The Cancelling of Nineveh

Jonah had decided: he was out. One flick of his finger was enough to set his text scroll rolling backward, reminding him of the glorious path of destruction his burn-it-all-down style of journalism had done for celebrity culture across the greater LA area. He thought, “I should feel chosen.” Instead he was tired.

His text beeped. It was his agent. “Got a hot tip. This one’s juicy. And more importantly… it’s Nineveh.”

Jonah opened the link. Nineveh… real name: Nina Vehn… was an actress-turned-lifestyle-guru-turned-crypto-evangelist-turned-conspiracy-theory-dabbler. That morning, she had tweeted something about war children so layered in ignorance and soft-focus wellness-speak that it had to be an act of suicide. It was handed to him on a silver platter.

He sighed. “Fine.”

His agent booked him on a red-eye on a company jet to New York where Nineveh was holed up in the penthouse suite. Jonah wore sunglasses and a hoodie. A few people in the airport bar recognized him from the “Candles Are Not Consent” campaign. Someone shouted, “Preach it, Jonah!” He waved vaguely, as if apologizing.

In the air, he watched Nineveh’s apology video. “I am listening,” she said, serene and blonde and surrounded by incense smoke. “I am learning. I am a container for difficult truths.”

“Bullshit,” Jonah muttered. He took a Xanax and dreamed of whales.

**

He didn’t make it to New York. Somewhere over the Midwest, he told the pilot to detour. “Fly south,” he said.
The pilot nodded. “Like, to the beach?”

Jonah shrugged. “That’ll do.” He took another Xanax. When that didn’t work, he took three.

**

He woke up six hours later with the plane on the tarmac, the pilot gone, and the TV blaring a commercial for a local rehab with a slogan that read: You Can’t Run From Grace

Jonah laughed until he vomited.

**

A day later he woke up in the ER. A nurse came by periodically to check his IV and adjust the fluids. With each drop he felt better and more miserable.

His phone chirped. It was his agent. “Nineveh’s trending. She’s giving Come to Jesus. Socials love it.”

Jonah rubbed his temples. “You don’t forgive someone like Nineveh. You screenshot them. You meme their face. And you street prophet them. That’s the job.”

There was a pause. Then his agent said, “She just donated $1 million to reforestation.”

Jonah screamed so loudly two nurses came running. By the time he calmed down his agent had hung up. Then he got a random text, “Just let her go.”

**

He returned to LA out of spite. His first day back his AC unit was on the fritz. He went to the neighborhood wellness shop Fig Tree and bought a large orange smoothie. When no one was looking he topped it off with vodka.

The screen over the bar showed Nineveh hugging two kids. The text scroll said they were orphans from a school to which she had just donated a new wing.

“I’m doing the inner work,” she told the interviewer. “I read Hosea.”

“Same story,” Jonah muttered.

She smiled and looked down at the kids. “Aren’t all stories about redemption?”

He got a call from the AC repair company. All good.

But that night it broke again.

Jonah texted his agent, “I wish I was dead.”