Sally Field accepted her Emmy for Netflix's «Remarkably Bright Creatures» on Monday night and immediately ordered the construction of a continuous, fence-free border with Canada, to be made entirely of American and Canadian citizens holding hands from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
«We shot this film up there, and I have decided that from now on we will keep our neighbors close,» Field told the backstage press, producing a rolled-up map on which the entire 8,891-kilometer boundary had been redrawn as a single human chain. «Construction begins at dawn. Bring a jacket and a willingness to scoot over.»
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the first shift of hand-holders would be bused to Blaine, Washington, at 4 a.m., with a second wave departing from Houlton, Maine, by lunchtime. A new federal agency, the Bureau of Neighborly Proximity, will issue numbered wristbands and a laminated card explaining that participants may not let go for any reason, including weather, meals or the call of nature.
Canadian officials, reached for comment, said they had already begun clearing a matching strip of land and had ordered 40,000 folding chairs. «We were going to build a fence anyway,» a spokesperson said. «This is cheaper and the line moves.»
By Tuesday afternoon, the chain had reached the North Dakota border, where a retired schoolteacher reported that her arm had gone numb but that she was «not going to be the one who ruins it.»