A tragedy in four parts.

INT. DIMLY LIT BASEMENT – MORNING

Danny awakens and kicks off his Star Wars duvet. He picks up his phone to check if anyone responded to his incendiary revelation about Jacinda Ardern’s Covid-19 mind control experiment on Reddit last night. He stares at his phone in mute horror. There at the top of his screen is the most offensive word he’s ever seen.

Like his avatar, Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy, he’s ready to make a scene.

Māori language week is over. It’s time to forget it ever happened, and only use good Kiwi words like “kiwi” and “ka mate, ka mate”, until it’s forced upon us again next year.

Satisfied his threat of withholding $50 a month will have the desired effect, Danny waits for the abject apology that is owed to him.

Vodafone’s social media person, known only as CL, takes a weary drag of her cigarette, grinds it underfoot and steps out of the shadows. A part of her dreads moments like these. But a bigger part of her lives for them.

Ouch! Danny has been Vodaf-owned. He’s shaken, but not defeated. He takes a calming swig of Mountain Dew, hand trembling, while he contemplates his next move. But wait, some friends have jumped in to defend him. They too have… an ultimatum. But not even they are prepared for what happens next.

Sparks fly as Spark enters the fray! Their social media manager remains anonymous, a long, dark cowl drawn over their face, but the knives are real – they deftly defend Vodafone while throwing shade at their customer service and promoting their own app, Kupu. This isn’t their first showdown.

Uh oh, they’ve used the word “normal”. Christmas decorations with snowmen on them in summer is normal. Celebrating an anthropomorphic bunny at Easter is normal. A language spoken continuously in this country for hundreds of years is most certainly not normal.

Danny is shaking, his knuckles white on the can. He tears a Mark Wahlberg poster off the wall in rage.

And just when he thought it was over, BAM.

2Degrees somersaults into view, and blasts them with a “Kei te pēhea koe?” from their Reo Gun. Vodafone’s CL is loving it, adding to the searing barrage with an Eddie Murphy gif. She chuckles heartily as Twitter burns down at their feet. She lights another cigarette off the blaze.

Heidi begs not to live in the “other place” (we assume she means either Australia or hell) but it’s too late. The Telco Triad have sent us all to the other place, a place we may never return from. The place known as…

Aotearoa.

ENDS