Congratulations to Shakaib Feroz for Winning the April 2019 Barefoot Writing Challenge! (Your $100 prize is on its way!)
The challenge was to write an essay that answered this prompt:
If I could manage to pull it off on April Fool’s, I would…
Shakaib set a comical stage for the prank of the century. Enjoy his winning submission:
If I could pull it off on April Fools’ Day? I would fly to the moon and paint a big Superman logo, and be back just in time, before anyone suspected it was me.
It would be a nice, twisted social experiment, don’t you think? It would be interesting to see how many people saw it as a sign of hope. And how many were terrified of an imminent alien invasion. And how many saw through the hoax that it was.
Perhaps somebody would smile. Perhaps somebody would understand it to be a clever joke as they checked the date on their calendar or phone.
But one thing is for sure: Every newspaper, every blog, vlog, and Facebook page would put this news smack front and center.
“Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”
“Is the Man of Steel for real?”
“Superman is here!?”
Copywriters would see a sudden spike in their income. That’s for sure! Many Barefoot Writers would be studying the headlines surrounding this event. And many more would be writing their own headlines. Some would stash them in their personal practice folders, and some would publish them and get rich.
And some of them would give me a knowing look. “I know it’s you, man! I know it’s you!”
And I would just wink. We would discuss whether I should come out and announce that it was all just a joke or just wait and see where the chips fell. The theories and speculations would provide enough material for many years’ worth of best-selling stories.
And one of them could be my own best seller: “The Man Who Put ‘Superman’ on the Moon.”
