Posted by
the one in the center on Sunday, February 04, 2007 8:43:55 AM
The following work of FICTION was based on a nightmare I had after a heavy night of playing RISK and watching CNN:
Ouch. That was the primary thought that crossed Dave’s mind as he awoke that morning. That thought coupled with the pounding headache and slight nausea, direct results of his liquid diet the night before. Dave slowly lifted one leg off of the couch, then the other, and wobbily stood up, grasping at the walls to try to make the room stop spinning. Dave crossed the room and exited into the musty, humid summer morning air that filled the upstairs hallway of the run-down Victorian fraternity house in which he passed out way earlier that morning. Summer mornings are typically pretty icky in this small central Nebraska college town.
Holding his head, Dave approached Jarred. “Got any aspirin?” “No” replied Jarred, “but I do have the copy of this morning’s Herald”. Dave grasped the paper and as his blurry vision came into focus the giant bold headline exclaimed: LAST NATIONAL GOVERNMENT FALLS! “It’s about time” Dave grumbled. Dave slowly and cautiously began descending the staircase down to the main level. The blue paint was peeling on the walls in a few spots of the old house. Most of walls were blue and the exterior of the house was painted blue with white trim, the colors of the Beta Nu Fraternity. Several boxes and metal file cabinets of paper were balancing on the steps of the staircase--for lack of room--and countless more littered the floors of both floor levels and the basement. The papers were disorganized and contained information on vital statistics, national GDPs and various documents of concession and surrender from almost every country on Earth. He could hear the sound of printers throughout the house belching out more documents.
Half-way down the staircase Dave met a very thin figure wearing a red military beret and toting an AK-47. Sam had long black hair poking out from underneath his beret, and would have vaguely resembled Che Guevara if not for the big glasses perched on his nose. “Please don’t shoot me, Sam” said Dave, “I drank all of your triple malt scotch ales last night”. “Plenty more where those came from”, replied Sam, “Just make sure you recover quick enough to attend the lodge meeting tonight”.
When Dave reached the bottom of the stairs, he crossed the main entry, walked passed Mark who was wearing an antique steel helmet with the Beta Nu shield emblazoned on the front, and entered the living room. There, on a big screen television set was a live CMN News broadcast from the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York City. “I hereby cede all governing authority of this international body to the Beta Nu.” Dave plopped down on a sofa and recollected how this all began. It was at this very same spot on this very same sofa, watching this very same news channel on this very same television set six months ago. . .
. . . It all began the winter of 1995. The “Republican Revolution” swept the U.S. Congress as the result of the previous year’s mid-term elections and now the government came to a critical screeching halt when the Democratic president vetoed the legislature’s balanced budget bill. The result was a complete shutdown of the government save for essential functions. Dave drank a shot of vodka and snowflakes were gently falling as CMN broke the news. Jake argued with Dave about politics—his favorite pastime—as Dave studied the beautiful Cyrillic characters on the Russian vodka bottle. A mysterious inspiration gripped Dave’s soul as he looked up from the bottle and watched the news cast. “Now’s the time” Dave said to himself. Jake overheard the comment and replied “Now’s the time for you to get lost, you nutcase!” Dave grabbed his bottle, his shot glass and headed towards the computer in the back room.
A few e-mails from Dave to the joint chiefs were enough for a military coup de etat to seize the paralyzed U.S. government. He promised non-partisan unity and efficiency if the joint chiefs handed over control of the country to Beta Nu, which they promptly did. “This was easier tan I thought”, thought Dave, and he immediately ordered an invasion of the Bahamas with several thousand troops. When the marines arrived at Nassau, they stormed the parliament building, kicked down the door to the office of the prime minister and handed him the document of surrender while he was sitting at his desk. Without anyone saying a word, the prime minister read the document and signed it. The archipelago surrendered without any shots fired. This chain of events would continue for six months. Some countries fell bloodlessly, some fell with heavy casualties. The last one to go was Madagascar, which Dave would end up reading about in the Herald.
All Beta Nu members entered the lodge for the meeting and donned the traditional black hooded robes. The small room was illuminated by a few blue and white candles, and several glowing white skulls painted on the walls. The Beta Nu shield was displayed in a wood framed case, a blue shield with a white diagonal stripe across it.
With a pound of the gavel, the meeting was convened. “The first order of business”, stated Sam, “is house keeping”. “Drew, you duty was to clean the refrigerator this week, and now there is mold growing on the strawberries and so many expired cans of cheap beer that we can barely close the door” “Gregg, if your pile of used socks could find their way to the washing machine, that would be much appreciated, and better overall for the environment.” “The next order of business is our apparent world conquest.” “Dave, your hare-brained, yet ambitious, scheme to take over the world appears to be a success. Now what the hell are we going to do with it?”
THE END of the beginning . . .
The moral of the story: Partisanship can be humorous, however is bad for democracy.