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Orange County, California

Sunday, 28 October, 17:00 hours GMT (10:00 Local)

The Reverend Dr. Gene Payley, the very well-meaning Head Pastor of the Orange County, California, Glass House of God church, prepared to receive his guest, the Imam from a new Southern California megamosque. Dr. Payley had invited Imam Almyid ibn Fasid ibn Basra to come and talk to his flock on the true nature, and the peacefulness, of Islam.

The reverend desired to show his fellow cleric that not all Westerners and Christians felt that Islam was a violent religion, but rather that “religion of peace” to which the current, and preceding, American presidents referred.

For his efforts, widely publicized by his own staff, Reverend Payley found himself hailed in the press, and hooted in the blogosphere.

The newly-established Muslim cleric from America via Yemen, obviously also reaching across the interfaith gap toward peace, had accepted the invitation.

Today, Sunday, the 28^th of October, Imam Fasid ibn Basra arrived ceremoniously to a crowd consisting of thousands of well-wishers and a few polite skeptics filling the huge glass-walled church. Smiling and waving politely, he mounted to the pulpit in his bulky robes and smilingly raised his arms high and wide to the large congregation, as though encompassing all mankind in a large circle of happy togetherness.

The Reverend Dr. Gene Payley smiled as he watched his flock respond warmly. He noticed that the Imam looked quite a bit larger than when he had seen him last, many pounds heavier? he guessed. Basra seemed even to be sweating at the work of climbing the few stairs to the pulpit. It was a warm October day outside, but Reverend Payley found himself wondering whether the poor man had been overeating due to the stress of so many Americans developing such animosity towards the Imam’s religion?

Payley shook his head. How sad.

Taking full advantage of the last remaining place in America in which thousands could gather without security screening, Almyid ibn Fasid ibn Basra, arms raised and smiling to the assembled multitude, said, “Allahu Akbar,” and detonated the eighty pounds of semtex he was wearing under his traditional flowing robes, turning himself, the Reverend Dr. Gene Payley, the choir and organist, the sanctuary and 2,817 worshippers and staff into a smoking hole in the ground, wounding another 1,836 parishioners, staff and Sunday School faculty, and instantly creating 3,487 orphans in the Sunday School classrooms immediately adjoining.

The 11,000 large plates of glass forming the outside walls and roof of the famous church became millions of shards landing up to one-half a mile away, killing or injuring hundreds of bystanders and causing an enormous fiery crash on the freeway immediately next to the church, killing another 17 people.

The president and the mainstream press instantly went on the offensive against Americans who might hold this unfortunate act of a “single madman” against peaceful Muslims across the country, admonishing all Americans not to “jump to conclusions.”

The immediate public reaction to the attack was an abrupt end to the near-tie of the pre-election polling for the upcoming election, and the subsequent almost-total electoral wipe-out of the incumbent president and his party in that election nine days later.

A new President of the United States would be taking office rather than the incumbent everyone had assumed would continue his historic reign.

The longer-term reaction to this attack was much broader, more violent and of far longer-lasting significance.