🚀 go-pugleaf

     It was a dark and stormy night.  Actually, it wasn't a dark and stormy
night at all, come to think of it, but the man slouching out of the 7-11
would have preferred for it to be dark and stormy.  He managed to believe
it was a dark and stormy night, even though it was really quite a nice
night for Philadelphia in November.  He cupped his hands around the paper
coffee cup as though he needed it for warmth.  He inhaled deeply, steam
wreathed his face.
     The man wore a simple black overcoat thrown carelessly over a dark
suit.  He wore a navy three-sided hat pushed down low over his stringy
brown hair.  He walked with a limp.  The man took a sip of coffee.  He
grimaced, rubbed at his neck.  He spat onto the sidewalk.  "Still tender,"
said the man.  "Damn it."  He shook his fist in the air.  "Damn it."
     Guy Fawkes shuffled off down the street, sipped his coffee, spit,
cursed.

                                      ***

     In a windowless room with earthen walls, a pale man in a brown robe
lit a candle.  The ceiling of the room arched at a shallow angle, came to
an uneven point in the center.  The room was roughly rectangular.  A podium
stood at one end of the room.  Mismatched wooden chairs formed ragged rows
in the rest of the room.  Behind the podium, an American flag with thirteen
stars hung suspended from the ceiling by thin strands of twine.
     The man walked to the podium.  He tilted the flame toward the podium,
let six drops of wax fall.  He put the base of the candle in the pool of
wax, held it for a minute, gingerly released it.  The candlelight played
tricks with the shadows in the room, for a moment the man's shadow looked
like a four-winged bird holding a mouse in its beak.  The man stepped away
from the podium.  He bowed to the flag.
     "Once again, it is time."  He straightened, placed his right hand on
his heart.  "I pledge allegiance, to the flag..."

                                      ***

     Nouveaux Skunk walked onto the set with five minutes to go until
airtime.  His assigned co-host, Ignorantman, was nowhere in sight, a fact
that pleased the Skunk immensely.  The news producer, Allen Worth, was
seated next to Camera One, sipping coffee and looking around nervously.
     "Al, there you are," Nouveaux said, causing the man to jump slightly.
"How's it looking?"
     "Oh, fine, fine," Al replied, nervously, his thin upper lip twitching
uncontrollably.  "All the links to the election precincts are up and
operating; we've got links to various local news stations for regional
coverage; that translink to Planet California is up... do you think that's
really a good idea?"
     "What is?"
     "Having a link to elections going on far away from our solar system."
     "Of course it's a good idea," Nouveaux replied, smiling with complete
reassurance.  "It'll bring in the viewers.  Viewers mean ratings.  Ratings
mean you don't lose your job and go back to your job at the soft toys
desk at Victoria's Secret."
     "I... how'd you know that?"
     "I'm a news man, Al," Nouveaux replied, cheerily.  "Now, I'd better
get in front of the desk."  He sauntered over to the news desk and sat
down.  The clock informed him that there were forty-five seconds to go
until he went on the air.
     Casually he looked around, while shuffling his official random printed
pages so they'd look more newsey.  The co-anchor's chair, to his left, was
empty, and with luck, it would stay that way all through the night.  Flores
Lame was settling into her seat in the auxiliary news set, in front of a
bluescreen that was connected to an exterior camera that would be providing
backgrounds for her reports.  Al was now standing, pacing nervously.  The
rest of the studio crew were going about last minute preparations, shouting
instructions at one another, growing more frentic as the second hand moved
closer toward a directly vertical position.
     The red light came on.  It was time.
     "Good evening," Nouveaux Skunk said, smoothly, smiling his most
polished and sincere smile for the camera.  "Nouveaux Skunk here for the
Cretin Broadcasting System's...."
     "Excuse me," a voice from under the desk said.  "Did you not say
before you were here strictly for the money?  Where is here, when I cannot
see you?  Are we on?  What does it mean to say we're on?  Were we off
before, like week-old meatloaf?  Why would anyone let meatloaf sit in
their refrigerator for a week?  If Meatloaf would do anything for the
person he's singing for, except for a single, unmentioned 'that,' why does
he say 'anything?'  Isn't that a paradox?  Am I in a time loop?"
     "Up here, Ignorantman," Nouveaux sighed.  He reached under the desk
and pulled Bart Breadcrumb, aka Ignorantman, up into his co-anchor's seat.
     "Is this here?" Ignorantman asked.  "Why is it here when it was there
a moment ago?  If this is here, then why are you there?  Should I sit in
your lap so you'll be here?  Wouldn't I be there then?"
     The Skunk gritted his teeth.  "As I was saying, this is Nouveaux
Skunk, here for the Cretin Broadcasting System's...."

                                      ***

                          ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL 1996
                        An Political and Social Satire

                              with material from:
                Eric Alfred Burns (Reports from Nader Campaign)
                         Ben Brown (Reports from Bob)
              Peg Fisher and Greg Fishbone (Report from Eeksburg)
     Dirk Myers (Guy Fawkes, the Electoral College, Godzilla Commercials)
                      Gary W. Olson (Various and Sundry)

                           edited and formatted by:
                                 Gary W. Olson

                           editing quality control by:
                       Red Hook Extra Special Bitter Ale
                                      and
                         Ballard Bitter India Pale Ale
                             ("Ya Sure Ya Betcha")

                                      ***

     On the bottom floor of a darkened parking garage, two inhuman
intelligences met for the first and last time.  No words were exchanged,
but with mute signals and faint rumbling noises, they acknowledged each
other and chuckled in inhuman glee.

                                      ***

     A long, black limousine drove slowly through the streets of
Philadelphia.  The rear window dropped open three inches.  The tip of a
pale nose stuck through the gap.  Nostrils flared.  The nose retreated back
into the limousine.  The window slid shut.
     The limousines turn signal blinked steadily.

                                      ***

     "It's eight o'clock," Nouveaux Skunk reported.  "The polls have just
closed on the East Coast, and our work has begun.  Over the next four or
more hours, we will be reporting up-to-the-second returns from all over the
country.  Additionally, we will be running a Cretin Broadcasting exclusive:
the never-released third Presidential debate, held just last week."
     "How will the polls from the west coast be up to the second?"
Ignorantman asked.
     "I... what?"
     "Isn't the west coast three time zones behind us?  How can they be
up to the second here when they're three hours behind over there?  Do they
have a very special version of Daylight Savings Time there?  How does
Daylight Savings Time save daylight, and where does it keep it?  Does it
invest it in savings bonds?  Are they taxed?  Does Phyllis Schlafley know
about this?"
     "Don't... do this to me."
     "Do what to you?  Am I touching you?"
     Nouveaux Skunk shook his head and pointedly looked away from
Ignorantman, who decided to ruminate on the situation.  "We've got a report
in just now, from Bill Winstead in the city of Bob."  He turned to the
large screen behind him and to his right, where an image of the
aforementioned reporter was waiting patiently.  "Go ahead, Bill."
     "Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  This is Bill Winstead reporting
from Bob City, where something amazing has happened.  We're talking truly
astounding.  In fact it's so astounding that we can hardly talk about it--
that is, I can hardly talk about it.  I'm the only one talking.  The crew--
that is to say the guys with the lights, cameras, boom-mikes and such that
follow me around--not like stalkers, mind you--they're really nice guys--
and girls.  My sound engineer's a woman, and she'd kill me if I implied
that it was all men in this profession.  Anyway, they can talk about it.
They are right now.  Well, they were a few minutes ago.  Now they're just
sort of making strange gestures at me.  I'm not sure what they're saying.
It's not sign language--see, I took a sign language course once when they
were trying to get someone already working in the news room to do the
interpretation thing for the news--this was before closed captioning.  I
did all right in the class, but they didn't give me the job.  Instead I got
moved over to--"
     "Er... thanks Bill," the Skunk said with an audible sigh.  "We'll
*hopefully* have a more coherent report from Bob City later in the
evening."
     "Do sign languages come in different accents?"
     "Speaking of incoherence, it's time to check in on the intergalactic
scene with our very own Robert Parsens.  Robert?"

                                      ***

     The red Vespa roared down the interstate at a speed which was not only
illegal, but potentially unsafe as well.  A bald, pudgy man drove the
scooter.  A tallish woman with long, dark hair rode behind him.  Neither
wore helmets.  The woman's hair whipped behind her.  The man pressed his
lips together.  He twisted the throttle, felt the front wheel lighten as
the scooter accelerated.  The woman behind him squealed.
     'Ben!  Slow down!"  The woman clung to the man.
     The man shook his head.  He was running late.  Besides, he thought, he
knew the road to Philadelphia better than just about anyone.  He opened the
throttle all the way.  The front wheel popped off the pavement.  The man
leaned forward, the wheel settled back onto the road.  The woman's grip
grew tighter.
     "You're going to get us killed again, Ben Franklin," scolded the
woman.
     Ben Franklin shrugged.  Whether or not they made it to Philadelphia,
he was enjoying the ride.

                                      ***

     A rectangular crack appeared in a brick wall somewhere in the basement
of the Library of Congress.  A section of the wall turned on hidden hinges,
opened, dust cascaded off the door and formed a haze.  Flickering light
spilled out from behind the door.
     A hunched form holding a silver candelabra shuffled through the door.
The figure pushed the door shut behind him.
     "How shall Ben arrive this time," muttered the hunched figure.  "Ride
a wild mustang?"  The figure shook his head.  "No, he did that in 18??."
The figure shuffled off toward the stairs.  "Roller skates?  No, 195?.
Rickshaw?  Hmm... 1968."  The figure chuckled.  "Maybe he'll get in an
accident, just like 193?."

                                      ***

     "Like, uh, we're, like, on, dudes," Rad said.  Behind him, the crowd
of voters erupted with spontaneous applause and a few rounds of drinks.
"Like, okay, we're, like, live from, like, Planet California, dudes.  Um,
there's, like, this election going on, like, here and on the other, like,
planets in the, like, Ottsamaddawiduan Confederacy, and my wife, like, the
soon-to-be-like-ex-Empress Glum, like, is running, y'know?  So are, like,
a bunch of, like, other people, though, like, I don't know why."
     "Rad," Nouveaux Skunk's voice came from the speaker mounted on the
camera.  "What happened to the reporter you brought back to your planet
last month specifically to report on this?"
     "Um..." Rad said, looking perplexed (or, more perplexed than usual).
"We... ah... damn.  Like, guys, do you, like, remember a reporter-dude from
Earth hanging around here?"
     "Like, yah," someone in the crowd replied.  "The, like, tall one,
right?"
     "Yah, him."
     "We, like, took him around to, like, the tanning booths, y'know?"
     "Like, when?"
     "Um... last month?"
     "And, like, after that?"
     "Um..."
     "Rad..." Nouveaux Skunk started.
     "Like, hold on, anchor-type dude," Rad replied.  "Come on, guys.
Like, where did you, like, last see the dude?"
     "Um..."
     Rad turned back to the camera, his smile starting to look slightly
sheepish.  Fortunately, the camera lenses took a minute to adjust to the
brightness of his gleaming smile, so he had a chance to think.
     "Um..."
     Okay, so he didn't actually *take* the chance.
     "We have to, like, go check, dude," Rad said, finally.  "We'll, like,
report later, like, okay?"

                                      ***

     Fawkes finished his coffee.  He flicked the cup to the ground a few
feet away, spaced his steps so that he crushed the cup as he went by.  He
lifted his hat off his head, ran his fingers through his hair, pushed his
hat down low over his eyes.
     He slid his left hand into the pocket of his overcoat, wrapped his
fingers around the grenade-sized Spam device.  He fingered the detonation
button.  He rolled the device across his palm, measured its weight, its
balance.  He knew the contours of the bomb by heart, the smooth flange
around the button, the graceful finger-sized ridges of the midsection, the
small wart on the bottom where the casing had stuck to the mold.  There was
no pleasure in the feel of the bomb, nor, for that matter, anything else.
He let the bomb slide off his hand, settled it back into his pocket until
only the tip of his middle finger touched it.
     He was alone.  Not even the device in his pocket felt like company.
It was a familiar sensation.  The loneliness settled in his chest, a living
pain, an aching akin to love.  He rolled it pain through his body like a
bomb.

                                      ***

     The man in the brown robe moved a thick black marker across a name
tag.  He finished the last letter with a flourish.  He peeled the name tag
off the backing, stuck it to his robe.  The tag read "Thomas" in ornate
letters.
     Thomas opened a package of number two pencils.  He took a long, black-
handled dagger from his robe and began to sharpen the pencils.  Shavings
soon covered the floor in front of him.  He whistled "Greensleeves" as he
worked.

                                      ***

     "Certainly," Nouveaux Skunk, looking with barely disguised irritation
at the extremely-well tanned figure on the screen, who subsequently
disappeared.  Recovering quickly, Nouveaux turned back to the cameras and
smiled.  "We'll be checking back in on the intergalactic election results
momentarily.  Meanwhile, in this country, there are many local elections
occurring.  In North Carolina, Jesse Helms, incumbent, occasionally dead
senator, is running a tight race with challenger Harvey Gantt, whose
charges that Helms is, in fact, an agent of Hell, Inc, have not yet much
impressed the North Carolinan voters.  Said one Raleigh resident, "well,
heck, we knew that.  He's a friend of Philip Morris, so why not Hell, Inc?
Long as it brings money to our fair state."
     "What are the Carolinans north of?" Ignorantman asked.
     "Um... the South Carolinans."
     "Who are south of the North Carolinans?"
     "Yes."
     Ignorantman ruminated on this a bit.
     "Is this what is known as circular reasoning?  Why is it called
circular, when sentences are written in straight lines?  Why is 'i' before
'e,' except after 'c?'  If I have more vitamin C, must I have more vitamin
E?  Is there such a thing as vitamin I?  What's the extra E for, anyway?
Does...."
     "Moving on," the Skunk interrupted, rather forcefully.  "We've got to
take a break.  But we'll be right back with a special election-night
report:  Unorthodox Girl of the Adjusted League Unimpeachable, reporting
from Nader campaign headquarters in California."

                                      ***

     The limousine rolled to a stop in front of the Philadelphia Ritzy
Hotel.  A footman hopped out of the passenger seat.  The footman wore a
blue velvet coat, tan breeches, a long powdered wig, shiny leather shoes
with large brass buckles.  The footman strode rapidly to the back of the
limousine, held open the door.
     A gnarled old man in a green and orange terry cloth robe stepped out
of the limousine.  The old man wore slippers shaped like pink rabbits.  He
held a thick leatherbound Bible in his right hand, a set of dentures in his
left hand.  He slid the dentures into his mouth.  "Presidential suite?" he
snapped at the footman.
     The footman bowed.  "Yes, sir.  I phoned the concierge from the
airport.  The room will be at precisely 78 degrees Fahrenheit, humidity 88
percent.  A lukewarm bath will be drawn, water 105 degrees Fahrenheit,
1:1000 parts bubble bath by volume.  Dinner will be served in one half
hour, and will consist of three game hens with chestnut stuffing, a
Yorkshire pudding, sixteen ounces of buttermilk chilled to 36 degrees, one-
eighth of a cherry pie made in a twelve-inch pan."
     The man in the bathrobe grunted.  He stuck his head into the
limousine.  "Hurry up, Martha," he shouted.  "Haven't got all night."  He
turned back to the footman.  "Get up, you lump, make yourself useful."
     The man strode into the hotel, bellowing wordlessly at the top of his
lungs, bathrobe flapping behind him.

                                      ***

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