A tale of love and companionship that crossed the boundaries of nature.

Dateline: Gold Coast, Australia.

Steven Miles, placeholder-in-chief of the Queensland government has apologised to voters after a televised reunion went horribly wrong this week. The soon-to-be-curious-footnote in the political history of the deep north had pushed all the chips forward, betting on love to resurrect his government’s electoral hopes, when he personally intervened to ensure the reunification of Molly and Peggy, the internet’s favourite loved up same-sex different-species couple of the last three minutes.

Molly, a foundling baby magpie, was earlier rescued by local couple Reece Mortensen and Juliette Wells and introduced to Peggy, their Staffordshire terrier, the natural enemy of delicious, snack-sized native avian fauna.

The deeply unnatural pairing of a squawking murder bird and a twenty-five-kilogram killing machine delighted the millions of followers they soon accumulated on various social media platforms.

Not so the shadowy Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, which swooped in to separate the pair and seize the magpie.

Describing Molly as a fugitive from the natural order, a departmental spokesperson cursed the unlikely couple’s lucrative book deals and huge Instagram numbers, promising the bird would be returned to the wild, with updates available on the department’s Myspace page.

A brief internet firestorm ensued with politicians, celebrities, and confused surfer Kelly Slater demanding justice for Molly and her long-time, deeply abnormal companion, the dog.

Dipping his toe into the turbulent waters of the online love fuss, hugely interim Queensland Premier Steven Miles stepped boldly up to lead from behind the hashtag #FreeMolly, which was trending worldwide, if not, alas, in the vital number of outer metropolitan electorates he would need to hold to stay in his job.

Announcing a path to amnesty for Molly, involving permits, licenses, and a rolling series of photo opportunities involving local children given a day off school for the occasion, the Premier promised to let the perverse but beloved friends-with-possibilities ‘be possible all over again’.

In an unforeseen and heart-wrenching turn of events that has gripped the nation and the world, the much-anticipated reunion ended in tragedy on the sunny shores of Gold Coast, Queensland.

The star-crossed pair, whose friendship Miles said ‘defied the odds’ and ‘captivated hearts worldwide’, proving that anything was possible if you just ‘ignored the polls’, were finally brought back together in front of the media and the world before being quickly separated in a flurry of barking, snarling, bloodied feathers and savagely pecked eyeballs.

Not quickly enough, however.

A shaken Premier Miles, bleeding from numerous bite marks and peckholes, tried to calm the millions of viewers online and hundreds of screaming school children attempting to flee the scene. Party insiders, however, admitted that his message was compromised by the loud, wet crunching noise coming from the feather-clogged jaws of the dog.

The scene, now firmly entered into the annals of live television history with the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster and the collapse of the Twin Towers, leaves a nation in shock and mourning and open questions over the sequel to Molly and Peggy’s best-selling coffee table book, Be Kind, Be Humble, Be Happy.

As the nation mourns and flags were lowered to half-mast across golf courses up and down the Gold Coast, Premier Steven Miles extended his deepest condolences to all voters who were touched by Molly and Peggy's story. "This is a devastating outcome to what was a tale of love and companionship that crossed the boundaries of nature," Miles said, emphasizing the need for reflection and learning and definitely not rushing to blame anybody.