Elective Decisions

Mary Smith slammed her coffee mug down on her desk.  She once again had to review the journal entries for the month closing.  It was a great deal of annoyance to her.  There were always mistakes.  Too many mistakes made by too many people.

 

These are employees, she thought.  We aren’t paying them by the hour to constantly screw up!

 

As a CFO for a small Las Vegas casino, it was her responsibility to ensure proper journal entries.  Auditors preferred it that way.  Irregularities meant red flags, and that meant longer, painful audits.

 

Down on the strip, life was better.  There, she’d have five or six staff accountants sorting out every little journal entry, and then reporting it to her.  It was her fault, and she knew it.  She was the perfectionist, which had her micromanaging her staff, an unenviable position for the poor souls that were forced to work under her.

 

The work was meticulous and repetitious, creating more time at the office than at home.  By the end of the month, she felt as if she were working for minimum wage.  So it was not surprising when her husband announced one hot summer day that he was leaving her.

 

For months, the accounting staff walked on egg shells around the office.  One wrong move could have someone working in the mail room for a month, a veritable hell in the summertime.

 

With revenues falling at the casino, mistakes at work were tolerated even less.  The last thing that Mary wanted was to put anyone on the government dole.  But if the mistakes continued, she would be forced to do just that.

 

She had been in the office since six that morning, agonizing over the expense accounts.  The monthly budget meeting was on Friday, and she wasn’t about to post entries with errors.  That only messed up the final budget preparations.

 

She snatched up the phone.  “Susan, get in here,” she snapped.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied a shaky Susan.

 

In a matter of seconds, Susan appeared at Mary’s office, looking as though she were about to put her favorite pet to sleep, tears welling in her eyes.

 

Susan was the exact opposite of Mary’s tall, thin frame.  To look at her would lead one to believe that she was harmless.  Her tan skin, her shiny white teeth, and her perfect black hair made her appear as dainty as a tabby cat.  Inside, however, there was a tiger that could quickly remove an arm out of your socket.

 

“Grab a seat,” Mary firmly stated, pointing to the chair in front of her desk.

 

“What did I do wrong, Ms. Smith,” Susan whimpered, easing into The Chair—a term the accounting staff coined, largely because of the vast number of past employees that had their fates sealed in that very chair.

 

“We’ve talked about these comps before.  Do I have to remind you every month that when you debit an expense account, it must be credited for the same entity? Am I going to have to do this every month with you?

 

“No ma’am.  I promise I won’t make that mistake again.”

 

“I know you won’t, because you’re going to do them all again, and I want them in there by tomorrow afternoon.  What is the problem?”

 

“I don’t know.  I guess I’ve been upset about Obama’s election.  And now his Cabinet choices are worse than ever.”

 

“We’re all upset about this Marxist,” Mary teethed.  “But you’ve got to focus.  It’s either that or the mailroom for a month.”

 

“I’m sorry.  I will get those journal entries done so you can post them in the morning.”

 

“Good,” Mary quipped.  “Now get going.”

 

Mary turned on her office radio, anticipating Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast.  Unfortunately, the radio was at the top of the hour break, hammering its listeners with more Obama news.

 

Mary stormed out of her office, yelling to the accounting staff in their cubicles, “If I find out anyone voted for Obama in this office, you’ll find yourself sorting mail for the rest of the year!”

 

***

 

 

At the end of the Rush Limbaugh program, Mary rushed her car to Quicky Lube to get her oil changed during her lunch hour.  As she pulled up, she noted the new sign on the door that read, We use the newly proposed Obama standards in oil change.

 

Mary rushed in to speak to her usual mechanic, Chuck, a bearded burly man with grease on his hands, and a jelly donut stain on his collar.

 

“What are the newly proposed Obama standards in oil change,” Mary asked.

 

“It’s simple,” claimed Chuck.  “We charge you one dollar less for your oil change, and you get to help save the planet.”

 

“If it’s one dollar less, I’ll take it.”

 

“Hey, Joe,” yelled Chuck.  “Take Mary’s car around and give her the Obama oil change.”

 

After talking to Chuck for a bit, Mary walked around to watch the oil change in progress.  She shook her head in wonderment as the process continued.  She couldn’t believe her eyes.  She was having her oil changed and they were putting used oil back in.

 

“My God, they’re recycling the same old stuff and calling it change!  Come to think of it, isn’t Obama doing the same thing as he builds his cabinet!”

 

Hearing the yelling, Chuck dashed over to her car.  “It’s the new Obama standards, and you do get a dollar discount for using it.  We take the old oil out and put the new old oil back in.  Its change you can believe in.”

 

***

 

 

After only fifteen minutes, Mary drove down the Albertsons to pick up her prescription drugs.  The doctor had phoned them in, and when she called the pharmacy they hadn’t been filled yet.

She ran to the counter, waving at Randy, “Are my prescriptions filled yet?”

 

“They are,” Randy answered.  “But do you want your usual generic drug, or the newly proposed Obama discount drugs?”

 

“The Obama discount drugs?”

 

“Yep,” he said, motioning to the shelf in the corner with the words, Obama Discount Drugs.  “Those are them.  We give ‘em to you at rock bottom prices.  It’s only a dollar co-pay.”

 

“One dollar!  I’ll take it.”

 

She grabbed the pill bottle and began reading.  She quickly noticed that the date on the pills had expired.  She looked at it again in disbelief.

 

“Randy.  These are expired.  They’re no good,” she retorted in shock.

 

“It’s the new Obama discount plan.  We take the expired drugs, and recycle them for a much cheaper price,” he explained.  “It’s the kind of change you can believe in.”

 

“These could kill me,” she fired.

 

“Yeah, but it’s still real change, a real change in affordable prescription drugs.  You have to admit that,” he laughed.

 

***

 

Mary raced home from work, insuring that she wouldn’t be late.  Her baby sitter had a date, and making her baby sitter late meant listening to her whine about the difficulties of being a teenager.

 

Mary would’ve fired her long ago, but she was cheap, and cheap meant Mary put up with the occasional temper tantrum from an undisciplined child.

 

As Mary walked in the door, the baby sitter was walking out the door.  “I just changed his diaper, and put him to sleep.  I used the Obama standard.  Gotta go, Ms. Smith.”

 

“By,” Mary answered.  “What the hell is the Obama standard,” she asked as the front door closed.

 

A few moments later the phone rang, and it was her ex-husband on the other end.  “Hey,” he said.  “I get John this weekend.  Right?”

 

Mary rolled her eyes.  “You know you do.”

At that moment, the baby began crying again.  “What’s going on?”

 

“I don’t know.  The baby sitter said she changed the diaper using the Obama standards, but he’s still crying.  Oh, my God.  You don’t think…”

 

 

 

 

Concepts by NVA

“I can’t unwind,” replied the dime; “It’s as though if I did I’d die.”

“What nonsense,” whined a paper bill, “Imagine living in my till,

Shuffled to and fro each day, handled more than men can say—”

“You’re both greenhorns,” said a twenty; “I’ve never had people shun me,

My green back can scarce set down before I’m changed and moved around.”

“Balderdash,” Ben Franklin said, “Do you know that this bald old head

Has found cocaine and hands and trunks?  So get yourselves out of this funk.”

“You forgot me!” Yelled the fifty, echoed by Fives and Twos complete

With fraying edges bent and bound; with oily germs and screeching sounds.

But then the till opened before the bills could say one small word more,

And nails of pink gripped three young Ones, and smiling they knew they were done—So off they traveled from the till, while Franklin bid them all ill-will,

And Lincoln tipped his hat a bit, while dimes and pennies followed swift.

 

The ten-cent piece who’d spoke his peace found caves of soft and flowing fleece,

Wherein the sunshine dared not enter, thus keeping the monies fettered

Within bounds of darkened motion, tossing as though a small ocean

Bore their bodies on its back, from place to place, from shack to shack.

From hand to till, from till to cave, from cave to purse, from purse to rave—

Across a nation passing hands; the change and dollars saw the land,

Always feeling just the same, and wishing for a life more tame—

But when their dreams were answered swift, they couldn’t reconcile the rift;

For suddenly their brothers came, and came and came and came again—

Multiplied in use and name; but losing value with swift speed,

Inflation did then help to weed the hundreds from pockets of tweed,

Where soon they found Ones in the street, and felt the sting of swift defeat;

For without value monies die, and can make no new business fly.

 

Piles and piles of useless garbage turning brown and streaked with sewage

Covered streets and clogged the gutters; falling from trailer-park shutters,

Littering the grass like leaves, bundled up like hay in sheaves.

And new coins came with faces chiseled; angry visages that were sold

To appease a country lost within ideals quite brashly tossed

Around as though their detriment was Utopia heaven-sent.

The whiny dime then wept and sneered, wishing for a life not seared

By useless waning wasting life; feeling as though swift death sans strife

Would be a greater way to live; to escape the unfair torment

Of essential uselessness—for socialism floods markets, and money’s outlets

Shuffle hands, until the cash will fill the land—their value barely rival’ing sand.

So learn from these lost coins and bills, whose lives swift became without will,

As Maoism stole their use, and made them live with bums and youths

Whose homes could not be found

“The next case, of Mr. Manuel –“

 

“Mohammed,” the defendant interrupted.

           

“Ah, yes, another hate crime case, I see,” the judge added.  “Mr. Garza, I would like to remind you of proper courtroom behavior -”

           

“Infidels cannot judge me,” Garza pronounced.

           

The public defender attempted to pull the defendant to his seat.  “Please, Mohammed, don’t you realize the severity of these proceedings –“

           

“I will not have a woman representing me,” Garza roared.  “And I certainly won’t have an abid judging me!”

           

The judge’s eyes narrowed.  She was accustomed to the gender bashing, but the Muslim racial slur still stung.  “Bailiff, please see that the defendant’s chains are fully secured to the floor before we proceed.”

           

The blonde prosecutor came to attention, her years as a Judge Advocate General in the World War 3 arena clear from her demeanor.  “Your honor, we the State have proof that Mr. Garza has converted to Islam.  The mosque he has been attending has been documented to spew hate against homosexuals, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists, including pronouncements of the right to murder –“

           

“Kaffir,” the defendant screamed before the bailiff put a gag on him.

 

The tall black bailiff snorted once as she deftly avoided his biting attempts.  She then came back to the side of the judge.  The defendant pulled against the chains before glaring irately at the assemblage of women around him.  This was beyond humiliation. He’d converted to Islam to become the master of the universe, a man of the one true faith with the newfound right to do anything he wanted to anyone he wanted – especially women. Now they dared to judge him?

           

“- as well as promoting the degradation, denial of rights, and even the physical abuse of women. Mr. Garza was rounded up by police after a monitoring station recorded their discussion of –“

           

“Another planned honor killing of a girl deciding on her own husband,” the judge offered.  “Or for a girl who merely wanted to strip of the hijab in our hot summers?”

           

“They were planning to beat up those who had converted to Islam in ignorance before converting back to a more socially acceptable religion upon meeting with our councilors.”

           

“Has Mr. Garza been introduced to a counselor?”

           

“He threatened to kill her upon seeing a picture of her with her wife.”

           

“Ah, yes.  Are the primary charges for the planned assault or the death threat against the counselor?”

           

“Since the ACLU has been challenging the monitoring of mosques again, we’ve decided not to pursue a case based on recordings of their sermons.  After all, quoting a holy book – replete with calls to rape, maim, thieve and murder – might not be a case of screaming fire in a crowded building.  Recorded conversations within that same building are being held to be cases of freedom of expression and association.  Since they were inciting and perhaps planning violence, as does happen in sermons in mosques, the Attorney General is appealing the ACLU ruling – again.  However, the current lower court ruling against us does put all evidence collected via monitoring off limits right now. We therefore have to limit our case to his open pronouncements recorded by private webcam about his right to spread Islam by any means necessary.”

           

“Is that permissible to be admitted into court? The rulings see-saw back and forth …” the defense asked.

           

“He has openly confessed his right to remain in a politically incorrect religion.  If we are going to sentence men who seek to verbally punish their wives for their sexual liberty, how can we not lock up a man who advocates his right to rape his own wife?  If we arrest pastors for publicly denouncing homosexuality, how can we tolerate a man who claims his right to kill them for the same reason?  If we are going to pursue criminal charges against those who publicly politically incorrect beliefs, we must be equal in our application of the law.”

           

The judge leaned back in her chair, watching the defendant froth at the mouth.  “For conversion to Islam and refusing to convert back to an acceptable religion, I’m going to give him the middle sentence under official guidelines.  Four years.  He called a sitting judge a racial epithet.  For that, one more year, to be served after the first and not concurrently.”

 

The defendant attempted to lunge at the judge, his words muffled as he attempted to scream profanities at her.

           

“Your honor,” the public defender interrupted.  “Can I ask that they be concurrent?  I know his behavior – as his beliefs – are socially unacceptable and a threat to public harmony – and maybe even safety of protected groups – but he is a member of a protected group.  That requires a certain degree of leniency, your honor.”

           

“Muslims were protected until they began killing other protected groups in the name of their beliefs.  We must protect all groups against the oppression of whites and Christians and heterosexuals, but the systemic violence of one religious group against all other groups – majority or minority – is an utterly unacceptable threat to our multicultural society.  Five years, no parole, no time off for good behavior.” 

           

The public defender sat down heavily as her charge was escorted away.  She knew this would be the outcome, as it always was since San Francisco had been nuked by the Iranian Mullahs.  She hated defending those guilty of hate crimes, but this was the only job she was able to get given her educational background and prior politics.  It was a pity that the law school at Berkley she had attended no longer existed due to men like the one she was now defending.  

He knew it would take more than just his strength, his grit, his determination. It would take faith, faith in a higher power.

Grasping the shovel as if it were the only thing between life and death, he plunged it into the earth. The soft soil lifted easily, too easily. On each lift, the soil would cascade off of the shovel and fall back into the hole, leaving only a small portion to be tossed over his shoulder. His work was made twice as hard because of this.  Still, on the verge of desperation, he continued to dig.

As the dirt pilled up behind him, thoughts came tumbling into his mind.  Maybe he wasn’t in the right spot.  Gotta have faith, he argued, can’t quit now, not ever.  In a frenzy he pushed himself even harder. Maybe it’s too late.  Have faith, have faith, gotta have faith.

 

The mantra helped to keep a rhythm going, dig, lift, toss, dig, lift, toss.

The arms of the man were exhausted, tired from the exertion.  Can’t quit, gotta keep going, have faith, you can do it. Oh Lord, I need your strength, he prayed.  He plunged the shovel in again and again.

The hole grew, deepening all round him.  More anxieties gnawed in his gut.  Was this where it disappeared?  Am I in the right place?  He had witnessed the car disappearing under the flow of displaced soil from the earthquake and hoped he was in the right spot. The hillside came over the road and completely covered the car. Should he quit? He was old and tired and worn down. The man shook his head as if to shake off the weariness.

 

These thoughts will kill, he declared.  God has put me here, he has given me strength. I need faith, His faith, to continue.

 

He said a short prayer under his breath as he continued his task.  Give it to me, Lord. Give it to me.

He was an old man, but strong, stronger than most his age.  It wasn’t just the physical strength, though; it was the spiritual strength that helped him keep at it.  His hands were bleeding from burst calluses, but he never stopped.  To stop would be to admit defeat, to stop would be a lack of faith, to stop would be unthinkable.

A clunk rattled the shovel. Was it a rock?  Maybe, just maybe… Please God.  The tool scraped across the top of the car, scoring the paint.  In desperate joy and trepidation he dug along the edge of the vehicle, hoping to find the window, hoping it was still intact, hoping there was air left inside, hoping…

The window came into view, and with it, a face, a cherub of a face.

“Stand back!” shouted the man, who took the shovel and broke in the glass.

The little boy was pulled from the car and squeezed in the man’s weary arms.  The child put his chubby little arms around the man’s neck and said, “I knew you would come, Grandpa.”

Michael could see the houses covered in deep protective blankets of snow as his hunting party came over the ridge. The makeshift refugee camp was growing into a neo-medieval village. Those who had not the energy or endurance to hunt had collected their supplies to gather on the ice. Some cut blocks of ice to melt into fresh water, the snow being suspect from chemical fallout from far away refineries and factories left burning in the riots several years prior.

 

He could see the trails of smoke rising into the sky from their fireplaces. Fires he wished he could be near for warmth, despite the toxic danger of all the trash and asphalt they burned to keep from freezing. Oh, how he hated the cold, which seemed to never go away. Even the summers were mere thaws of the ever-present cold. Michael carried a few rabbits in his pouch, knowing his family would be grateful for the red meat. Anything was better than yet more coi and trout from the frozen over lake they fished day after day. Michael corrected his thoughts. No, he should be grateful to have found this refuge during the Chaos years. They had hunting options, and actually found rabbits sometimes. All the deer and horses and cattle had long since been caught and consumed. There was worse than having fish when he had no game from his hunt. The worst was to have no food at all.

 

A few birds circled overhead, seeking the fish caught by the ice-fishers. Perhaps Michael would set out snares to catch them, adding more variety to their diet. Michael came down the hill, seeing the girl he wanted to be his “partner” and her cousin walking across the frozen stream, the closest thing they had to a road in town in winter. No, he would offer it to her father, instead of a food reserve. Maybe then he could join their family, instead of his own. A better future lay there than staying in his parents’ overcrowded cabin. The thought warmed him as a heater of the olden days might have.

 

Memories of heaters reminded him of electricity. And his anger when it started to go away. The high prices as the oil ran out, as his parents had thought it would. And their sensibility to come here, to a small town in the wilderness, where the riots and starvation were merely a few shoot outs and hunger.

 

His environmentalist parents had been right about Peak Oil. What they weren’t right about was global cooling. He wished they’d been right about Global Warming instead.

The Wall was alive, its texture mottled and warm; and as she felt the soft firmness of muscle stretching infinitely in either direction, her desire was eclipsed by the terror that made her body tremble.  A battle raged between these emotions as her hand slowly sank into The Wall’s fleshy indefiniteness.

 

Involuntarily, her eyes searched up and down the eternal partition.  Bodies, male and female, stuck from The Wall.  Some had merely forelimbs entrenched in the living mire, as she did; others were barely recognizable silhouettes stretched taut against the barrier’s ghastly crimson skin; vague outlines of people once independent.  Some had tried to escape, after they’d been drawn bodily into The Wall’s flesh. 

 

Now their faces stretched horrifically frozen from The Wall’s insides as their minds were slowly taken from them into the collective barricade.  Some had tried to leap The Wall, whose height from a distance seemed surmountable, but in reality was thrice that of a man.  They too were captured, many of them writhing in agony as The Wall drew them in.

  

“Stop!”  Cried a voice from behind her.

Eyes drunk with terror, she stared back, found her voice quavering: “I can’t, mom—”

 “But you have to!”

  “I don’t want to touch this thing, dontcha’ get it?”

 “Then what are you doing?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Her mother began to sob, “but I do, child.  I was there.  I’ve felt it.  It pulled me, too; but I ran!  I ran and I escaped and matured—”

 “Then why can’t you save me?”

  “I—I can’t be taken again, Child.”

  She whimpered.  “M-mommy…”

 

Her father appeared from over a hillside, stood breathlessly next to her mother.  He yelled: “Is it too—no…it is.”  A hand went to his forehead, he looked imploringly to his wife, then his daughter, then: “I’m coming for you sweetheart, keep fighting,” and he was sprinting for The Wall.

  

Her mother screamed: “Walter, don’t!”

  

But he wouldn’t be stopped.  The girl was already in up to her elbow, eyes swiftly losing their humanity, the look of a bovine dullard creeping behind the pupils.

  

Walter struggled with her for hours, sweating and bellowing; but the harder he pulled, the faster her arm sank into The Wall.  Her eyes soon lost their light completely as a leg and then part of her torso was sucked into the flesh.  Her free arm began to beat at her father, trying to force him away from her.

 

Walter’s wife joined them, and both parents pulled and strained, trying to save their only daughter from the hypnotic Wall.  In the process, Walter touched the glowing flesh, and as his stricken eyes looked on his wife, he gave up the fight.

 

***

 

Years later the family emerged on the other side. They were mindless, soulless, careless…essentially dead, like everyone else whom The Wall had immersed into itself.

 

And still the glowing partition of socialism beckoned across America, ever luring its victims toward Utopia, and crying for more. 

“Keep them stoned.  Keep them drunk.  Keep them happy.  Make them think you are their friend, and you will squeeze every last drop from them; you will use them dry.  You will make them yours, and you will further be a benefit to society.” 

 

Smiles lit up the speaker’s face and the conference room, where thousands of older men and women sat cross-leggedly in fashionable suits that spoke of upper middle-class finances. 

 

The speaker continued: “They have used you, now you will use them.  You will teach them to revel in liberal amorality, to fight rebelliously and ravenously for causes that, besides mattering very little, serve no just ends.  You will be a muse that draws the stupidity of naiveté into the open and swallows it whole, garnished with a generous helping of ill-deserved self-respect.  And the best part of it is, when you’ve finished, they will think you have done them a great favor, speak positively of you to their friends and relatives, and send more of their own to be consumed.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we do, and this is how we live.  Our nametags may silhouette us as professors in the arts or the sciences, both physical and literal; but we are not professors in these things.  Instead, our education is in the art of reaping: specifically the reaping of those subordinate to us—our constituency of student hosts, if you prefer such a vulgarity. 

I ask you now only to do this as you leave the room: I ask you to fight for the grandeur of our cause so that those like us may continue to live in mutual comfort and consumption.  I ask you to lie, to deceive, to appeal to their rebellious notions and encourage those notions until, like a pack of empty-headed lemmings, they plunge from a precipice leaving their funds, assets, and future behind.  To us.”  A cheer. “Use your worldly wisdom and stature!  As patriarchal figures, deceive them into moral positions without a shred of common sense.  Encourage them to seek out others of the same mental deliberation under the guise of elitist revelation!  Give them half of the truth, and fabricate the other half, so that they believe unquestioningly, and over time learn not to question those who appear to be of the same mind.  Go!  Fulfill your positions as professors and advisors and clerks and faculty.  Take what is rightfully yours by biological tenure. 

And when you awaken, remember none of these words; only know that what you are doing is what is right, by your own philosophy and moral codes; what you are doing is what needs to be done to encourage civilization and society! Feed off the young.  Do not question the roots of your contemporary situation, do.  You’ve heard it said that those who cannot do, teach.  What is not said is that those who teach rule a nation’s minds.  And to control morality is to control the world.  Ladies and gentlemen, our vice is fiduciary stability. And we are damned respectable because of it.  Our income comes from those who don’t deserve independence.  We are the collegiate professors and faculty of Lisbon’s own Kornell College, and we will always be!”  Applause so deafening it rattled the rafters shook the auditorium, and cheers and whistles swept the room.

 

Champagne and other things were passed around, and the older and craftier members of the collegiate society began to drink and dance and reach a heightened state of consciousness.

 

The speaker reclined at the head of the room, a smile tickling dimples in his cheeks, idly sipping amber liquid from a glass made from a hollowed mound of quartz and studded with diamond ruby and gold-filigreed gems.  He sat thus through the night, until all of the professors and faculty had collapsed in a heap of cathartic, smugly self-deserved exhaustion, some of them half-clothed and all of them wearing the same wicked grinning expression.   An expression modeled from that of the speaker, and telling of a fox-like cunning that was altogether terrifying.

 

The speaker was motionless while everything was cleaned and returned to convention—the unconscious and now blank-minded professors who would, like zombies, carry out the speaker’s bidding and be duly satisfied for having done so; the chairs and tables and bowls of absinthe-laden punch that would be bottled and circulated amongst the faculty-population of the campus; the collegiate robes and tassels that signified various levels of study from different institutions; and lastly the saturated atmosphere of self-important self-pronounced intelligencia.  The kind that quite amused the speaker, as despite its claims it told him that they were still as naïve as ever, and thusly still his.  He told them the strategy by which he had ensnared them, and their eyes were blinded.  They looked but they could not see, they listened but they could not hear.

 

And when everything was cleaned and cleared, when the sun peeked through the stained-glass windows of the Unitarian auditorium that serviced the entire town, the speaker pulled on the cap and gown that signified his absolute tenure as the president of the private college and walked through the medieval-looking double doors. 

 

He made his way up an empty morning street and to a mansion that rested just beyond the dormitories of the college.  There he stood, on the front porch, with a length of pipe protruding from his mouth, royal-gown fluttering in the wind; like some stagnant vestige of Grecian royalty transmuted two thousand years to the present.

 

And as dawn fully bathed the campus in its early-morning brilliance, the students began to arrive.

I didn’t mean to open that can of worms, but I did mean to instigate further tensions; and damned if I didn’t start a mindless revolution with the types so liberal their brains are falling out.

 

I was at the lunch table, and all I said was: “Yes.  I think in general women look better with longer hair.”

 

Elizabeth has a knack for making her eyes bug out of her sockets like Roger Rabbit on a coke binge whilst cutting people with her tongue, the comical nature of her face and the injury of her whit always mixing my emotions into an awkward smoothie.  “I know your type,” she said. “You think I oughta’ be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, right?”

 

Her cohort wrote me off, muttering, “Sexist,” and continuing to eat her pie.  Evian’s skin was a chocolate brown, and she had the kind of hair that many women would guilelessly murder their quadriplegic granny and BBQ the corpse for.

    

Being male and full of ego, I felt compelled to defend myself: “It’s not so crazy, is it? Generally speaking, I don’t like women with boyish haircuts, is that so bad?  It seems more natural for a woman to be feminine. Right?  To have longer hair, in effect.  Right?”

    

“I oughta’ shave my head.”  Said Elizabeth, then she made some estrogenically-charged telekinetic communication to Evian who swiftly gathered her things and followed her feminist girlfriend out.

    

The rest of the people at the lunch table looked at me, and I was compelled to shrug my shoulders and say, “What?”, but that just felt too cliché.

    

What I didn’t expect were the domino-effect implications.

    

In the cafeteria the following day, I was enjoying a bologna and peanut-butter croissant, washing it all down with a Red-Bull and tinkering with the idea of chain-smoking for dessert, when in walked the feminazi twins.  Coats covered with snow from the raging blizzard that everyone could see torturing the pine trees outside, they wore thick wooly hats, and I wondered how Evian fit her ubiquitous hair beneath hers.

    

They walked to me like over-zealous self-involved models on an expensive runway, and with a flourish whipped off their woolen caps.  My first thought was: “Good God, they’ve gotten Cancer,” but then I saw their smirking grins.

    

Elizabeth said, “How’s this for natural?”

    

Evian said, “Sexist.”

    

I chewed the cafeteria’s rubbery bologna thoughtfully, took a long swig of Red-Bull, and said: “I’m almost surprised.  I don’t know whether to be offended that you despise my opinion so much you feel you’ve gotta’ spite me by mutilating yourselves, or overjoyed that you look like you’ve got mange.  I’ll choose the latter; here, let me start over: Well, how nice of you to join me, cue-ball and eight-ball.  Please, sit!”  They sputtered, but I was on a roll, “Shaved your heads to teach me a lesson, eh?  Well, I can’t say I’m terribly angry with you; it’s below freezing outside, I can’t imagine anything more torturous than having a shaved head in the winter, regardless of your sex.  That, and you’ve got to live looking like escaped ET’s until it grows back, so I’m sure you’ve learned your lesson… though I must say, Evian, yours looks much nicer than Elizabeth’s; not to say it looks good, but at least I can gawk at you without feeling nauseous.”  But I wasn’t done, I went to Evian and put my hands on the back of her shaven skull, rocking it back and fourth, muttering: “Will I get an ‘A’ on my final exam?  Not likely.  Damn.” 

    

She slapped me and followed her girlfriend to the lunch-line, I returned to my disgusting lunch and made grimaces at the ogling public.

    

However, it was still not over.  Word of my wonderfully witty and politically incorrect reply spread across campus, and very soon there was a battalion of chrome-domed feminazis, strutting their shaven wares and looking like cookie-cutter-copies of that goofy bald chick from Star Trek I.

    

I felt empowered, and I’d learned something:  I need never worry about feeling guilty around a devout feminist again.  All I need to do is bring this preference of mine up: “I think a woman looks nice with long hair.  In fact, I think long hair looks more natural,” and within days, hours even, she will do her damndest to spite me by shaving her noggin’.

    

Truth be told, ladies and gentlemen, I’m a jerk.  But I love being the bald chick muse.

Great men two hundred years ago brought fourth this Godly nation.

They fought for what is true and right to summon liberation.

A free Market with free speech was the new configuration—

For which patriot fathers died—For Our Unified Nation.

 

But with time came Marx, a man possessed with killing corporation;

And soon Russia fell to riots, birthing collectivization.

Tens of millions died in murders wrought from commie motivation;

And indeed those commies changed the world with their fiat inflation.

 

Proselytizers of this movement then took a brief vacation,

And made their way to the USA advancing socialization.

Now, a young man named Obama speaks and is soon a sensation;

Saying things that give no answers except “Collectivization”.

 

And the acorns of Missouri will arrest you for confessions

Opposing this Obama and his theft of Liberation.

So in the year two-thousand eight, if you find the election

And support Barack Obama you’ll have an Obama Nation.

 

Thus, supporting his repression, you become abomination.

So vote McCain in 2008, if you love this great nation.

And vote for that Obama if you want fiat inflation—

For, the “Change you can believe in” is the Loss of Liberation.

“Anybody here?”  No response.  He scratched a balding pate. “WAITER!”

 

A girl of sixteen with too much makeup applied in too isometric a fashion sauntered up to the podium, apologizing quickly: “Sorry about the wait.  The Rex’s were in the grass-pool again.  They had to remove an outside wall and wheel in a forklift—”

“Fine.  Just get me a table.  Now.”

“How many?”

“How many does it look like?  ME!  C’mon…”

She swallowed and did her best impression of an insincere smile: “Right this way, sir.  My name is Michelle, I’ll be your hostess this evening,” she sat him at a table on one of the restaurant’s many balconies, then took her shirt off and began massaging her upper torso. “Which one would you like me to bring the drink on?”

The balding man did a double-take; then: “Put your shirt on and get me a waiter, I’m not thirsty.”

“But I’m supposed to—”

“NOW!”

She blushed and grabbed at the shirt.  Another patron across the balcony held up a finger: “Uh, hostess!”

“Just a minute!”  She ran to the table.

The man who’d called her sat with a young lady dressed in the kind of finery that pissed off revolutionaries in countries with names that rhymed with “ussia”.  “Yes, the left breast,” he said. “Oh, no—my wife, not me.”

Michelle turned to the wife and began to bat herself around like a very excited cat.  There was little eroticism in the act.

Back to the bald man with the constipated expression to complement his reflective noggin:  He put two feet up on the table and whipped out a phone that had a tiny 3-D dancer pirouetting around the outside as a “sleep” animation.  When he opened the phone, she winked at him, did a little shimmy, then sucked back into the holoprojector on the side.  Satic effervesced over the tiny viewscreen.  Baldy waited until a man that could have been his twin appeared: “Okay, I’m in, I have a table.  When do you want me to do the implant?”

The other man had to spit a wad of chewing tobacco into a cup, wiping his mouth as he answered: “When the dancing boys get on stage, there’ll be ten minutes until the animatronic T-Rex’s come out and do the can-can.  Now when that happens, the chandelier projectors go through their bicentennial act, and you’ll be damned for service because all the staff—sans the cooks, of course—come down to sprinkle glitter and fake blood and all that on the patrons.  I want you to sneak into the kitchen, go past the walk-in freezer on your left, there’ll be a small passageway, take a right, go to freezer number seventeen and do what I told you with the vial.  Then stay there until I call you.”

“Okay.”

“Repeat it back to me, Caid.”

“Uh…wait for the fruits to Fosse, ten minutes till the reptiles impersonate some Frenchies, then when the holo-show goes, so do I…how long till it starts, y’think?”

“How should I know?  You’re in the damned restaurant!”

“Yeah, but you used to manage the kitchen—”

“The Kitchen, Caid, not the floor.  That’s a different department.  That’s how I know the cooks’ll be out smoking instead of getting ahead.  And that’s why I’m telling you the timing on this is very important—”

“Look, couldn’t I just sit at the bar; then go back there?”

“No, no no no no.  The drunks don’t pay attention to the show, neither do the bar-staff; they’d see you.”

“But—”

“But me no buts!  And while you’re waiting, I’d recommend the dog.  They got a shipment of Pomeranians last week, and they fatten ‘em up down in Cuba, these days.”

“Thanks, boss.  I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Sit on a pickle and rotate,” the imaged disappeared.

“May the Country Stand Strong—” Caid returned; but his superior at the interior had already disappeared; and now Caid felt slightly inferior—which just goes to show that alliteration can and will go too far.

A waiter showed up a second later wearing a cape and a wig, and smoking from a pipe while itching him/herself incessantly: “Whatcha’ want, I’m Franky.”

“You’re my waiter?”

“You’re my customer?  C’mon, asshole, I ain’t got all day.”

“Get me the…Pomeranian?”

“Rare?  Medium?”  The He/She thing had a notebook.

“Both.  And skip the salad, bring me a beer.”

“You can’t have a beer, you told Michelle no and made her put her shirt back on—”

Caid grabbed the…person…by the shirt/blouse: “You get me a damned beer, kid.  And keep the weed out of it, I need to be awake by the end of the meal.”

The waiter gulped: “Okay.  You want the deser—”

“No!  I don’t want the damned desert, get it off the ticket.”

“Sure about that, Mac?  The desert is totally complimentary.  I’ll even keep the cigar-butts out, if you like—”

“Thank you, but I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Oh, there’s no dairy in the sorbet.  It’s a kind of low-fat tangy-twist; and there’s a bonus:  It’s made from the agricultural surplus of the collective-farms, so you know the quality is better than anything else you’ll find at the StateMart—”

“Kid, listen: I work for the government.  I do not—read my lips—I do not want the desert, okay?”

“Even though we’ll have to throw it out, and waste a citizen’s quota?  You know someone else might like—”

Caid took the table’s water and threw it in the kid’s face: “I say no, I mean it!  Now buzz off!”

The server buzzed.

Now all Caid had to do was—

“Your beer, sir,” Michelle had her shirt off again and was shimmying.

“Didn’t I tell you not to do that?”

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“It’s okay.”

She had a hand to her mouth, “Ahem…”

“I’m not giving you a tip!”

“Hmph!”  She bumped his table as she turned and he had to catch his drink.

Caid sipped the beverage with an expression akin to an octopus in an Asian country; which is to say fairly irate, but with a smattering of fear that some huge hand might pinch him with chopsticks and eat him whole.  Crazier things had happened in Applebees.

But time seemed to have failed the test on longevity, and in moments the dancing-boys were cavorting queerly across the stage while everybody clapped and the old ladies did cocaine off the hostess’s chests.  Then ten animatronic dinosaurs pranced across the stage; though one slipped and fell into a green pool with a splash, and suddenly the waiters and hostesses were everywhere; adjusting their costumes as they sprinted to the scene and cursing under their breath.  The history projection was going to start early, Caid could tell.

He drained his beer and ran down the steps, around a podium, through an aisle, past the restrooms, and toward a pair of double doors that were as clear of traffic as the boss had promised.  He pushed through with a cautious look over his shoulder, took a left past the first freezer, then found his way into number seventeen.  From his breast pocket he removed a vial of nanoprojectors and an alkaline facilitator which he put the vial into, shaking it until the LED turned green and indicated a full charge.

He sprinkled the projectors into the sorbet, then waited.

Music was loud on the stage; he could hear the animated explosions of the Arab ‘shrooms, and then some overly orchestrated love tune that described the relationship of the First Man and the Afghan.  Caid rolled his eyes and then a cigarette, smoking quietly, the phone in his hands.  When it finally did start to vibrate, he jumped and dropped the nic-stick, then answered hurriedly: “H-hello?”

“You’re fuzzy, Caid.”

“So’re you.”

“Probably not the best reception in a freezer, eh?”

“Yeah…”

“I won’t ask you if you got the stuff mixed in, because you did.  Now I’ve got my eye on the back door; gimme a minute and I’ll let you out…comfortable?”

“Not really.  It’s freezing in here.”

“It is a freezer.”

“You’ve got a real sense of the iron—”

“Shut up or I’ll make ‘em take your tax-break.”

“Nothing so drastic as that, now!  I’m sorry.  I got kids to feed, y’know.  And I never volunteered for field duty—”

“No bureaucrat ever does… Okay, run out the door now, and take an immediate left!”

Caid got up and ran to the door—

“Ditch the phone!  Ditch the phone!”

He threw it at an ice-encrusted wall, then opened the door and ran to the left.  There was a double-door with an emergency crashbar and warning ‘grams that blinked in Caid’s contacts and told him not to enter.  He ignored them and crashed through.

Five armed police officers shot him dead in an instant.

 

***

 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the figure onstage—he was a graying man in his mid-fifties with a goofy kind of laugh and a Texan accent.  “Biforcate yourselves for this momentous intrusion.  I giveth you: Desert!”

The restaurant clapped the vaudeville Bush as he goose-stepped off, then “oohed!” and “ahhed!” as the cigar-sorbet came out with chocolate tobacco butts sprinkled all over the multicolored scoops that seemed to float in the State-Sanctioned Ever-Cold glass.

“It’s especially good tonight, don’t you think?”  Said the man who’d sat near Caid on the balcony.

“Yes,” she replied. “A lot better than our hostess—y’know, in MY day, they’d be begging for a happy ending.  I’ll bet she doesn’t give two in a year.”

“You were very good—mmm!  What is that, do you taste it?”

“Yeah…kind of nutty.  You think they actually have frozen butts in here?”

“No.  Applebees doesn’t have that kind of cuisine.  At least I don’t think.  When I was working on the set of The Scientologist American they didn’t have that kind of thing; no sponsored food-chain would have it.”

“Well.  Maybe somebody missed a shipment.”

Her husband picked his teeth, looking at something in the sorbet. “I suppose it’s possible…”  His eyes were faraway. “I suppose it’s possible…I suppose it’s possible…I suppose it’s possible…”

“Honey?”

His face began to register a kind of dread: “I suppose it’s possible…I suppose it’s possible…” He grabbed at his throat, and his eyes began to glaze over, and he began to choke, and she could see static dancing in his mouth.

“What’s the matter! … What’s the matter! … What’s the matter! … What’s the matter!”

Then she felt it in her own esophagus; she felt the nanites diverting blood from one passageway to another, and suddenly she felt incredibly pleasant, and then the ice-cream didn’t matter, and neither did the poor stripper/hostess, or anything else as the image slowly coalesced above her head.

When two hundred other patrons suddenly dropped dead, the serving staff was only slightly surprised to see a little man in a faded grey uniform projected from the open mouths of the deceased.  He smiled and held his hands out, and his voice echoed across the balconies.  There was a full-sized projection of him coming from an extraordinarily obese Italian at the Reserved Tier in the middle of the restaurant. 

The volume on his animation was the loudest: “Good evening.  Please, turn on the security transmitters; you need to catch all of this.  First, it must be understood that we at the Academy are very sorry about the sudden downsizing, but we had no choice as housing quotas have gone up in the north sector.  This was a government-sanctioned elimination; every man woman and child in this restaurant is a registered re-appropriations evader, and insists on hoarding space in the south.  Now far be it from us to intrude; but economically, it is penultimate for everyone in this fine country to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers guaranteed.  These elites are enemies to that cause, and have fought time and again to segregate the country, the economy, your healthcare, and your ability to live freely and with absolutely equal opportunity.  Their elimination is merely necessary.  So laud those who have died in the name of freedom!” 

The figure pumped its fist into the sky, and the March of Freedom with the Barack overture filled the room as the Collective Republic of America symbol bounced off the walls.

Michelle picked up a body and began to drag it toward the kitchen.  The caped waiter was beside her.  She said: “They could’ve at least sent a new signal this week.”

He/She nodded. “I get tired of the overture myself.  Hey, are you going to the beach after work?”

“Not with you, Frankie.”

“It’s Franky with a ‘y’, today.”

“My apologies—you should stick with the ‘ie’.”

“But y’know, I just hate the maxi-pads so much.”

Michelle laughed, “Yeah.  But they tip you better.”

 

Kevin Bennett is a strict conservative, and a firm believer in all
things Christian.  Recently graduating with his BA in theatre from a
liberal university, he is no stranger to the enemies rhetoric.  He is
known to be thrown with refutable force from classrooms preaching
unabashedly ignorant liberal policies.  Usually he picks himself up
and goes in for another licking.  As you can imagine, Mr. Bennett
isn’t the best at social relations.  When he’s not picking fights with
Obama-zombies and collective-brained socialists, he enjoys writing
music and fiction.  Sometimes he’ll watch Arrested Development with a
beer or two.  Or three.

You can contact Kevin Bennett by email at clarkstaplesbennett@gmail.com