Zip: A brief sharp hissing sound; vim or energy; to move or act with speed; to fasten or unfasten with a zipper; nothing, nil, zero (slang); zip it up, be quiet (idiomatic).
Several ambassadors were symbolically recalled today
on charges of negligence, after the world’s last
authentic, all-purpose zipper went missing. Previously,
it was seen in special guarded exhibits traveling
from Port Authority to The Sea of Sorrowful Distillations.
National agents reported that it tried to escape,
was intercepted around midmorning, then subdued
with a fusillade from torch guns. Majority Convenors
had just emerged from their first round of ritual comestibles—
Pin-striped, a representative went on Streaming TV to make
the announcement. We could see the rest of them in the background,
still licking the salt trails left by their legendary special reserve
caviar breakfasts from their fingers. Some were glimpsed plodding
through painfully manicured grass in hot pursuit of renegade
golf balls. They had just voted to render obsolete the Humanitarian
Care Act, and were clearly feeling accomplished. The levels of noise
they made congealed on the ceiling of the auditorium, like fat
from a cold tin of foie gras; still, they would not cease their yapping
and roaring. In the old days, which are now rare, there were several
other forms of technology as effective as an all-purpose authentic
zipper; any of them in the right hands would have put a stop
to the ongoing nonsense. It could have heroically snapped
out of its case and bypassed all the artificial controls
entered by the neurosurgeon general. It would have silenced
the doomsayer entrepreneurs spouting their gospel of blond fists
and gilded cages. Nothing to do now but go to work more
carefully, collect every small, rare metal glow radiating the codes
for tomorrow. File sharp every bright tooth strong enough to bite
close and open two edges, harness the muscle of axles and gears:
lay tracks to convey us past ice, rock, this manufactured dark.
In response to Via Negativa: Diplomacy.