A very urgent emergency about everything, probably

The Global Council of Imminent Catastrophe knew something was terribly wrong the moment the birds started chirping.

It was early morning and the usual symphony of dread had all gone. In their place was the unsettling sound of soft jazz and the scent of warm bread wafting in from a nearby town that had, until recently, been a projected hotspot of civil unrest.

The Grand High Commissioner of Cataclysm burst into the War Room wearing emergency croquet whites.

“Everyone remain calm! We have a positive situation.”

Gasps rippled around the table.

“What kind of positive?” demanded Chairwoman of Doom and the Council’s foremost pessimist-in-residence.

“The terrifying kind. There is no crisis.”

The room erupted in chaos.

“No crisis?!” cried the Minister of Endangered Turmoil. “But I just released my memoir ‘Everything Is Awful and It’s All Your Fault!’”

“We were promised chaos!” Chairwoman of Doom shrieked. “Where’s the ironic sense of betrayal!?”

“Gone. Replaced by a shared sense of grace,” said The Grand High Commissioner.

A trembling junior analyst pulled up the Global Catastrophe Dashboard, usually a reliable bar graph of despair. Instead, it displayed a suspiciously serene squirrel offering a virtual acorn and the words, “Have you hydrated today?”

“Impossible,” the dumbfounded analyst said. “It’s not even glitching.”

Reports were flooding in that international cooperation was up, a billionaire had restored a rainforest on purpose, and there had been a 70% drop in smugness.

The Council scrambled. Alarms were reprogrammed to shriek things like “Balance Achieved!” and “Spontaneous Laughter Detected!”

A therapist on standby tried to calm the room by reading a passage from Chicken Soup for the Slightly Unhinged, but it only made things worse.

Politicians were volunteering in community gardens. Influencers were replacing their accounts for stargazing.

“We must get ahead of this!” The High Commissioner yelled. “What happens if everyone stops looking for the next thing to fix? What will they talk about?”

Someone screamed. Two people fainted into compostable beanbags.

Meanwhile, outside the bunker, the world carried on. Children built forts from cardboard. Cities hosted music festivals. A dog was seen befriending a pigeon.

And somewhere in a quiet garden, a man sat barefoot, sipping tea.