The Onion at its best

Photo from The Onion.

Just when I'm going through Winter Olympic withdrawal, I see this headline from The Onion:

"Spectators Bombarded with Gamma Radiation As Rapidly Spinning Figure Skater Collapses Into Singularity."

Now think of all the various directions you could take this as a writing prompt.

-Somewhere in space, another civilization happens to observe the collapse of our solar system into the newly formed singularity. Somehow, for whatever reason, they are able to perform a sort of "rewind" and see the events leading up to the tear in the cosmic fabric. They learn about the Winter Olympics. They grow fascinated with the concept. "What is this...curling?" Long after the demise of Earth, curling endures in a distant corner of the galaxy.

-Not only does the spinning skater collapse into the singularity, several other skaters are plucked from the kiss-and-cry and are drawn straight into the vortex. They emerge on the other side in a field of streaming, blinding white light. The bands of light dim and squiggle to form a hoop or halo. A slender figure with hair shellacked into a pompadour saunters out of the halo.
"Hello," Johnny Weir smiles and tells them in a voice that is at once gentile and powerful enough to shake the heavens. "I've been expecting you." Pandas skate around him.

-Shaun White leads a cadre of young snowboarders into the vortex for the ultimate thrill ride. They disappear. Tonya Harding, Alberto Tomba, and Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards go in after them on a Zamboni.

-Or we might never find out the singularity formed at all, because NBC actually cut away one skater before it happened, believing the gold already settled. Instead, we are treated to 30 second clips of three different sports and the story of an athlete competing in the name of their grandmother with the gangrenous leg.

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