(A satirical piece with no connection to any current events (just so everyone is clear on this, in particular, the Department of (IN)Justice, the FBI, Homeland Security (which sounds like an artifact from 1940s Germany), and any other institution so inclined to underappreciate satire.)
Washington has always been a town that believed in reading between the lines. Now, apparently, it also reads between the mollusks.
Former FBI Director James Comey has reportedly been indicted over an Instagram photo showing seashells arranged as “86 47,” a post Trump allies interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump, the 47th president. ABC News reported that the case was brought by federal prosecutors in North Carolina after Comey posted the image with the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” NPR reported that the indictment alleges the post amounted to a threat against the president.
And so the Republic, after surviving civil war, depressions, world wars, hanging chads, and the phrase “infrastructure week,” now turns its lonely eyes to the littoral zone.
The evidence, we are told, was hiding in plain sight: not in encrypted files, not in burner phones, not in smoky back rooms, but scattered across the sand like the remains of a clam bake with prosecutorial implications. There they were, the treasonous scallops. The seditious cockles. The whelks of mass destruction.
The beach, once a place where Americans could contemplate eternity, avoid email, and lose flip-flops to forces unknown, has now become a crime scene. Somewhere, a family building a sandcastle is being advised by counsel not to add turrets.
The Justice Department, having apparently exhausted the usual menu of crimes, has discovered a new category: aggravated beachcombing. In this bold new legal framework, the First Amendment remains intact, provided your speech does not involve numerals, marine debris, or vibes. Prosecutors, according to ABC News, would likely face a high legal bar in proving the post was a “true threat,” because the Supreme Court has required evidence that a person understood their message would be perceived as threatening. But why let constitutional doctrine interfere with the poetry of a good indictment?
The whole thing has the flavor of a carnival game: three shells on a table, one small ball underneath, a man in a suit inviting the country to guess where justice went. Is it under Shell One, marked “public safety”? Shell Two, marked “political vengeance”? Or Shell Three, marked “please stop asking about the last case”?
Comey, for his part, has already been through one round of the machine. A prior indictment accusing him of lying to Congress and obstruction was dismissed after a judge found the prosecutor who brought it had been improperly appointed, according to NBC News. That earlier case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the government could try again, as BBC News reported. In ordinary life, “try again” is what you say to a child learning piano. In Washington, it is what you say to a criminal case that has slipped on a banana peel.
But this new charge is different. It has texture. It has symbolism. It has shells.
No one should underestimate the dangers of shell-based communication. History is full of warning signs. Paul Revere had lanterns. The ancient Greeks had messengers. James Comey allegedly had beach décor. One if by land, two if by sea, eighty-six if by oyster bed.
Soon, America may need a Department of Coastal Semiotics. Its agents will patrol shorelines with magnifying glasses, tide charts, and interns from elite law schools trained to distinguish innocent driftwood from implied felonies. Sand dollars will be subpoenaed. Hermit crabs will be asked whether they are now or have ever been members of a shell formation. Children writing “MOM” near the surf will be detained until investigators can determine whether “MOM” is an acronym for Militia Operations Manual.
Restaurants will need legal disclaimers. “The clam special is not an endorsement of regime change.” Bartenders, long familiar with the phrase “86 the halibut,” will be advised to say “temporarily remove the halibut from service” lest someone alert the Secret Service. Beach towns will replace souvenir shops with compliance kiosks. “Before purchasing this conch, please certify that you do not intend to arrange it into a prosecutable integer.”
The absurdity is not that threats against presidents should be taken seriously. They should. The absurdity is pretending that the awesome machinery of federal prosecution can be fired up like a leaf blower every time politics discovers a new Rorschach test in the sand. A government confident in its strength does not tremble before a tide pool. A justice system worthy of the name does not confuse interpretation with evidence, or symbolism with intent, or a beach walk with a coup plot.
Yet here we are, watching the country debate whether a retired FBI director’s Instagram post was a coded assassination message or merely the world’s least efficient threat, assembled one shell at a time in full view of seagulls.
There is something almost tender about the theory. It imagines an America where conspirators no longer rely on encrypted apps, secret meetings, or plausible deniability, but on the cooperation of tides. “The plan is set,” whispers the mastermind. “Unless high surf comes in before lunch.”
And that, finally, is the shell game: not the shells on the beach, but the shells on the table. Keep your eyes on them. Watch the hands. Watch the labels. Public safety. Accountability. Rule of law. Retaliation. They move quickly. The trick is to make you argue about the number while forgetting to ask who is moving the shells.
By tomorrow, the tide may wash away the original arrangement. But Washington, never one to waste a good grievance, will preserve it forever: laminated, enlarged, entered into evidence, and projected onto cable news until every clam in America has retained counsel.
The sea gives up many things: glass, bones, wreckage, messages in bottles. This time, it seems to have given Washington exactly what it wanted.
A case it could hold up to the light and call a threat.
A handful of shells.
And one more game.
(If you need me, I’ll be outside watching for the black helicopters)
