Part One | Part Two
Rob Reiner was jolted awake. Just minutes ago, he could have sworn he was holding his wife and sleeping soundly. Now, he could barely move.
What was wrong with his feet?
“Michele!” Reiner calls out for his wife. Silence. He glances around the room he is somehow trapped in. A small bed. Trinkets on shelves. A snowstorm outside. Where is he?
Suddenly, the door bursts open, and none other than Annie Wilkes from Misery greets him, with her pig oinking behind her.
Reiner stares in disbelief. He was now trapped inside one of his own movies.
“Well, I see the patient is awake!” says Annie. “How are we feeling?”
“Get me out of here. I directed this movie. I know what happens!”
“Oh, don’t be such a fussy widget,” says Annie. “We’re just getting to know each other! I’m your number-one fan! I’ve seen every one of your movies like 100 times.”
Reiner shifts uncomfortably in his bed. “What do you want with me?”
“I’m the Ghost of Things to Come! Or the Ghost of Christmas future, I get confused.”
“What’s wrong with my legs?”
“It’s called hobbling,” she says.
“Don’t worry, it won’t last long. Just long enough for me to explain how I happened to find myself in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021.”
“No, come on, Annie Wilkes, is MAGA?”
“Well, that’s the funny thing. I didn’t used to be. You see, I used to be Hillary Clinton’s number one fan too, bet you could never guess that. And Joe Biden’s. But the Summer of 2020 changed me. Should I hit your feet again just for fun?”
“NOOOO,” Reiner screams.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Annie says. “I was like every other Democrat all the years Trump was in power. I was like, yeah impeach him! Get him out! It doesn’t matter why or what he did! He’s ruining this country! I didn’t know the plan was to hide Biden in the basement, hide Kamala Harris from voters, and let the system install our new leader. How dystopian!”
“Dystopian?” Screams Reiner, “How’d you like to be hobbled in a bed trapped with a psycho from your own movie!”
“Well, technically, it’s Stephen King’s psycho,” she says, “but why quibble?”
“What do I have to do, what do I have to say to get me out of this? Aren’t you supposed to be showing me the future?”
“Yep. That’s my job,” she says. “But I have to prepare you, Rob. You see, you don’t seem to realize just what’s gone on in this country since 2016. This thing could go either way, depending on the election in 2024. Trust me, if things go your way, it’s going to be way worse than hobbling.”
“Nothing could be worse than hobbling,” he says.
“Fair enough,” she says. “What I know now that I didn’t see before is that we built a utopia before Trump won and we just didn’t realize we’d left half the country behind. When they decided they wanted to rise up and challenge us, we went to war on them.”
“Utopia?” Reiner says. “We had a great president for the first time. A black president. We cured racism. We had a cultural renaissance. We were about to elect our first female president before Orange Hitler wrecked everything.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Just like the CIA had to get rid of Kennedy, the Democrats and the establishment had no intention of Trump serving a full term, much less a second term. And there he was with a strong economy and some pretty good policies. But what we saw them to do bring him down should never have happened in a free country. That was the white collar insurrection. You follow?”
“No, I don’t follow. I want to leave. I want to see my wife. I want this miserable, horrible night to end.”
“We’re getting there,” Annie Wilkes says. “It’s never been about Trump. It’s always been about you, your side, and what you have done with all of this power you have amassed and what that means for the future.”
“You just don’t like it that black and brown people now have a say, and LGBTQIA+ and women. You want it to go back to the dark ages. Well we’re not going back.”
Annie leans over Reiner and stares him down. “You all just decided that this country belonged to you. Your ‘revolution’ in the Summer of 2020 was a way to intimidate and threaten anyone who dared challenge your power. You just decided that the violence of January 6th was somehow different from the Summer.”
Annie Wilkes continues. “But it wasn’t. Both were planned by the same people continuing the coup to bring down Trump, make him look dangerous to the public, and scare off his voters. I was there on January 6th, I know what they were planning, and it was going to be like every other Trump rally. Except that, conveniently, a riot magically appeared to halt the debate in Congress and hand absolute power to Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party. This is the biggest story since JFK, and you’re missing it.”
“Oh baloney. Get me out of this bed!” Reiner says.
“I tell you all this, Rob,” says Annie Wilkes, “because of the America I’m about to show you. By the end of it, you’re going to realize that even a chaotic, messy presidency like Trump’s is far preferable to the kind of country you’re about to be living in. God Speed, Rob Reiner!”
***
Rob Reiner is sucked into a wormhole, and all at once he can see the future. He sees himself, Rob Reiner, snuggled up in his bed with his wife, balancing a bowl of popcorn on his belly as he readies himself for the MSNBC power lineup.
Rachel Maddow’s show begins with, “Now that President Harris has been sworn in for a third term, she has plans to expand the Free Thought Mandatory Training Centers erected throughout the country after the 2024 election. So far, it’s been great. We have our country back. We’re not afraid every day of extremists overthrowing the government. But it’s not been without its snafus. We’ve been getting reports of insurrections in the Pacific Northwest. It’s nothing to worry about. President Harris has designated 20 billion more to help build facilities in the Dakotas, in Wyoming and Montana.”
“What the hell is this?” Reiner says.
Future Rob looks up at him, “Well, you knew that was coming, right? Detention camps for the non-compliant? It’s the next logical step. You’ve already got a justice system jailing political prisoners they claim are enemies of the state. You said nothing. You did nothing. What did you think would happen?”
“I didn’t think we’d be locking up Americans in concentration camps because that’s what this sounds like” Reiner says to his future self.
“It’s voluntary. They have a choice. We call it ‘admit and submit.’
Reiner closes in on Future Rob, “You’re not me. I would never be what you are.”
“Yeah, you would,” Future Rob says. “You already are, on Twitter. You and everyone else on the Left gave up your power to think for yourselves. You’re out there as a good soldier for the Democrats.”
“My tweets go viral. I have a voice on Twitter. People listen to me! I am trying to save democracy!”
Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.
Future Rob says, “If you’ll excuse me.” He opens the door, and is handed a manila envelope. He looks at the return address. “Ah, this should be good. It’s from the Office of Truth and Equity in the Arts at the White House.”
He tears open the envelope and fishes out the letter. It reads, “Dear Mr. Reiner, this is the committee at OneMovie, and we’re happy to inform you that you have been invited to censor When Harry Met Sally so as to be included in America’s number one streaming platform.
“The scene in question is Harry making an ethnically insensitive joke. We also found that the accents between Harry and Sally might be viewed as offensive by people with speech impediments. “There’s also a scene where Sally describes her sex fantasy - which is actual rape. We find this very very offensive. So we would add that to our requests.
“We’re happy to inform you that you can comply with our request, otherwise the film will be exterminated, along with the other problematic films from the 1990s Hope you are having a lovely holiday season.”
“You see,” future Rob says to Reiner, “Some AI wrote that, and I have no choice but to comply. I guess the movie could just be destroyed. No one watches them now anyway.”
Reiner explodes, “Don’t go along with this! Tell them where they can go. Stand up for our work! We’re proud of that! People love When Harry Met Sally!”
Future Rob resigns to his own fate. “I went through this on This is Spinal Tap, which, as you can imagine, is filled with one problematic joke after another - misogyny, herpes…”
“They made us get rid of Big Bottom, one of the best scenes in the movie, because the lyrics were offensive to plus-sized women.”
Future Rob heaves a heavy sigh. “So you see, Rob, it’s never going to be enough. Once we purged Trump and MAGA, then we turned on ourselves. Purity is a beast that needs constant feeding. Problematic content is everywhere, it’s all of our history, our past, what we lived through, who we were. It’s the story of us. Remember that movie? I hope you do because no one else does.”
Reiner sits at the foot of his own bed as Future Rob snuggles in next to his wife. “It’s best not to take it all too seriously. I take meds, and I don’t have to think about it. It’s not a problem I can fix, so why fret?”
“Without art, without movies, what else is there?” Reiner says.
“What do you care?” Future Rob says, “You’re one of the Good Soldiers of the Left, keeping the machine well-oiled, contributing to the end of all good things.”
“I can’t stand this anymore,” Reiner says. “Please tell me this isn’t the end of the story, that we have time to turn it all around and save our movies, save our comedy, our biology, our universities, our future generations, our country! Please take me back, take me back.”
“Rob?” Michele’s voice cuts through Reiner’s heaving sobs. When he realizes it’s her, and he’s back in his own bed, relief washes over him.
“Did you have another bad dream?”
“No, Michele, this time wasn’t a bad dream. It was a gift.” He takes her in his arms and holds her close.
***
Reiner sits in front of a microphone as the camera turns on him.
Hi everyone, Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show…today’s guest, you won’t believe it, is a filmmaker and activist who has spent the past several years ranting and raving about Trump and MAGA on Twitter! One of the most devoted members of the #resistance has been red-pilled. He’s chosen our show as the first on a book tour of his new bestseller, “I Can Finally Handle the Truth.” Welcome, Rob Reiner!
Thanks, Megyn. What a warm introduction.
I must admit I’m in shock, along with everyone else, at this turn of events. Why don’t you tell us what happened.”
“Well,” Reiner says, “I can’t say it any other way except to say I woke up. I realized I was inside a feedback loop, and we were losing touch with reality. I didn’t realize how far it had gotten until the Colorado Supreme Court threw Trump off the ballot without even being convicted of or charged with insurrection. It just felt wrong to me. I knew I would be taking an enormous risk if I started talking about this, but saying or doing nothing was worse.”
“That’s just amazing. If it can happen to you,” Megyn Kelly says, “it can happen to anyone.”
“I also want to announce that I’m starting a new Podcast series called ‘What Really Happened on January 6th.’ I’ve been working with Tucker Carlson, Julie Kelly, Steve Bannon, and others who, at one time, were my sworn enemies. But the truth matters. We have to find it. We have to report on it, wherever it leads.”
“So, what did really happen on January 6th?” Megyn Kelly says.
“You’ll have to listen to find out! But let’s just say that Who Killed JFK is not all that different. Both had to do with an outsider president who was unpredictable and couldn’t be controlled. Both had to do with the ease of manipulating the public. And both ran counter to our principles as a Republic and a democracy.”
“Well,” says Megyn Kelly, “I am really looking forward to it. I gotta say, I admire your courage.”
“I’ve lost friends, family, I’m getting a divorce,” he says. “No, not really, at least I hope not. Larry David punched me in the market. But other than that, no one is shooting me in the head or putting me in a gulag. So why not be brave? If all I have to worry about is not being popular anymore. Well, I can handle that.”
“Yes, well said, Rob Reiner, well said.”
***
Reiner’s drive home took him once again to the freeway overpass where a black man wearing a MAGA hat holding a furry dog stands in the rain. Reiner pulls up beside him and rolls down the window.
“I need to apologize to you, sir. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
The man looks confused. “Do you I know you?”
“Why don’t you hop in? We’ll go have something to eat, and get out of the rain.”
And with that, Reiner took the man to The Smokehouse in Burbank, where they feasted on so much food they could barely walk. Even the dog was too full to stand. The Christmas lights twinkled in the cold night air as the rain subsided.
“Where can I take you?” Reiner said, dreading the answer.
“I can just walk from here. Merry Christmas to you, Rob Reiner.”
“And to you. And may God bless you.”
“Thank you,” says the man, holding his dog tight as they shuffle into the darkness.
As Reiner drives away, he can barely make out what looks like a reindeer and Santa Claus. But they were moving too fast and by now, had taken flight. The man Reiner just dined with and his furry dog were gone.
He’d never admit what he thought he saw that night. He’d keep it a secret forever. He was starting to see that life was a matter of perspective. What you can see ahead of you, and what you can only imagine as you look back.
Merry Christmas, dear readers. And to all a good night.
Rob Reiner's Misery