Midnight Mass Murder

 
The stadium was full. No accurate count was taken, but it was reckoned that there were something in the region of 950,000 people present, some arriving as early as 4.00 a.m. to queue for the midnight massacre.

As midnight approached the crowd was buzzing with excitement. 

"You here for the mass murder?" Graham Seward asked the man next to him.

"Of course, I voted for it so I'm hardly going to miss it? Another 40 minutes and we're free forever from the chaos of mortality."

"I wasn't sure at first, you know, agreeing to be butchered, but I did some research on Facebook and was won over."

"Facebook have been brilliant about this. They used to annoy me by 'fact-checking' my posts on Brexit and Covid, but they're allowed all of my posts in support of the massacre. One of the staff I'd been in contact with in the past about my 'inappropriate posts' was practically raving in suport."

"Yes, I have to say people have been a lot more reasonable about this than there were with my vaccine skepticism. They used to say things like 'you're a selfish idiot who is putting other people in danger', when all I was trying to do was stop everyone being turned into powerful magnets. This time around all I've had is people patting me on the back encouraginly, saying things like 'good for you' and 'about bloody time'. 

"Well not long to wait now. A minute to go. It's like new years eve."

Indeed, just like new year's eve the crowd began to count down to midnight and their own subsequent slaughter. Ten, nine, eight ... "This is it."

"Six, five, four," 

"I'm so looking forward to this," said Graham.

"Three, two, one."  A big cheer went up in the crowd, after which ... nothing.

"Is my watch right? I've got two minutes past."  

"Yeah, mine's hooked up to Big Ben, accurate to the second. How strange, the massacre's running behind schedule."

A few minutes passed, the crowd began to get restless. Eventually an official stepped onto the stage to make an announcement. 

"I'm sorry, we're not able to process the planned mass murder at the stated time. Recruitment issues mean that we have none of the required staff to carry out the slaughter. This is not the fault of the government, there is a Europe-wide shortage of murderous psychopaths."

"Yeah, they're all working as ministers," shouted a wag in the crowd.

The official continued regardless. "The mass murder will be re-arranged for when the staff are available, and you will be informed of the new date and time. In the meantime can I ask you to disperse safely.

"Is this serious?" said Graham. "We were promised mass murder, we turn up as instructed, and all we get is some vague promise of future death."

"It just goes to show, you should never trust politicians. You vote for them to kill you and then they say they don't have the psychopaths."

"Might as well go home and vote for someone sensible next time."

"Yeah, good luck finding that option."