The leaders of the Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) debated whether or not to cancel their
annual gathering. By any standard, they
were a prime target for an all-out assault by dinosaur ghosts. Through a series of emails among the most esteemed
and powerful members (the 1% of the 1%), it was finally decided that the show
would indeed go on, if for no other reason than to figure out why they were
being targeted and to find a way to stop it from happening.
The usual festival-like atmosphere
was deliberately subdued this time around.
Dignified blue and gray suits replaced the more ostentatious displays of
colorful golf shirts and kaki pants seen in previous years. Whereas some of the
more happy-go-lucky participants might have skipped their bi-weekly haircuts, this
year cooler heads prevailed.
The Daughters of the American
Revolution closed down their information booth and the Daughters of the Tea
Party Revolution closed down their disinformation booth. Everyone agreed that the women-folk were best
left at home.
In addition to scaling back the celebrations,
the CPAC organizers took the added precaution of changing their name from CPAC
to DPAC, because everyone knew the dinosaur ghosts would never attack the
Democratic Political Action Conference.
Unfortunately, the conference members revolted--calling themselves
democrats was a betrayal of their principles-- and after the threat of a boycott,
the name was re-changed to EPAC, with the E not standing for anything in
particular. After that, the conference was
back on track, though twenty five hundred t-shirts had to be destroyed.
Regardless of whether or not the
dinosaur ghosts were deceived by the name change, Helen Fonzarelli wasn’t
fooled. She arrived in her very
revealing, very sexy white dress, and immediately caused a sensation. She was a little surprised to discover that she
was the only woman there. There were
usually at least six or seven.
She strolled through the crowd of
staring men, trying in vain to blend in. She considered playing one of the many
games that remained despite the cut-backs.
There was the ‘Dart Throw’, in
which conservative players took turns throwing darts at a picture of President
Obama. Then there was the ‘Bow-And-Arrow
Shoot’, in which conservatives took turns firing arrows twenty yards or so at photo
of Obama placed on top of a stuffed turkey.
There was also a pistol range, a rifle range, a machine gun range, and a
bazooka range, all featuring various Obama-related targets. (The exception being the knife throw, in which
a photo of Nancy Pelosi was used.)
While Helen considered her
options, she caught sight of a familiar face, one who, unfortunately, had
spotted her as well.
“Helen, is that you.”
“Oh, hello, Eric,” she answered coolly. “What are you doing here?”
Eric was silent for a moment and
then answered quietly. “I come every year.”
“What?” Helen asked, dumbfounded. “But
you’re a scientist.”
“Yeah, well I guess my faith is a
little stronger than my ability to reason.”
“But why,” Helen said. “Why didn’t
you tell me?”
Eric sighed. “I thought it would
be better if we had a clean break. I
knew that eventually the dinosaur ghosts would come after me. I didn’t want to put you through that again.”
“Oh Eric.” She grasped his hands,
gazed into his eyes.
Nearby, someone started yelling
and generally attracting attention to
himself. He was a middle-aged white man
with thinning hair and bright pink eyes.
His breath reeked of whisky. “I
don’t care what anyone says,” he said as he stumbled down the sidewalk. “I’m a conservative, damnit, and I’ll shout
it from the rooftops!”
“Quiet, you fool,” barked the
nearest authority figure, Mitt Romney.
“I’m not going to shut up and you
can’t shut me up,” said the drunken conservative. “You
can’t shut me up,” He pointed to Romney. “And you
can’t shut me up.” He pointed to Paul Ryan.
“And not even you can you shut me up.” He pointed to one of the dinosaur
ghosts, who promptly ate him.
Pandemonium ensued. Conservatives started running everywhere. Mitt Romney danced in place, drifting first
in one direction and then another while chanting to himself, “Which way should
I go? Which way should I go? Which way should I go?”
Paul Ryan ran and hid behind
Eric. He grabbed him by the shoulders,
shook him and called out, “What would Ayn Rand do in this situation?”
Eric turned and slapped him. “Get
control of yourself, man. Your future is
entirely in your hands.”
Paul Ryan straightened up. He patted his face with a handkerchief. “You’re right,” he said, obviously coming to
his senses. “You’re a hundred percent
right.”
He was then eaten by a tyrannosaurus.
The stampeding crowd separated Helen
and Eric. They reached for each other, barely
touching fingertips.
“Go on,” Eric said. “They won’t come for you.”
“How do you know?” Helen said,
refusing to budge despite being repeatedly jostled by fleeing
conservatives. “I hold many nuanced
social and foreign policy positions.”
“You do not,” Eric said. “You’re a silly little liberal and you always
will be.”
“I’ve changed,” Helen said. “I’ve evolved.”
“I don’t believe in evolution,”
Eric said.
“Eric, don’t say that!”
But it was too late.
They heard a deep growl and saw a
flash of leopard skin. A club bashed into
Eric’s stomach. He bent over, gasping
for breath. Slowly, he looked up and
saw, standing over him, a seven-foot-tall
monster. Wild-looking, with a protruding
forehead and lower jaw, poor posture, hairy elbows, and wearing a coat made of
saber-toothed tiger with the head still attached, the Monkey Man Monster (MMM
for short) lifted his club for a second blow.
“Eric!” Helen cried. “Run!” She tried to move toward him, but there were
still too many republicans in the way.
“Stay back,” Eric said. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I won’t leave you,” Helen
shouted.
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
Just like a woman, Eric
thought. They never listen and they
never know what’s good for ‘em. He stood
up tall then and faced the MMM (Monkey Man Monster). Summoning all his strength and courage, he
shouted “I don’t... believe... in evolution!”
“Noooo,” Helen cried.
The next swing of the club lifted
Eric off the ground, sent him flying straight into the mouth of the
tyrannosaurus, who promptly chomped him into butter.
“Hey,” the Monkey Man Monster
(MMM) shouted at the dinosaur. “That belong to me.”
Both the tyrannosaurus rex and the
stegosaurus ghost turned toward the new intruder, angling toward their pray.
The Monkey Man Monster (MMM) smashed
his club against the ground as a warning to the approaching predators. The
ripple effect through the splintering concrete caused the dinosaur ghosts to stumble.
They hissed and roared. Their message was clear. There were two of
them and only one Monkey Man Monster (MMM).
The stegosaurus began swinging its
tail like a medieval knight warming up his mace. While the MMM (Monkey Man
Monster) studied those spikes, the tyrannosaurus rex ghost rushed forward. It
could have gotten ugly then, but the Monkey Man Monster (MMM) had certain
evolutionary advantages, including opposable thumbs and a frontal lobe. He caught
the swinging tail of the stegosaurus with one hand and the head of the tyrannosaurus
with the other, pulling them together, sinking stegosaurus swords into scaly tyrannosaur
flesh, and flooding the area with hundreds of gallons of translucent ghost
blood. With one ghost down, the Monkey
Man Monster (MMM) leapt onto the back of the stegosaurus and dispatched it with
several devastating punches to its peanut-sized brain.
Falling off his kill, the MMM (Monkey
Man Monster) crawled to his knees, panted heavily and searched the vicinity for
additional predators.
Hearing a low growl behind him, he
spun around, and found himself faced, once again, with two healthy dinosaur
ghosts.
“Dominoes
Pizza,” the Monkey Man Monster (MMM) cursed. He kicked an abandoned briefcase into a tree.
The two dinosaur ghosts let loose
with two tremendous roars. Again, the
message was clear. “You can’t kill us. We’re already dead. Oh, and we find your
disproportionately tiny feet comical.”
With that, the prehistoric
specters disappeared.
Helen fell to her knees and wept.
Just then, Stumpy Wilkinson
appeared, carrying her book bag filled with weapons. “Sorry, it took me so long. I couldn’t find the popcorn machine. What’s been going on?”
He was startled to find the
towering figure of the very MMM (Monkey Man Monster) he had predicted a week earlier, and even more startled to find Helen about to hurl a rock at it. Acting on instinct, Stumpy threw his
cardboard container of popcorn into the air, and, using the falling puffed kernels
as temporary camouflage, he grabbed the devastated Helen and ushered her
through the exit.
Go to chapter 12
Go to chapter 12
