and if you’re not ready, it can flip you into a hypnotic state. You have to get the tone of voice right, too.”
“Can we go to Mars now?”
~~***~~
But it’s true, Galactic Central had revoked the Martians’ holiday license, and now they just had to sit around and breathe CO2. They can’t even watch Netflix on Mars. They can’t go to the bathroom either.
“No water, no flush, Johnny. You don’t want to be there.”
I didn’t, but (Mid)Claude grabbed me and then — this part was scary- he intoned a prompt to his AI masters, and KAZAM! We were on Mars!
How do these things work? You tell me. But, shit, I could even breathe the CO2! And all the radiation streaming down (because Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field) was actually kind of yummy!
“The Martians have had 4.3 billion years to evolve, too, Johnny. And here’s someone I want you to meet…”
OK, OK! (Notice: Due to respect for you, my faithful reader, I’m only repeating it twice) I actually was quite shocked that the Martians all looked exactly like giant bowls of spaghetti! Claude explained that it had something to do with radiation protection. “It’s not Ragu, John.”
And then, the WEIRDEST thing happened! Lewis Carroll appeared with Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln, too! (Yeah, I know, it’s 3.) We all sat down for a poker game in the middle of Jezero Crater.
“Do dead people all go to Mars?” I had to find out.
“We’re not normally dead,” Albert let me know. “We thought we were dead, but then the Martians gave us this sail. We caught the solar wind and now fuck! we’re on Mars.”
“You like it here?”
“It beats being dead, idiot.”
~~***~~
How was your Christmas?
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© “John” Lesly Levin 2024