Category: Satire

Secret Zombie Presidential Candidate, Ep. 1: Dead tired

Charlie Lantino tried to cover up his anxiety by rocking back in his chair. He heard the bolt on the front door click open, and carelessly tossed the newspaper on the square table he had been hunched over. In big letters, the headline read “PRESIDENT WILSON DEAD.”

In walked a large silhouette that Charlie instantly recognized as The Scientist. Charlie watched silently as The Scientist turned the corner into the changing room and came out moments later, dressed in a clean apron with leather goggles pushed up into his long brown hair. The Scientist exuded power, from his chiseled face to his hulking body. He wasn’t what Charlie expected from a laboratory jockey. However, he had worked with The Scientist for seven years, and was shown first hand the extreme intelligence The Scientist possessed in the areas of anatomy and mechanization.

“Has there been any word yet?” Charlie blurted, trying to avoid letting his nerves project in his voice.

“Be patient, Charlie.” The Scientist cooed in a fathering tone. “He’ll be here shortly.”

As if on cue, a rattle at the front door signified the end of the waiting, as a large wheeled gurney was rolled into the center of the main room of the laboratory, obviously containing a body under a sheet. The nurse rolling the cart wasn’t much of a nurse. More than a cursory glance revealed the painfully fake wig under the giant white hat, and the masculine shape filling out the bleach white robe. Even without seeing the pock marked, sun seared face occupying the uniform, it was clear that he wasn’t a nurse, and that he had borrowed the clothes from somebody half his size. However, he didn’t need to fool anybody to pull off his heist, he only needed to avoid drawing attention.

“Did you have any trouble finding the body?” The Scientist distractedly asked, focused more on the obscured corpse than on the “nurse.”

“Nah, ’twas right where ya’ told me ta look.” A gruff, weary voice responded from behind the ridiculous getup. “Now, when’s do aye get’s a paid?”

“The money is back here in the cryo-room” The Scientist extended an arm, guiding the nurse back through a doorway opposite to the front corridor. Once the two disappeared into the cryo-room, Charlie picked up the newspaper and began thumbing through for the sports page. He heard an undistinguishable voice raise in a panic, followed by a single gunshot. He winced at the sound, but recovered quickly and proceeded to pull the sports page out and find the horse racing section. The Scientist would be a while.

An hour later, The Scientist was finally done washing and had just changed into a fresh apron when another rattle at the front door signified the culmination of their plan. Another gruff looking man, this time dressed as a milkman, crossed the threshold with great effort, dragging what looked from afar like a sack of potatoes. When he emerged from the shadowy hallway into the harsh light of the laboratory, it wasn’t a sack of potatoes or even a sack at all. It was a young woman in a half-conscious state wearing a simple dress and no shoes.

“What the Hell are you thinking, Abner?” Charlie snapped, gesturing at the woman that Abner had sprawled on the examination table in the middle of the laboratory. “I thought you were grabbing a hooker, not a housewife!”

“Jus’ doin’ what I was told, Mr. Charles.” Abner replied in a practiced cadence.

“There will be searches and bloodhounds and newspapermen!” Charlie’s blood pressure was still critically high.

“I told him to change targets.” The Scientist growled in a monotone. “We need a subject without diseases. You know what happened last time.”

The conversation abruptly ended before Charlie could get a word in edgewise because the woman began to regain awareness and began screaming and drunkenly clawing her way off of the observation table.

“Restrain her before she hurts herself!” Charlie commanded. Abner quickly overpowered the woman and latched shackles to her wrists, reducing her to impotent writhing. The pitched caterwauling was annoying, but none of the men paid any heed. The walls were thick and the adjoining building was theirs.

As the men approached the operating table and The Scientist lowered his goggles over his eyes, the woman’s screams turned to pleas. Her imagination had taken over, and she was convinced that she had fallen into the hands of cannibal rapists. Her pleas grew more desperate, as The Scientist cut her clothes off with a pair of oversized shears and the men inspected her body. She became more confused as the men appeared to be no more aroused than her doctor would be. In fact, it seemed more like a physical exam than a sexual assault. Her arms were unshackled in order to be lifted and lowered. Her mouth was opened and inspected. They even tested her reflexes with a little tap to the knee.

In her confusion, she fell silent and began to shiver. Abner, noticing her discomfort, chirped a quick “Yeah?”. Charlie and The Scientist returned their own affirmations and stepped away from the woman. Abner then handed her a thin medical gown and mumbled a “here ‘yar ma’am.” The woman, grateful for the ordeal to be concluding, began to address The Scientist, to which he waved his arm in dismissal and proceeded to check some dials on a machine on the far wall.

“It is time.” He impassively stated. Abner removed the chocks on the wheels of the observation table and wheeled the woman toward a giant metallic container in the corner of the room. It resembled a large cattle watering basin, but long and thin. Above it was suspended a metallic slab with many wires and rods protruding from the top. The wires ran along the ceiling to a massive wall-sized device with innumerable lights, dials, levers, and buttons. A few of the lights were illuminated or flashing, but the device seemed to be in an idle state.

Simultaneously, Charlie wheeled the cadaver to the metallic container and, with the help of The Scientist, lowered the sheeted body into the container using a hoist. Charlie caught a corner of the sheet just as the body disappeared into the abyss, pulling it out and wadding it into a heap on the gurney. He then stepped over to help Abner with the hardest part.

The woman, sensing the tension in the room and the impending finality of her situation, began to claw and scrape and writhe and scream anew. However, she was no match for the brute strength of Abner and Charlie, and was quickly wrestled into a passive position facing the ground. Her increasingly desperate flails afforded her no escape, and the men cantilevered her into the metallic container. As her head peeked over the lip of the container, she saw a confusing sight. The container was deeper than she thought. It extended below the floor to a depth of perhaps six feet. At the bottom of the container was the corpse, one familiar to her. It was Woodrow Wilson.

After an instant of recognition, she fell into the chasm, landing on the presidential corpse. Before she had a chance to try to escape or even move, The Scientist whipped a crank around in quick rotations, slamming the slab down on top of the container and extending the rods into the sepulcher, pinning the woman down on top of Woodrow Wilson.

Her muffled screams were hardly audible as The Scientist continued to spin the crank, applying more and more downward force on the rods. With a subdued crack, the protestations stopped.

“How much longer will this one take?” Charlie asked, knowing full well that The Scientist could only guess the answer. It had been twenty years since that last night of wanton cruelty, and Charlie was tiring of the daily monotony of recording sensor values in a logbook and passing the time. He was approaching 50, and was feeling it. The desk job and lack of physical exertion made him feel more like 60. Conversely, The Scientist looked like he aged only 5, maybe 10 years. Charlie always suspected that their work in extending lives was only a piece of the puzzle and that The Scientist was also working on anti-aging elixirs.

“You know this is a slow process. Remember, it took 10 years for the Kennedy boy to ripen.” The Scientist could hardly even hide his boredom these days. “Speaking of the Kennedy boy, you took care of him, right?”

“Of course! We should’ve foreseen the consequences of using the dirty hooker for that experiment. That kid came out of the incubation chamber a poonhound and a boozehead from day one. He obviously wouldn’t ever be able to obtain the power necessary to help us.” Charlie meandered through the rehashed story, staving off a yawn.

“How did you dispose of him?”

“I shipped him off to the Navy to go fight the Nips. He won’t come back.” Charlie paused to light a cigarette and then gestured the lit end toward the incubation chamber. “This one, though. He has the right pedigree. He’ll go somewhere.”

Another five years elapsed without any indication of the process completing. Charlie had come aboard late in the Kennedy resurrection. He never got to meet the unlucky bastard who was resurrected by hooker blood, but he certainly got to meet the unholy result. The creature, person, whatever it is, had the sex drive of ten men. The Scientist blamed that effect on the hooker’s chlamydia. The Kennedy creature also had the undead equivalent of fetal alcohol syndrome. The Scientist blamed those deficiencies on the fact that they sedated and killed the hooker well before dumping her into the chamber. After wasting 17 years incubating a drunk womanizer who would likely amount to nothing, there wasn’t time to screw things up again. The Scientist’s anti-aging research appeared to be generating results, but those results appeared to be, at most, a halving of the aging process, and had not yet accrued to Charlie’s benefit. Resultantly, they were both quite motivated to do it right this time; conscience be damned, they used a clean, live woman.

Yet another monotonous day of make-work research was punctuated by a subtle indication of change. One of the panels began to light up. The green indicator that was a daily accompaniment for 25 years was joined by an amber indicator and in close succession a blinking red indicator. The Scientist, not even attempting to hide his giddiness, pushed a few buttons and engaged a lever before shuffling off into the transition room to prepare for the new arrival. Charlie, who had experienced this part before, began putting together a mental checklist for when he went to the grocery. Returning from the dead consumes a lot of energy, and the new creature would likely eat through multiple times the amount of food as a normal man, at least until the biological processes stabilized in a few weeks.

The next three days were a whirlwind of activity, from buying enough food for a small army to acquiring various medical supplies, mainly for cleaning and wrapping open wounds. Much like preparing for a baby, Charlie was nesting. The creature would awake with adult intelligence, but the physical transformation isn’t complete for a few months. During that time, Charlie would be Mama, nurse, and therapist all in one.

Finally, the time came for the grand reveal.

“Charlie, keep the vacuum pressure up while I raise the lid, it’s a bit more humid than last time, and we don’t want any condensation to form,” The Scientist muttered while staring at a bank of dials and adjusted a lever.

“I’m getting a failure indication on the table lift motor,” Charlie replied, tapping the indicator with his knuckle.

The Scientist replied with a dismissive wave. “It’s probably just the sensor. It is quite finicky. If the motor doesn’t engage, you’ll have to manually crank it up.”

With a complete lack of fanfare, The Scientist engaged the lid motor, and a small hiss broke the airtight seal. A breathtaking stench of death wafted through the laboratory, inducing a wave of nausea in Charlie. It doesn’t matter how many times you unseal the undead, the smell never fails to hit you right in the gut.

Charlie flipped a switch and the table lift motor sputtered to life. The sensor was bad, just like The Scientist said.

What emerged wasn’t quite human. It was covered in gore and pustules, skin not fully formed. It gasped a phlegmy breath, filling its underdeveloped lungs with the relatively fresh air of the laboratory. A sound of firecrackers caused Charlie to flinch as the creature cracked out 25 years of joint stiffness, moving its mummified limbs only a small amount before letting out a muffled yelp. Its jaw hadn’t yet unstuck, and its tongue likely wouldn’t be fully functional for a week or two.

“This one doesn’t seem to be as well developed as the Kennedy creature. Look at those giant pustules on his chest,” Charlie vaguely gestured to the creature.

“Those aren’t pustules,” The Scientist growled, rushing over to a panel on the monitoring device. “Those are breasts!”

Charlie stood agape for a quick moment before rushing over to a pile of ticker tape collected in a bin.

“N21, nominal. C17, within tolerance. Q-factor, minimal” The Scientist mechanically checked the relevant sensors that would betray the sex of the creature. He ran his fingers over the class window of the Q-factor dial when a small piece of flotsam caught his eye.

Plink. Plink. Plink. The Scientist flicked the axial rod of the dial until the junk dislodged from the dial arm. The arm slowly erected like an Egyptian obelisk, leaving the masculine minimal range behind. The elevated Q-factor explained the buxom breasts. The creature was female.

“How could this have happened?” Charlie nearly sobbed, the magnitude of this failure finally setting in. “We didn’t have this problem with the Kennedy creature!”

“eeeeeeeeeeshhhhhhhhhtttt” the creature exhaled, trying to communicate with Charlie. He didn’t need to interpret the slurred language to know that she was famished. He helped her off of the table and into a wheelchair, her every move eliciting a groan of excruciating pain.

After a few minutes of quite unladylike gorging, the creature was temporarily satiated. Charlie knew that it wouldn’t last more than 30 minutes. The transition room was configured like a burn ward, and the creature’s every want and need could be attended to without leaving her bed. Charlie was mentally preparing for spending the next 6 months in this room nurturing this beast.

The Scientist walked in, obviously fuming but trying his best to hide it. Charlie, not one to know when to shut up, blurted out what was on his mind. “How the hell are we supposed to gain the power we require with a damned woman? Not only did we fuck up with the Kennedy creature, but he’s coming home a fucking war hero! Now we have a fucking housewife who is supposed to seize the levers of governmental power! Either the divine is putting up roadblocks, or we’re too damned incompetent to pull this off.”

Charlie sighed, having said his peace. It had been a trying few months, and this disappointment broke him. The Scientist, at first resolute to ignore Charlie’s outburst, turned to address him. However, the creature beat him to the punch.

“hhlllliiiiiiiishhhhhhh…. aaaeeeeeeeeeeeee…. wuuuurrrrrrrrrr…. uhhhnnnnnnnnn” she breathed, trying her hardest to form the words with her misbehaving tongue.

“What did she say?” The Scientist asked nobody in particular.

“Is that her name?” Charlie answered anyway, unsure why the creature picked this exact moment to name herself, “Lizzie Warren?”

The creature flinched and fluttered in an uncomfortable looking contortion. If it was a response to Charlie’s guess, neither of the men knew what it meant. Lizzie Warren quickly realized that she was unable to communicate her frustration to these goons. She laid back on the hospital bed in resignation. “IS A WAR ON??!?” her inner Wilsonian voice screamed to an empty theater.

July 11, 2019
A Chronicle of the Insurgency, Part Five: At Home with the Hasturs

Anti-abortion activist waging war on vulnerable women. Stay classy, The Guardian.

Previous Parts: One, Two, Three, Four, et cetera.

Junior stood on the sidewalk back against the building wall with his “Abortion is Murder” sign. Most of the passing college students looked at him with disgust. A few were visibly angered and mouthed or muttered insults or flipped him off. He ignored them and kept scanning the crowd for possible threats. A fat dyke waddled by, the saggy jowls of her thighs flapping against her knees. She fixed him with a porcine look of hatred.

“That one?”

“No, Dad. Look down at her ankle.”

“Phylactery? She’s one of them?”

“No, monitoring bracelet; she’s Operation: Rescue This! She’s not going to risk a probation violation.”

The dyke flipped them the bird with both hands, and stomped angrily down the sidewalk to the applause and cheers of a few onlookers.

“There. The tall girl with the stringy hair. Wave your sign, Dad.”

“Ohhhh…” Hastur pumped his “Satan Loves Abortions” sign up and down eagerly. Nothing.

Junior expertly rotated and tilted his sign to flash the sunlight off it so as to attract the girl’s attention. Suddenly she noticed the protesters and began to run towards them, screeching. Junior planted his feet apart and crouched down, tightening his grip on the thick cardboard tubing supporting the sign.

“Remember, you can only block them if they attack you or your sign. We can’t defend each other.”

When the girl was three feet from them she reached up to grab at Junior’s sign. He quickly tilted the top of the tube backward. She sensed the trap that had been set for her, and turned to Hastur.

Hastur waved his sign back and forth. “Jesus hates abortions, but Jesus loves you,” he called. That did the trick.

Becky can’t believe that she’s under arrest for stealing something that made her angry.

The girl crouched and jumped at Hastur’s sign, timing her jump so that she reached apogee when the sign waved closest to her. She grabbed the poster board and held on as she fell. Hastur wasn’t anticipating an attack that violent and precise from a Human female. The tubing slipped through his hands until the bottom hit the ground. He regained his grip, but that only caused the sign to tear in half as the girl fell. She stuck her landing and scarpered off with the posterboard, screaming “this is why Womyn can’t get abortions in this state.”

Sad, eight-bit synthesized music played and the message “Player 2 replay level?” appeared in the air ahead of them. Everything else dimmed and stopped.

“Volleyball lesbian, Dad. She’s the toughest one on this level. You want to try again?”

“Let’s move on to the next level before your mother gets here.”

“Wow, you mean she… Well, she didn’t abort me.”

“So what’s the next level,” asked Hastur quickly. Junior was growing up too damned fast, and his first meal hadn’t helped things.

Best timeline, ever. Amirite?

“Rooftop Koreans. We’re on top of a dry cleaning business, but we’re controlling the looters at the electronics store across the street. The electronics guys are protecting our building. Don’t shoot anyone unless they are actively breaking in, or carrying loot out.”

An array of weapons appeared in the space in front of them.

“Which one do I want?”

“Shotgun. Go easy on the ammo. It takes them a while to bleed out.”

Hastur picked the pump action twelve gauge with buckshot, and Junior chose the Mini-14 Ranch Rifle, with the Super Deluxe Tacticool upgrade which he had unlocked through numerous in-game rewards.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“This just in. The Simi Valley jury in the Rodney King police brutality case acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force.”

Suddenly the boom boxes on the street below shut off. There was a moment of eerie silence, and then a low roar punctuated by shouting, and the sounds of glass breaking and of solid things beating on clangy things. A police cruiser sped by the intersection with lights and a brief siren whoop – getting the hell out of Dodge.

“Dad! There. Crowbar guy. Wait until I tell you.”

“Clang, clang, clang!”

“Stop or we’ll shoot,” yelled Junior. The skinny Korean in the blue polo repeated his words in slightly accented English.

“One.. two.. three. Now, Dad!”

The fat Korean in the yellow polo fired his shotgun.

“Great nuclear Azathoth,” swore Hastur, his words immediately repeated by his avatar to the puzzlement of the blue-shirted Korean. “That thing kicks like a Shoggoth.”

“Hold it tight to your shoulder. The button under your [untranslatable] sucker on your [untranslatable] tentacle controls what your character says.”

A crowd of people swarmed the entrance to Park Electronics and sheltered in the terrazzo entranceway underneath the marquee. A few faces turned and pointed at the rooftop. Junior squatted down and motioned for Hastur to do the same.

“Clang, Clang, Clang!”

“Can I shoot again?”

“We’d lose the level. There isn’t a clear shot at the door with all those bystanders, which is why they started up the crowbar again.”

Their strategy session was interrupted by three loud and annoyingly perky tones. “Dum. Doop. Doo!”

Junior twitched his tentacles and the word “pause” appeared; the scene darkened and the action stopped. The rooftop scene cut to a white background with a blue logo consisting of a “W” inside a circle.

“Designated visitor Myra incoming,” said an ice princess voice.

“Myra?”

“That’s how the WartCo AI pronounces it. I haven’t figured out how to fix it.”

“Dad…” Junior rolled his multiple eyes. Definitely his mother’s son in that regard.

The WartCo logo contracted until it was a small blue dot in the center of the screen. The dot was replaced with a circular moving image which grew until it filled the screen. The image showed a buxom young woman tugging a rolling suitcase down an urban cobblestone alleyway. The woman walked out of the street scene and into Hastur’s rec room. The street scene cut to the WartCo logo on a white background.

“Wartyvision,” whispered a chorus, followed by a muted “Doo. Doop. Dum.”

“Mom!”

“Honey!”

“Hi, boys. Who wants pizza? Fresh from the oven at Armand’s?”

“Best mom ever,” observed Hastur proudly.

“And how,” replied Junior.

“Junior, take the stasis box from your mother and go set the table.”

Junior tentacle-hugged his mother and took the suitcase from her before exiting.

Hastur also tentacle-hugged Moira, but in a distinctly different fashion than his son had done.

“Somebody missed me.”

Hastur made a surprisingly small and needy noise.

“Me, too,” she whispered. “Just wait until Junior goes to bed.”

“So how was your day,” boomed Hastur.

“Good. You should have seen the face on the Armand’s guy when I put the pizza in the ‘suitcase’ and started rolling it. ‘Hey Lady, you wrecked your pizza.’ It’s Capitol Hill, they’ve seen weirder.”

“Junior’s birthday, amirite?”

“Yes,” she said, somewhat sheepishly.

“Mom, Dad, everything’s ready.”

June 19, 2019
The Glibening, Part Eight: Curiouser and Curiouser…

Tu musica

Previously…

The door opened and Ramesh found himself face to face with a Troll, a Troll like in The Hobbit. The Troll was doing a dope deal with a chunky young Korean dude.

“Oh shit, the cops,” shrieked the dude.

And at that moment Ramesh remembered that he was wearing a badge.

Today’s Story…

The Troll stood about six foot eight even with his slouchy posture, with a bald head and gray goatee, and several obvious piercings. He was fat, like three neckrolls fat, and dressed in Doc Martens boots, calf-length baggy black jorts, and a black t-shirt with the Thought! Magazine nameplate over his left breast. And large and surprisingly shapely breasts they were, which was a bit unnerving for Ramesh. The Troll looked at Ramesh and grinned widely. His teeth weren’t as fangy as Ramesh expected, and were clean and some had silver fillings.

“Look who’s back. Hi Doc,” said the Troll to Ramesh before turning back to the dude.

“Stuff it, Cho. Doc Bombay ain’t no more a cop than me.”

“Nice suit, Doc,” said the Troll, turning back to Ramesh. “Big change from your usual outfit.”

“Hi. Thanks.” said Ramesh, very curious but deciding his best action was to play along. He recognized the handle “Doctor Bombay, You Know from Mumbai” from lurking on the Thought! website at his boss’ behest. Perhaps all South Asians looked alike to Trolls, and obviously the dude didn’t know Doctor Bombay.

“Hey, can you drop something off with Mario,” the Troll asked Ramesh.

“Sure.”

“Great, I’ll make it worth your while. Here’s his zee,” said the Troll producing a sealed plastic bag of weed.

“Alea iacta est,” thought Ramesh and stepped through the door.

“Here’s a bud for you. Pineapple Express.” The Troll unpalmed a smallish colita and handed it to Ramesh along with the bag.

“Pineapple Express combines the potent and flavorful forces of parent strains Trainwreck and Hawaiian… This hard-hitting sativa-dominant hybrid provides a long-lasting energetic buzz perfect for productive afternoons and creative escapes.” -Leafly

Ramesh had smoked quite a bit of pot before becoming a federal prosecutor. His gift bud appeared to be from the same batch as the weed in the bag. He gave the megabud a good sniff. It was indeed the Express, and of a most fragrant character. “Thanks,” he nodded appreciatively to the Troll and dropped the pot into his suit coat pocket.

“What are you going to be, Doc? Detective? Which timeline?”

“Junior federal prosecutor, working for Preet,” said Ramesh, remembering that the truth was the best lie of all.

“Hurr-Durr,” laughed Godwin. “No way…”

Wow, so Trolls really did laugh like that, thought Ramesh.

Godwin’s laugh degenerated into a long, nasty series of lung noises which culminated in the production of a sizeable loogie which the Troll expertly spat into a short, widemouthed brass vase sitting on the floor. The loogie hit with enough force to cause the vase to tip slightly, whereupon it started rotating making a wuka-wuka noise before finally coming to rest. The oyster, which had been sitting on the lip of the vase covering the opening, slowly burbled up then burst with a wet “plorp” and oozed slowly into the vase.

“Hey Godwin, my bags look kind of light,” whined Cho holding up two anemic snack baggies containing shake, stems, and seeds – the worst sort of schoolyard schwag.

“Take it or leave it, Cho. And tell Mr. Rico Suave he’ll get a nicer bag if he came down himself instead of sending his fanboi interns, and buy more than a dime bag at a time. You’d think he could afford that, right? Your bag is light because of the risk I’m taking,” said Godwin hooking his huge thumb at the sign on the door. “I’m doing good in commenter training and don’t want to fuck it up. Why are you still here?”

Cho stuffed the bags in the pocket of his skinny jeans, and hustled out the door and up the steps, shaking his fulsome rump in its stretchy denim cradle to Godwin’s obvious enjoyment. “Doctor Gilhooly is right, you people are all just one step away from Nazis,” called Cho petulantly over his shoulder.

Ramesh expected Godwin to pursue and catch Cho, and subsequently dismember and/or eat him. Instead, Godwin just slammed the great door shut and began beating on it with his huge fists. “That little shit,” bellowed Godwin. Ramesh now understood how the dimple had formed in the door.

“Hey, could you have the Paw do me one last time,” asked Godwin, still slightly tumescent from his scene with Cho and subsequent raging.

Ramesh didn’t know what Godwin meant by “do me,” but he was about to find out. He had nothing against gay, but working a zombie monkey paw to give a Troll a telekinetic handy was just a bit out there.

“Sure,” he said, playing for time.

To Ramesh’s surprise, Godwin turned his back and bent over slightly cupping his knees with his huge palms. There was ample buttcrack showing. The troll was wearing a black jockstrap with “NASTYPIG” woven into the waistband fabric in red, along with a pig snout logo. Ramesh suddenly felt queasy, like an hour after Chipotle queasy.

Ramesh slowly reached into the purse and extracted the Paw by the stump and held the hand upright, palm towards Godwin. He knew it was best to be very specific with tulpas, but he also didn’t want to risk giving the wrong instruction. And Godwin had said “one last time,” so presumably the paw knew what to do.

Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Make Godwin happy.
Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,
Just like before.

Sad monkey hoots. The Paw slowly formed its tiny hand into a claw and started flexing its fingers. Ramesh noticed a twitching lump underneath Godwin’s shirt in the vicinity of the shoulder blades. He waved the Paw around with a vigorous circular motion and as he did so the shirt lump tracked the movements of the Paw. Godwin began making a series of happy grunts. Ramesh started moving the Paw down then up, from as high as his arm would reach down to the point in space where the jockstrap waistband began to move. He didn’t want to risk taking the Paw below the equator. Dark spots appeared at several places on Godwin’s shirt, as the Paw popped pustules and expressed bullae.

“Right there,” grunted Godwin in a voice an octave below basso profondo.

Ramesh worked the paw extra special hard and wondered what he had done in a past life to deserve this. He finally finished everything that could reasonably be considered Godwin’s back, and paused.

Godwin straightened up, as much as one could with his physique. “Thanks, Doc. I haven’t had one that good since Lützi Steegenwould was here. She took the MTA out to Brooklyn to buy a garden rake with her little intern stipend just to scratch my back. Godwin became lachrymose, which eventually caused the production of another loogie and another ringing of the vase.

Ramesh had worked up a bit of a sweat. That was the difference between Western magic and Eastern magic – wizards just waved their wands and shit happened; shamans had to expend energy equal to the effect they achieved. The Paw waited for a few seconds after Ramesh stopped moving it, then started cleaning under its fingernails using its thumbnail, then vice versa. Finally the Paw balled its tiny fist then unballed it quickly three times in succession then shook its fingers out. Funny that something dead and rotting, and animated by the darkest necromancy, should be so fastidious. Ramesh dropped the Paw back into the purse.

“I guess I’ll head over to Mario’s now,” said Ramesh.

“Yeah, I know you all have to get ready. I’ll miss you guys,” snuffled Godwin.

“Hey, you’re going to make a fine commenter,” said Ramesh, extending his hand.

“That means a lot, you being a William and Mary graduate.” At that, Godwin pulled Ramesh in for a big hug, and Ramesh found himself smothered in Troll moobage.

“Thanks,” said Ramesh once Godwin relaxed his embrace.

Ramesh turned and walked down the corridor, trying to be nonchalant as if he did this every day. He wondered if Godwin was checking out his butt. But even more disturbing was how Godwin knew he was a William and Mary alum. Unless Doctor Bombay was also an alum, but that would be suspiciously coincidental.

He came to to a Tee in the corridor. He stopped, looked and listened. Identical corridor in each direction. From the right he heard a muffled chorus of screeching, from the left he heard peppy Latin music.

The choice was obvious.

June 5, 2019
The Glibening, Part One Million Seven: That’s How You Troll

Previously

Music

“Sergeant Brown, since it’s going to be a while may I go inside and use the bathroom,” asked Ramesh.

“Sure,” said Brown. “Just stay on the First Floor.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” said Murphy.

They walked through the glass doors and into the building lobby. Behind the empty security desk a grimy Panasonic CRT monitor slowly cycled through different security camera feeds. They reached the elevators and Murphy paused.

“You going to be long,” asked Murphy.

“No,” said Ramesh feeling as if he was eight years old on a roadtrip with his parents.

Murphy stopped to read the Vandersnatch Building directory signboard. Ramesh hurried past Murphy, grateful that his surveillance didn’t extend to pee breaks.

Ramesh returned to the lobby with his badge better mounted so as to flash out from behind his jacket as he walked. He found Murphy smoking a cigarette in defiance of the “No Smoking” sign posted in the lobby just above a well-used ashtray.

“Damn, this place has gone downhill. Cryptid Quarterly, Tinfoil Times, ReptilianWatch, Orgone Research Foundation – whatever the fuck that is. I remember when Thought! was the most crackpot thing here. Back when your fashion and lifestyle magazines were still here, before the wacko crowd started moving in.”

Ramesh’s curiosity was piqued. What the fuck was an Orgone? He pulled out his phone to look it up on the internet.

“Hey kid, I’m gonna go drop a deuce. You going to stay here or go back outside?”

“I’ll go back outside,” mumbled Ramesh without looking up from his phone.

“Okay.”

While Ramesh was lost in his research he became vaguely aware of someone else in the lobby. His eyes flicked up and he saw a man pushing a housekeeping cart towards the back of the lobby. Ramesh returned to his phone. Reich was a badass. Kicked out of the Communist party, books banned and burned by the Nazis, kicked out of the psychiatric association, then the whole Orgone thing. The FDA enforcement action against Reich sounded like the type of crusading work his boss did, but they’d never get a ruling that sweeping today.

“Yep, they sure put him through the spice grinder,” said a voice in Gujarati.

Ramesh started then looked around. The man pushing the maintenance cart was now facing him as he towed the cart through a door at the rear of the lobby; it was the shaman from the bad production number which had started this whole thing, now dressed in khaki slacks and mustard uniform polo embroidered with a sun logo. The shaman disappeared through the doorway, followed by the cart, and the door swung quickly shut and clanked.

Ramesh sprinted to the door. He worked the bar and charged the door only to have it open a few inches then stop, jammed by something. Ramesh looked through the opening and saw the landing of a stairway. The cleaning cart had been placed so as to impede his progress. He stuck his hand through the door and rotated the cart so it would allow the door open wider. He pushed the door open as far as it would go and slid sideways through the doorway to find himself at the top of a stairwell with cinderblock walls, concrete floors and stairs, and metal railings and trim. The stairwell was lit with dim yellow lights in metal cages. Ramesh headed down.

He reached a landing where the walls changed from cinderblock to dark gray stone blocks, black stone stair treads with noticeable wear at the centers replaced steel-edged concrete, and the railings became more ornamental and antique looking. On the landing floor was a camel scrotum leather pouch with a flap closure – a purse. His instincts, honed by countless hours of dungeon crawling games, kicked in and he scooped up the purse.

A powder flask made from a camel scrotum.

He trotted down the next flight of steps to a landing with a door. Ramesh grabbed the handle and gave it a turn – it was locked. Maybe the key was in the purse. He opened the flap and looked inside, he didn’t see anything. He shook, then palpated the scrotum but felt nothing inside. Finally he turned the purse upside down and tapped it out. A small cascade of sand, dust and fluff tumbled to the floor, but no key.

The only thing he could do was continue downwards. He descended to the next landing and turned the corner to see a tall, thin table made of carved rosewood atop which lay a silvery plastic tray containing a small lavender colored packet – a Twinings Darjeeling teabag. He opened the purse and dropped the packet inside.

After the next flight down he reached a large metal door without a handle or keyhole. The center of the door was dimpled outward. The area where one would expect the handle to be had been reinforced with plates to deny access to the slit between the door and its frame and to cover the area where the lock mechanism presumably was. There was a yellowed sign on the door – “Absolutely NO Thought! Magazine Interns Past This Point. -R Kestrel, ed.” The sign had been adorned with a penis graffito.

The purse and the teabag had obviously been left for him to find, and were somehow related to his getting through the door. The logical thing was to put the packet inside the purse, which he had already done. He opened the flap and peered inside. Nothing discernible had happened. He had no water and no heat source, hence no means of making tea. He removed the packet and tore it open and found that it contained the expected teabag. He dropped the teabag back into the purse and closed it and squeezed it. Again, nothing.

And then it dawned on him that he was being trolled to no lesser a degree than his boss had been. The teabag was a clue, not an artifact. He rubbed the purse on his forehead, first shyly, then more enthusiastically. He had, after all, gone to Woodberry Forest, and wasn’t one of the athletic or popular boys; he was no stranger to the feel of a scrotum on his forehead.

Suddenly he heard the vocalizations of a langur monkey and felt something stiff and bony moving around inside the purse. Ramesh shrieked and reflexively dropped the purse and stepped back. The purse hit the floor, lay still for a moment and began pulsating. The flap opened slowly, and a small furry hand emerged crawling on its fingers and pulling the stump of its lower arm behind. The monkey paw was mostly mummified, yet some fleshy parts remained and those were in a liminal state between putridity and mummification; two small jagged bones poked out of the stump. The paw picked up steam and swarmed up Ramesh’s leg and onto his shoulder finally hopping up onto his head where it started grooming his scalp with its nails.

Unbidden, a childhood memory rose up from the depths of his mind, and he blurted out a nursery rhyme he had been taught by Bhagavaandaas, the old man who lived in a lean-to built against the outside wall of his family’s compound in Gujarat. The old man had no discernable job, yet was respected by all. He sat outside his house all day and received visitors with whom he had long, quiet conversations and served tea. Once young Ramesh had learned that it was only okay to approach the old man between visitors he found that Bhagavaandaas was an endless source of tales.

Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,

Be now my servant.

Monkey Paw Monkey Paw,

And me defend.

At that, the Paw did a little dance across Ramesh’s shoulder, then ran down his leg and over to the door. The Paw then turned around and ran back to lie down beside Ramesh’s foot. Its small hand formed into a fist and the Paw twitched then went limp.

The Paw was telling him he needed to knock on the door. Kind of obvious, but whatever. He picked up the Paw and the purse from the floor and dropped the Paw into into the purse. He heard the sound of a monkey shriek and the teabag and its wrapping came flying out of the purse and fluttered down to the floor. Apparently the Paw was particular about its lodgings. He looked down at the teabag and wrapper and tried to decide what, if anything, to do with them. The decision was made for him as they became first translucent, then transparent, then disappeared altogether. He approached the door and heard muffled voices coming from inside. Ramesh raised his hand and rapped twice with his knuckles. He waited, but nothing happened. He balled his hand into a fist and beat on the door four times, producing a loud booming which echoed through the stairwell. Still nothing.

Ah, he needed to use the Paw to knock on the door. Ramesh retrieved the Paw from the scrotum, and held it so as to knock on the door. The Paw was not cooperating – the wrist was limp and the hand was no longer formed into a fist. He waved the Paw at the door causing the nails to scritch on the door to the accompaniment of an angry series of monkey barks.

The Paw was totally being a bitch, but that was the nature of tulpas; they were not mere automatons like golems, but had agency. Ramesh had first heard the word “tulpa” during a Cultural Anthropology course at William and Mary, long after Bhagavaandaas was dead. The old man had given him a thorough education about tulpas and Ramesh had thought it was merely a bunch of rhymes and stories. He decided to wheedle the Paw.

Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,

Open the Door,

Monkey Paw, Monkey Paw,

Give me good luck.

The Paw formed into a fist and thrashed five times, miming a fist knocking on a door, then paused, then thrashed twice more. Each thrash of the wee fist was followed by the sound of a hearty rap on the door. “Tap, tappa, tap-tap… tap-tap.”

The door opened and Ramesh found himself face to face with a Troll, a Troll like in The Hobbit. The Troll was doing a dope deal with a chunky young Korean dude.

“Oh shit, the cops,” shrieked the dude.

And at that moment Ramesh remembered that he was wearing a badge.

To be continued…

May 22, 2019
Dark Humor

DARK HUMOR

As an adult I always had a dark sense of humor. This wasn’t a problem because I was a Marine Corps Artilleryman and we were all pretty twisted. The first time I got any strange looks, I had changed jobs from Artillery over to Communications. During our “Welcome back to civilization” brief after an Afghanistan deployment, the safe driving instructor told us a story of a young woman texting her boyfriend while driving. She ended up dying in the bottom of a drainage ditch. Her last text was “Where u at?”. I said maybe he answered that he was in the ditch. I thought that was funny, but apparently no one else did. I told my wife this story, still chuckling over my own cleverness, she shook her head and gave me the stink eye.

Fast forward 7 years, I’m watching Amazon’s Patriot with my wife and laughing my ass off when he pushes a coworker in front of a truck for the second time because the poor bastard was starting to recover his memory about the first time. If you haven’t seen Patriot, and your humor is dark, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Anyway, my wife turns to me and starts going off. “What’s wrong with you, how is this funny?” “Too dark!” So I asked her about the movie we watched the prior weekend, UHF. She said that one was “GIRII GIRII,” Japanese for right on the edge. I was a little surprised by this, she had never complained about my humor being too dark before. After a lot of my jokes, she would tell me that was wrong, but she would still be laughing. Somehow Patriot crossed a line.

I prefer dark humor to toilet humor. Robin Williams screaming that he is “Rainbow-Fucking-Randolph” is funnier to me than anything I’ve ever seen in a Jim Carrey movie. Or Snatch, when Cousin Avi kills Tony while trying to shoot the dog, funnier than “The price is wrong bitch”.

How did I get this way?

I blame Dr. Demento, a weekly radio show that played weird and funny songs. I used to listen to it every Sunday night on my little transistor radio under my pillow.

It started innocuously enough: Wet Dream

One of my all-time favorites: The Scotsman

Little darker: Dead Puppies

My intro to Tom Lehrer: Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

Weird Al: You Don’t Love Me Anymore

More Tom Lehrer: Masochism Tango

All of these are GIRI GIRI to my wife, funny and really close to the line, but not quite over.

My wife says this one is over the line, but it did the impossible, made a pedo clown funny: Kinko the Clown

Even now just singing it to myself puts a smile on my face.

I have learned and don’t make as many jokes in front of people as I used to. I did piss my Sister-in-Law off once: she is an awesome lady, but she got my redneck truck driving brother to walk in the https://www.walkamileinhershoes.org/challenge. We were talking about that while drinking beer and got on the topic of wife beatings. I told two of my favorite jokes:

What does a woman do when she gets home from the Woman’s Shelter?

The dishes if she’s smart.

And…

What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?

Nothing, someone already told her twice.

She knows I love her and if someone was beating a woman I cared about, it would be a bad day for that son of a bitch, but holy shit, she was mad. She didn’t yell, but you could tell. No long term harm but my wife was flabbergasted that I would tell those jokes in public. I figure that because I don’t beat my wife and I have a very dim view of those who do, there is no reason to be offended by my telling the jokes. If I had beat my wife, and then told those jokes, I could understand the anger.

I will close with my all-time favorite example.

My wife really hates that one, but I have listened to it many hundreds of times and I still laugh every time. It starts sounding like a love song, every line adds a little more of a twist until you realize the truth.

Usually YouTube comments are a dumpster fire, but this one was perfect:

Edgar Allan shakespeare 2 years ago

I wish I could forget this song so that I can experience listening to it for the first time again.

I don’t think I’ve been offended by a joke since I was 13, and most if not all of the Glibs seem about the same, so let me know your favorite things that are not appropriate for normal people.

May 9, 2019
A Chronicle of the Insurgency, Part Four: Quid Pro Quo

“This is Lisa Fletcher reporting from Capitol Hill where there have been reports of sewer explosions and of giant sewer rats emerging from toilets. DC Water and Sewer Authority is on the scene, and here we see a DC Fire and EMS ambulance leaving leaving the Dirksen Senate Office Building. We don’t know who or to where because of patient privacy laws, but we have reason to believe it isn’t life threatening.”

“Thanks, Lisa, and now to a live press conference at City Hall with Mayor Bowser and DC Water and Sewer Authority director Gadis.”

§

The staff at Le Diplomate were shocked when their normally-punctual senator didn’t show for her standing Friday evening reservation. The hostess then somehow managed to mention that to Mr. and Mrs. EJ Dionne of The Washington Post as she was seating them. On Monday a messenger brought her two orchestra-level Orange Section seats to the matinee performance of “Avenue Q” at The Kennedy Center.

§

Imelda Ramos checked the calendar for the days appointments. “Senator K” was written in big letters for the 9:30 slot. She always took care of the senator herself, as much for the prestige as to avoid the complaints from the girls. She made sure Maria the cleanup girl parked in the spot just outside the front door so she could move when the senator arrived. Hopefully the senator was having a good day. If it were anyone else, Imelda would have fired her as a customer, but in DC a senator was a rare prize and having her as a regular drove up business.

Nine twenty arrived and Imelda sent Maria out to wait in her car. The senator was usually punctual, and always had someone call if she were delayed or had to reschedule. Nine forty-five came and went. At eleven she waved Maria back inside. When Judy Woodruff came in, Imelda mentioned that the senator was no-show today and how unlike her that was.

“Your daughter is in college, right? Have her call my office about an internship.

§

Jayne Sandman’s Saturday evening soiree was as full of awkward groping as a teen party with no parents. Those who had heard the rumor were trying to make sure everyone else knew that they were in the know. Yet, nobody wanted to be the first to just blurt it out like a yokel from Manassas or Frederick. Many hints were dropped about a probable forthcoming announcement from a Senator from flyover country.

§

On Sunday morning the Tim Russert Memorial TV Studio at the National Press Building was abuzz with rumors that Amy Klobuchar was missing. Tasha the makeup artist whispered that to Kamala Harris while she was getting her ready for her appearance on “Meet the Press.” Fortunately she had time to text her campaign manager. “AmyK disappeared from DC. Suspect she’s holed up with declaration imminent. Be ready.”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to go on a campaign tour as like someone’s personal makeup and hair girl.”

Credit: Mythical Libertarian Woman

He hadn’t heard her come in. It had been two nights and he’d been baching it. He’d assumed that she’d been holed up in her ratty little apartment on Capitol Hill; her own fortress of solitude. He rustled the law student’s paper ostentatiously. Nothing. One of The Iron Rules was: No papers, bills or briefs (ha, ha) in bed. She must want something very badly, and there were few things for which she needed his participation or assent. He decided to troll harder.

“Jenkins in my Con Law class argues that the Second means an individual right to keep and bear arms.” That should get her going.

“Oh,” she responded, shrugging off her satin peignoir to reveal a sheer babydoll nightie with nothing on underneath. “I’ll bare more than that…”

She was going to run for president, he thought. Because it wasn’t his birthday where he got a “blowjob” which was really just her taking his cockhead into her mouth for five seconds of unconvincing moaning, then giving him a handy; their anniversary where they had perfunctory sex recreating their wedding night; or Valentine’s Day where they awkwardly and often painfully enacted the trendy eroticism of the moment, as defined by Cosmopolitan and Teen Vogue.

She let the peignoir drop do the floor and simultaneously crouched down and hiked up the babydoll to place first her left knee on the bed, then her right. Her pendulous, teardrop shaped breasts swayed in rhythm with her movement as she crawled towards him on her hands and knees. She had a predatory look in her eyes which he had never seen before. Her eyes were fixed upon his crotch.

By now she had reached him and stopped. She was on all fours with her shoulders lowered and her head tilted up to look him in the eye. She licked her lips awkwardly yet greedily.

“Who are you,” he asked, reflexively drawing up his knees to protect his manhood.

“I am your wife.”

He woke up the next morning with her tightly snuggled in as the little spoon. Usually she was on her side of the bed like a sarcophagal statue of a Roman matron in repose.

Her eyes opened and blinked and her tongue darted out. “Good morning, Dear. Shall I make breakfast?” Without waiting for an answer she slithered off the bed and put on the peignoir and headed downstairs.

Breakfast was coffee, bagels and lox. She sipped at a single cup of black coffee, picked at a bagel, but devoured the fish. He decided to try his luck and groped her from behind when she was bent over the sink, something she hated. Surprisingly, nothing was thrown or stabbed.

“You really should go to the cabin, you know…”

“What? Are you displeased with me?”

“No, but I know you’re planning to announce and you need to be ‘found’ back in Minnesota so you can credibly claim to have been on retreat. Doris will see you and then call Ollie who will call the press and get his fifteen minutes as ‘Rural Sheriff Finds Missing Senator.’ I’ll wrap up here and fly out to meet you.”

“You are the best, hon.”

April 2, 2019
The Art of Misdirection

A Chronicle of the Insurgency, Part 3:

The Art of Misdirection

by Tonio

“How long,” asked Bryan, her chief of staff.

Phillips, the Capitol Police inspector, checked his watch. “Their average response time for us is around four minutes. They always have units staged nearby.”

Tsimpris, the man from the Architect of the Capitol office, checked his phone. “Sunshine just turned onto Constitution. They have this really neat location track…”

There was an awkward pause and the three men looked again toward the corpse seated on the toilet as if they expected some change. Nobody wanted to look, but it somehow seemed disrespectful to not look.

The corpse that had until recently been US Senator Amy Klubuchar had settled backward with the spine against the seat lid. The head had rolled forward and the mouth was slightly agape with the lower jaw and lip sagging, the tongue poking out slightly. The eye sockets were empty and a yellowish pink fluid dripped from the nose. The personal bathroom, outfitted like that in a business hotel room, was dripping with the sewage that had erupted from many toilets in and around the US Capitol.

“What about evidence collection? We have to find out who did this! What if other senators are in danger? Or members of the House? Or the staff and public?”

Phillips checked his phone perfunctorily. “Everything is under control. We are doing a wellness check on every senator and member. The morgue people will collect everything they need from the body. We are taking measures, but quietly so as not to cause a panic.”

“What am I going to tell her husband?”

Phillips’ phone buzzed. “The ambulance is coming through the gate now.”

There was another long, awkward silence, followed by a tap on the door. Phillips cracked the door open and looked out, then nodded to someone outside. A man and a woman in DC FEMS uniforms rolled in a stretcher.

“Do you need to say goodbye,” asked Phillips.

Bryan turned to look at the corpse. “You were cruel, but I’m sorry to see you like this. Goodbye.”

At the word “goodbye” Phillips jammed an injector pen into the side of Bryan’s neck, then expertly broke his fall as he went slack. The DC FEMS crew sprung into action and quickly loaded the semi-conscious body onto the stretcher, strapping it down securely. Phillips patted Bryan’s cheek roughly. “Pleasant dreams, asshole. Enjoy your stay at Saint E’s.” He nodded at the ambulance crew who wheeled the body out.

“Christ, he was tiring,” said Tsimpris. “Your guys tipped off the press, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s hope Chris scores with the WJLA chick, she’s pretty hot.”

“Nobody sucks cock like the DC press.”

Then another knock and the Sunshine Cleaning crew wheeled in a commercial dehumidifier unit. The first team positioned their unit up in far corner, powered it up and left.

The second team didn’t even uncoil the power cable, but opened up their unit to reveal mostly empty space inside. As they unlimbered their equipment, Phillips struck up a conversation with them.

“So, which of you people was this?”

The round-faced crewman with the name patch “Burke” answered. “It wasn’t off-worlders, like us. They are from a different measurement than us all,” he gestured to include everyone in the room.

“Measurement?”

You mean dimension,” asked Tsimpris.

“Yes, that is the word. They are undercooked and dangerous.”

“You mean ‘rare,’” asked Phillips.

“Ah. Normally I’m not the talker. We’re busy today. Hare,” he gestured to the hatchet-faced crewman, “doesn’t speak English.” Hare’s mouth opened slightly and his tongue darted out.

The crew had got a C-shaped bar behind back of the corpse with the ends hooked under the armpits. They stepped out of the bathroom and Hare pulled a remote out of his coveralls. The bar hummed and lifted the corpse off the toilet so it was standing astride the bowl. Then a spherical object about the size of a softball levitated out of the fake dehumidifier and floated into the bathroom and hid behind the door. Burke reached in and pulled the door closed and checked that it was latched. Hare pushed a button and there was a prolonged whoosh from inside the bathroom.

“Fire in the hole,” said Phillips.

“It is a cold mist cleaner,” said Burke. “Plasma-based disinfection makes a body un-re-hatchable, like when you humans ruin good meat.”

“It’s an expression.”

The remote emitted a tone and Burke opened the door. The bathroom was as clean and fresh as a Summer’s eve. Hare worked his remote and the corpse floated out of the room dangling from the gravity-defying device which then lowered the corpse into the interior of the fake dehumidifier unit so it folded into a reclining position with the knees up. The softball floated out of the bathroom and returned to its little hidey hole inside the cabinet. Snakelike things writhed out from within the unit. Some bared sharp metal fangs, others had obscene, pulsing slickery ends. Phillips and Tsimpris were thankful that Burke closed the device before they could see any further indignities inflicted upon the corpse.

“So, when will she be ready,” asked Phillips.

“Monday, maybe Tuesday.”

“This is kind of a rush job.”

“You all say that.”

Burke and Hare rolled the unit out, Burke loudly complaining “fucking piece of shit unit, goddamn cheap company” and banging on the unit for good measure.

Phillips and Tsimpris waited for the door to close. “Beautiful,” said Tsimpris, enacting a silent golf clap.

“Haven’t seen acting that good since I took the Missus to Arena Stage for our anniversary. This calls for a toast.” Phillips approached the desk and stroked his chin. “Ima say she’s a back behind the files gal.” He opened the lower right drawer of the desk all the way and fished around the innermost part. “Bingo.”

“Crown Royal. Classy.”

“The deep state finally has a US Senator again,” said Phillips taking a taking a good pull from the bottle and passing it on to Tsimpris.

“Senator Byrd brought a new meaning to the term ‘Grand Dragon.’ Shame we couldn’t keep up the masquerade longer.”

A Note to My Loyal Readers: Do not despair my little zilthrakii, “The Glibening” will resume when least needed and most expected.

February 28, 2019
I Used to be a Libertarian, but then someone did something I don’t like

5 years ago I would proudly pronounce that I was a Libertarian to anyone who would listen. I still remember how good it would feel to be an enigma during political debates. Just as someone would think they had me figured out as a conservative, I’d drop drug legalization on them. If someone thought I leaned left, I would quickly bring up the need for fiscal responsibility.

This was all well and good until one day at work 5 months ago. I was out to lunch with some co-workers, when we started talking about a recent firing. One of my co-workers remarked that she knew about the firing beforehand, the CEO had told her about it a few months in advance. I was disgusted. My co-worker was not a manager and had no business knowing about the employment status of my fired friend. Not only was this unprofessional, it was morally wrong.

That night I met up with my cop friend and asked him about it. When he said that there was no crime in what the CEO had done, I was incredulous. “Aren’t you a libertarian?” he asked, “Don’t you believe that the CEO is free do do what he wants?”. Almost immediately my heart filled with dread. I quickly said goodbye to my friend and went home.

For the next few days I struggled with my beliefs. Had I been wrong all along? I liked a lot of what libertarianism is about, but I hadn’t realized that it meant people could do anything, including things I really didn’t like. After many painful hours I came to the conclusion that I had to cast off my erroneous beliefs. Just as a scientist must discard a theory once it has been proven wrong. Clearly libertarianism can’t be right if it could be used to justify things I knew were wrong.

Unfortunately libertarianism is growing in popularity, and becoming ever more powerful. It permeates our political and social lives. Many people feel disoriented arguing with them, so I want to provide them with 3 arguments that will shut-up any libertarian.

1. We live in a Libertarian Utopia:
This is quite a powerful argument, as it quickly puts the perennially whining freedom lovers on defense. Libertarians like to say they have little to no political power in the United States. But as soon as you point out that there are thousands of things you don’t like that are still legal, they will be scratching their heads. Some libertarians are adamant that the United States is not a libertarian paradise. Very well, quietly point out that places like Libya, Syria and Iraq had their governments destroyed, and now they are terrible places.

Plastic Straws prove Libertarian patriarchy!

2. Libertarians don’t have a plan:
Everyone is a critic, but only the truly inspired can come up with a plan. This is a good argument to bring up when you are talking about a plan to right an injustice in the world. Often a libertarian will bring up hypothetical issues or highlight some imperfections (as if we ever thought our plans would be perfect). But if you challenge them to come up with a solution they will often dodge the question by saying we should “Leave it to individuals to work out voluntarily”. Don’t they see that’s what got us into the mess in the first place?

Libertarian plan for the future

3. Libertarianism is Irrational:
This is a fantastic argument. Most libertarians deem themselves the most rational people in the world. Well quickly point out to them that by leaving things to Individuals they are advocating the least rational plan. Clearly just letting the chaos of the market “sort it out” will result in inefficiencies, but if we take a step back and look at what is going on we can come up with a rational plan to fix the things we don’t like in society. Rationalism requires that we abandon libertarian thought.

February 27, 2019
The Ant, The Grasshopper, and The Locusts

On a warm summer day, an ant was busy at work, gathering seeds for storage.

Passing by, a grasshopper was gaily singing a tune and enjoying the grass.

“What are you doing,” asked the ant, “during the abundance of the summer?”

“Oh,” replied the grasshopper, “I’m busy producing music. I have a bachelor’s in fine arts, you know. I’m gonna be the next Gaga.”

The ant rolled his eyes and chuckled as he continued the toil of gathering seeds.

A few months later, on a cold frosty day, the ant was drying out some of the seeds he had gathered during the summer when the grasshopper, now morbidly obese, approached.

“thlhhshsshh. . . give me food,” the grasshopper demanded, slurring through his overripe mandibles, “you wouldn’t be so cruel as to let me die of hunger!”

“What were you doing,” said the ant, “this last summer?”

“Oh,” said the grasshopper, “I was not idle. I kept singing all the summer long.”

The ant, laughing and shutting up his granary, said, “Since you could sing all summer, you may dance all winter.”

The grasshopper, in a rage, shrieked a sound the ant had never heard before, “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

As if summoned by the grasshopper, a dark cloud arose on the horizon. A low hum emanated from all around, closing in with a uniform ferocity that the ant had only heard of in legends. It was a swarm of locusts!

Swarm!

As the locusts closed in around the anthill, the sun was blotted out, and millions of voices could be heard piecemeal.

“unfair”

“living wage”

“compassion”

“nobody needs 32 different kernels of corn”

“polluter”

“social contract”

“greedy”

“wrecker”

“what’s a leppo?”

“triggered”

“bigot”

“grasshopperphobe”

The ant, wary of being mobbed, darted for the entrance of the anthill, only to bump into three particularly large locusts with golden stars on their wings.

“Resisting arrest!” one said, taking a defensive position.

“Back the blue!” chanted the whirling mass of death surging and flowing just feet above the ground.

The ant, panicked and trapped, took a step back and attempted to lay down.

“Furtive movement!” another of the large locusts yelled.

“Taze him, he’s a grasshopperphobe!” screamed the grasshopper, mandibles frothing.

The third large locust proceeded to pin the ant to the ground and taze him in the nuts.

Don’t taze me bro!

———————————

Those who unjustly seek power have no problem using violence to get their way.

February 14, 2019
If You Can Beat Them, Join Them

A Chronicle of the Insurgency, Part Two:

If You Can Beat Them, Join Them

by Tonio

“So, the second time I got pregnant I had gotten really drunk with this boy who seemed so nice and said he had a condom, but when I was cleaning up the room the next day I didn’t see a condom in the trash. I missed my next period and tested pregnant, then he was a total shitlord douchenugget when I asked for abortion money. I had just joined Campus Action Feminists and Professor Kudchuian told us about Rescue This! I told her I was pregnant and asked if she could put me in touch with them.”

“A week later I took the train up to DC and met the RT! activists. They took me to this out-of-the-way toilet they had found at the Immaculate Conception Basilica and kept watch while I aborted. That time was pretty quick and easy. Then they stickered the inside of the stall with their ‘ABORTED FETUS IN TOILET’ bumper stickers and locked the door. Once we were back on the Metro they emailed the church and the media.”

“And we all know the rest of the story,” said Angelica Cortasio-Ortez. She remembered the news footage of the clerical outrage, and the countless crying and praying nuns, and then the of the Knights of Columbus in their silly fucking patriarchal antique British Navy hats staging a full dress funeral for the news cameras.

“So Moira,” asked Ella, “how many people know that you’re a fully fledged RT! activist?”

“Outside of the RT! women, only Professor Kudchuian.”

Ella ticked her pen against her teeth. “If this ever comes out the entire right will turn into poo-flinging monkeys, just like they did the first time. And then you will own the abortion debate from the left for a few news cycles. You can always distance yourself from her if she becomes too hot.” She looked at Moira. “Everyone is expendable except your officeholder, dear. That’s the first thing you learn in politics.”

Angelica nodded at her chief of staff.

“May I excuse myself, Congresswoman,” asked Ella, “I want to be there to greet the Superintendent of Buildings people for your next appointment. You know how they like to wander off.”

“Of course, Ella. Thanks. ”

Angelica waited for the door to close.

“Do you still want the job?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Moira, her voice squeaking.

Angelica’s desk phone did the intercom buzz. As she picked up the phone she heard the receptionist scream “can’t go in there…” and then silence.

A cold breeze blew in through the closed office door. Moira shivered and huddled, drawing her feet up into her chair. “It’s him,” she whispered hoarsely.

Every woman’s worst nighmare, thought Angelica, your boyfriend going violent after he learns that you aborted your pregnancy. Earlier, Moira had said that her current boyfriend was some sort of church leader and that she had kept the pregnancy from him. It had to be one of the patriarchal religions since progressive boys understood it wasn’t their decision to make.

She pressed the alarm button under her desk and hoped that the receptionist had already pushed hers. The wind intensified and her office door became somehow different, like there were extra angles in the doorframe. The wind blew colder and faster and was now accompanied by howling. The door now appeared to be made of dark roiling clouds. Suddenly there was a thing in the room, a vastly large and incomprehensible tentacled thing. The thing loomed over Moira and yelled at her in a loud booming voice.

“YOU ABORTED MY SPAWN, THEN BEAT IT WITH YOUR SHOE. FOOLISH HUMAN FEMALE.”

Yoko Ono wasn’t right enough, thought Angelica, not just the world, but apparently the entire universe. “Now look here,” she said, then everything just stopped for her. She was paralyzed with her mouth open and her index finger extended. She could see and hear, but could not move; she couldn’t tell if she was breathing but did not feel out of breath. How patriarchal to police the speech of women.

“Here we go again,” said Moira rolling her eyes, “‘I am an elder god.’”

“I AM A GREAT OLD ONE.”

“‘And I’ve destroyed races greater than yours.’”

“STOP THAT, YOU IMPUDENT SLUT. YOU ARE THE ONLY BREEDING VESSEL IN ANY TIME, PLACE OR DIMENSION WHO HAS DARED TO TRY TO HARM MY SPAWN. I AM ANGRY. VERY ANGRY INDEED. BUT I AM ALSO IMPRESSED. NOT ONLY WILL I ALLOW YOU TO LIVE, BUT I WILL GIVE YOU A BIRTHING GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE.”

Angelica just couldn’t even.

“Birthing gift? You mean…”

“OF COURSE YOU DIDN’T KILL HIM, BUT HE’S SCARED AND HUNGRY AND TRYING TO FIND YOU.”

Moira didn’t like the sound of that. “Hey, I can’t…”

“I KNOW YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF HIM.”

How typical, thought Angelica, angry patriarchs telling women they were incapable of proper motherhood – like they’d know anything about that.

From inside the bathroom came the sound of water, first a stream, then a gush. Just as the carpet outside the door started to darken with fluid there was a great whoosh and the door was sucked open from within. Then the pipe where the toilet had been erupted with a geyser of sewer gas and moisture and a parsnip came screaming out and made a bee-line towards Moira. At least it looked like a parsnip, only fatter; it was conical and wrinkly and had small rootlike tendrils. The parsnip was scooting along on its wide flat base, leaving a moist trail on the carpet.

“SOMEONE HAS LEARNED HOW TO FEED ALL BY HIMSELF,” boomed the tentacled thing, proudly.

The parsnip reached Moira’s chair and stopped. “Mama,” it cried in a voice that was at once both high and low, mewling and echoing. The parsnip then scrunched down and quivered its tip like a cat tensing for a vertical jump.

“WE’LL HAVE NONE OF THAT, YOUNG MAN,” said the great being, quickly extruding a long tentacle and coiling it tightly around the parsnip pinning the base to the floor so that only the top third protruded. “YOUR MOTHER’S BIRTH CANAL IS OFF-LIMITS. YOU’RE A BIG BOY NOW THAT YOU CAN FEED YOURSELF.”

Just like his father, going straight for the pussy, thought Moira. Ick-factor aside, she was glad that the baby, or whatever it was was being restrained. Her son had grown considerably in the half-hour or so since his birth. Her son. She’d have to get used to that.

The parsnip opened a mouth and clamped a set of sharp teeth down on the tentacle encircling it.

“WHY YOU LITTLE…” There was a flash and a pop and the parsnip emitted a small shriek. The sewer smell was punctuated by the smell one experiences after a thunderstorm.

Using electroshock on a fussy newborn, thought Angelica. That’s the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard of.

“Can I hold him,” asked Moira?

“AFTER WHAT YOU TRIED TO DO,” asked the large tentacled being.

Moira tilted her head down and stuck out her lower lip ever so slightly and looked up at the being.

“YOU ARE TREACHEROUS AND YOU EXEMPLIFY THE BANALITY OF EVIL. I AM TOUCHED,” boomed the being and extended the tentacle containing the parsnip and placed it atop Moira’s ample bosom, then resting the tentacle on Moira’s shoulder. Moira encircled the smelly little monster with her arms. The parsnip snuggled in to her cleavage and made a happy sound.

“So what comes next,” asked Moira.

“I WILL TAKE HIM TO LIVE WITH MOTHER HYDRA; SHE HAS RAISED MY FAMILY’S SPAWN FOR EONS AND HAS THE POWER TO KEEP HIM UNDER CONTROL.”

“WE’LL WORK OUT VISITATION, IF YOU LIKE.”

Moira nodded, tears running down her cheeks. Her son’s eyes shut one by one and he started a low vibrating noise that she was felt as much as heard.

“MAYBE WE COULD ALL DO THINGS TOGETHER…”

“Oh Hastur, that is so sweet.”

“HE IS ASLEEP. WE WILL GO BEFORE HE WAKES AND NEEDS TO FEED AGAIN.”

Hastur copped a major feel as he retrieved his son, and they exited via the method by which he had arrived. Angelica found herself unparalyzed.

Then the Capitol Police arrived, followed by fire and rescue people, then people in yellow plastic hooded suits with reflective letters that said HAZMAT. Angelica and Moira spent the next hour being alternately hosed off and scrubbed; the water was cold and the detergents harsh. And then they were given blister packs of antibiotics and told to be prepared to spend the next 48-72 hours shitting and to stock up on Pedialyte. “And you won’t be able to go back into your office for a few days, anyway, Congresswoman.” The little weasel from building management was enjoying kicking her out of her office.

The evening news was full of stories of sewer eruptions on Capitol Hill with workers and residents terrified by what the DC Water and Sewer Authority claimed were sewer rats expelled by the pressure. Mayor Bowser demanded more money from Congress to update the sewer system.

And it was the next day before anyone noticed that Amy Klobuchar was missing.

January 31, 2019