BALTIMORE, MARYLAND — Waking up in the year 2056 after three decades in a 30-year coma, local man Gary Hodges was reportedly deeply disappointed to discover that regular unleaded gasoline cost $404.99 a gallon and the U.S. government was still just “hours away” from finalizing a peace deal with Iran.
Doctors said Hodges, who slipped into a coma back in 2026 after hearing analysts on cable news say the Middle East situation was rapidly escalating, initially believed he had only been unconscious for a few days.
“I turned on the TV and saw a headline saying negotiations with Iran were in their final stages,” said the still disoriented 63-year-old Hodges. “So I figured, alright, maybe I’ve been asleep a week.”
Hospital staff then carefully explained that it was now the year 2056 and that presidents from both parties had spent the last three decades announcing that the U.S. and Iran were approximately “hours away” from achieving a historic peace agreement.
The geopolitical deadlock was further confirmed during a press conference that afternoon, featuring 100-year-old Senator Lindsey Graham, who was wheeled to the Senate podium hooked up to an IV drip of pure weapons-grade plutonium.
“If we give up now, we let the Ayatollah win,” wheezed the centenarian Senator, his frail, skeletal hands pounding his wheelchair’s armrests. “Just give me one more month, and three more carrier strike groups. I swear to God, if you cowards sign that peace treaty, I will personally unhook myself from this life support machine and drag my rotting corpse to Tehran to strangle their diplomats with my catheter tube.”
At press time, White House officials announced that negotiators had made “extraordinary progress” toward peace after both sides agreed to schedule another emergency summit sometime within the next thirty years.
