NOWHERE — In an effort to halt the spread of COVID-19, the United States Department of Energy has suspended the physical realm of existence, as well as all movement through time, in all US states and territories. “This is not a decision we take lightly,” Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillete told reporters. “But the gravity of the situation calls for us to accelerate our response and act with strong force until there are absolutely zero new cases in the country.” He added, “We’re doing this out of an abundance of cation.” 

Officials had reportedly been debating the move for weeks before ultimately deciding that Americans would be far safer as zero dimensional non-beings than in their current three dimensional forms. “We found that the best way to ‘flatten the curve,’ so to speak, is to literally flatten the curvature of spacetime by eliminating it altogether,” Brouillete explained. “After all, the virus can’t spread if there’s nowhere to spread to, and it can’t progress if it doesn’t have time to. We feel these measures have a lot of potential.”

Meanwhile, responses to the drastic new decision have been mixed. Some Americans, like Frank Ambrose of Richmond, Virginia, are fervently against the measures, which they see as infringing on their constitutional rights, and are planning to resist them. “You bet your ass I will still be going to church on Sunday,” Ambrose stated in a video posted to his personal Facebook page. “They can cancel mass, but they’ll never cancel Mass.” 

Others greeted the news with indifference, having sensed that such an announcement was only a matter of time. Leonard Botts of Aspen, Colorado, was one of those people. “It was inevitable, if you ask me,” Botts explained. “I mean, after Coachella got postponed I knew the fabric of reality had to be next.”  

While the effects of such measures are yet to be seen, they are set to be in place at least until the end of May — which, of course, will never arrive as the passage of time has been cancelled.