The adventures of time-travel andy borowitz
Lil’ Andy’s in trouble!
Our hero, Lil’ Andy Borowitz, intrepid imbecile, finds himself repeatedly thrust into other spots on the timeline, Quantum Leap-style. The rules are simple: he arrives knowing the language, in the appropriate mode of dress, etc. Like here, he exhibits a rudimentary grasp of customs and whatnot to plausibly pass as a member of the society into which he has been thrust. And like here, Lil’ Andy offers up ostensibly comic observations about each society he visits. Like here, there are actual stakes involved in the topics he “riffs” on – there are actual human people dying as the result of the policies Lil’ Andy “spoofs,” but God bless him, he remains as toothless as the day he was born.
Let’s check out some of the places Lil’ Andy visits, shall we? How does he fare? Let’s see!
Fun Fact*: Ours is the only patch of time-space where Lil’ Andy has risen to any kind of prominence.
The scene: a Roman coliseum in the most provincial, illiterate outpost of the Empire. Lil’ Andy materializes in the dust, and in a reedy voice offers the following gem: “Short sword? Isn’t that really just a knife?” This is rightly met with deafening silence. The crowd – the stupidest in all the Roman world, mind you, quick-witted as bundle of sticks, most them, a throng so towering in their ignorance they’d be entertained by literally anything – can plainly see him as a hack and howls for the lions to be released. This wish is obliged. The shreds the lions reduce him to are at least as incisive as Fully Intact Lil’ Andy.
The scene: King Arthur’s court, England, 10th century. Lil’ Andy appears, Roundtable-side, drops this science: “Naming swords – that’s weird. Tell you what though: I wish my ex. Had been of higher caliber.” Thundering silence. The knights stab him. Like a billion times. Merlin reanimates him over and over again so they can keep killing him. Lady Guinevere stomps on Lil’ Andy’s lifeless mouth till she dislocates a hip. She walks with a limp for the rest of her days, but when she tells the tale, she always closes with “’Twas worth it.”
The scene: a wind-tattered tent somewhere in the Arctic, 1846, site of Franklin’ doomed expedition to find the Northwest passage. Lil’ Andy appears in a puff of greenish smoke. The men, gaunt and maddened by hunger, fear they are hallucinating. “Hey, hey. Who likes limericks about igloos?” They butcher and eat him. He contains no nutrients, so they starve anyway.
The scene: Imperial Palace, Kyoto Japan, 1868. Lil’ Andy arrives in a courtyard where ladies of the court engage in flower arranging, calligraphy, and other forms of artistry of heart-stopping beauty. Andy: “I mean. Origami? Why make me choose? Why not And-igami?” His needy smile lingers for a frozen moment. They pummel him to greasy paste. Then invent the high five to celebrate this honor killing.
The scene: University of Pittsburgh lab, 1954. Dr. Jonas Salk is at work developing the polio vaccine. Lil’ Andy, already drenched in flop sweat, evanesces onto the linoleum floor. “These lungs, though? They’re not even iron. And I’m like ‘Whaaaaaaat?’” Dr. Salk folds his spectacles and sets them on his workbench. Then picks up a syringe and injects an air bubble into his eye to die, writhing. The vaccine is never completed. Untold thousands suffer.
The scene: a Zulu-class Soviet sub patrolling the Bering Sea, 1972. Lil’ Andy shimmers into view, pulsing with desperation, began story before he even fully materializes. Andy: “…and so the Deputy Minister goes ‘Class traitor? I hardly know her!’” Andy stands, panting a little. The sub’s commander orders the entire payload of ballistic missiles to be fired, knowing that this decision to incinerate Seattle will precipitate a species-ending escalation and a thousand years of winter. His only communique to the generals in Moscow: “You’d have thanked me.”
The scene: a colony on Proxima Centauri B, 2156. Lil’ Andy B. emerges from an approval-seeking cloud. Andy: “I don’t wanna say the air here on Proxima is thin, but a lotta folks are wondering if it isn’t bulimic.” The colonists gaze from Andy to each other. Without speaking, they file out of the airlock to die in agony, wordlessly agreeing that getting cooked by gamma rays while suffocating is infinitely preferable than spending another second with that fucking guy.
* This fact is anything but fun. It’s the farthest goddamn thing from fun as it’s possible to get.