The reporter stood in front of the convention
center, microphone in hand. Her red
blazer perfectly accentuated her lustrous auburn hair. “Channel three action news reporting. The city is abuzz tonight over a purported
attack on a downtown gun rally. Eye-witness accounts vary, but reports suggest that nearly all of the three
hundred people killed or wounded in the melee suffered from wounds that were
either inadvertent or self-inflicted.
One policeman I talked to suggested that this may be a case of
mass hysteria. Meanwhile, city officials
tell us they are in the process of testing the water supply for psychedelic
hallucinogens, and more than one person, including reporters at this network,
including me, right now, speculated that this may be the work of Al Qaida.
"We go now to Washington D.C. where
Senator Buck McStain took questions from reporters just moments ago.”
Senator McStain, an 85-year-old
curmudgeon, limped down the capitol steps to greet the throng of
reporters. He wore a white suit to match
his thinning hair, which blew loosely in the breeze.
“Senator, Senator,” the reporters shouted
as they heaved their respective microphones into the senator’s face. “How do you respond to reports that dinosaur ghosts have attacked the Gun Rights Association?”
“I think we should invade Iraq.”
“But Senator,” asked a reporter from the Washington Post, “What does Iraq have to
do with dinosaur ghosts?”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to get to the
bottom of this,” the senator replied, “and we will continue to get to the
bottom of this until we bring these perpetrators to justice. You can count on it. I have spoken with several highly placed
officials in the intelligence community, and if what they are telling me is
true, the United States may very well need to re-Invade Iraq by the end of the
week.”
“Senator, are you suggesting that these
dinosaur ghosts are Al Qaida operatives sent from Iraq?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Senator
McStain said, “other than the fact that Al Qaida operatives within Iraq may
very well have perpetrated a terrorist attack on the United States.”
Cut to the reporter for channel
three. “There you have it,” she said. “A
highly placed U.S. official has called this a ‘terrorist attack perpetrated by
Al Qaida.
“In other news, the United States Supreme Court ruled
today that guns are actually people, and are therefore entitled to equal rights and
full protection under the law. Now let’s
check in with Candy at the sports desk...”
“Shut it off, ”Helen said. “I can’t take
it anymore.”
Eric turned off the television set. He sat down beside Helen at the kitchen
table. She continued to fiddle with one
of her thingamajigs.
Eric took the device out of her hand and
examined it. “What is this thing?” he
asked.
“It’s a project I’ve been working
on. I call it a Decayed Matter
Reanimator Locator.”
“You made this? What does it do?”
“It finds dinosaur ghosts.”
“Hey, we could use something like that.”
“I still can’t get over it,” Helen said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “It’s like they rose from the dead through the force of sheer hatred.”
Eric put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
“The thing is, I know they aren’t
actually a part of our world in the strictest sense,” she said. “They aren’t real like you and me. They’re leftovers from another epoch. Through some freak occurrence in nature, they
can observe us, and we can observe them, but I’m certain they can’t actually
impact our lives directly unless we let them. Those men at the gun
rally shot themselves. The journalists
died in freak accidents. Both James and
the security guard from the zoo died of
a heart attack. I think if people took
the time to face the ghosts, they would see that they’re actually quite harmless.”
“That’s good,” Eric said. “I don’t want to be harmed.”
Helen picked up another one of her
doodads, one that looked like a ray gun, and aimed it across the table. “Yeah,”
she said, “But you better believe I’m going to find a way to hurt them.” She
pulled the trigger and sprayed water onto the table. She then turned the barrel toward her mouth
and shot a spray of water in there too.
“Yum,” she said.
Meanwhile, far away in the halls of
justice, the esteemed members of the Supreme Court of the United States of America were
having their bi-weekly hotcakes and sausage breakfast. They ate in their underwear, as was
customary, so as not to spill syrup on their robes, while they discussed various cases
before the court. The
justices tended to focus on current deliberations, but occasionally some
resentment lingered after a particularly contentious decision, and this was
such a day.
“Even for an argument based on original
intent, the decision made no sense,” Justice Sotomayor said as she chomped down
on chicken biscuit. “Why would the
founding fathers put in special protections for guns? What’s next?
Equal rights for screwdrivers?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Justice
Scalia roared, as was his habit. “The
original wording of the second amendment, before it was revised, stated, and I
quote, ‘blah blah blah, the right to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed, and the right of arms to keep and bare people shall not be infringed either.’ Or, to put it another way, guns are
people. Case closed.” He shoveled a pile of grits and
bacon into his mouth and then chased it with a big slurping gulp of grape
Kool-Aid.
“At this point,” Justice Sotomayor
countered, “guns have more rights than women.”
“Yeah,” said Justices Ginsberg and Kagan
in unison.
“The fact of the matter is,” said Scalia, “we are not to go beyond the intent of the founding fathers, and
the founding fathers clearly believed that guns were more important than
women. That’s why they mentioned guns in the second amendment and they didn’t mention women at all. Maybe that’s why they’re called founding fathers
and not founding mothers!” He elbowed Justice Thomas and cackled, “am I right,
Clarence?”
Justice Thomas opened his mouth as if to
speak, but stopped when Justice Ginsberg pulled her fork back with her thumb
and catapulted a chunk of cantaloupe through Justice Scalia’s gaping mouth, where it lodged in his throat. He sputtered
and clawed his neck, finally expelling the obstruction when Justice Alito delivered a swift karate chop to the belly.
The breakfast then devolved further when Chief Justice Roberts stood up and shouted,
“Food fight!” Soon the entire
room, including all nine justice’s underwear, was covered in bacon
grease and Aunt Jemima’s Private Reserve.
This was why supreme court justices never wore their robes at
breakfast.
Amidst the flying hotcakes, no one
noticed that the walls of justice were literally crumbling around them, until
that is, they found themselves faced with a pair of hissing, spitting, roaring
dinosaur ghosts.
“What would the founding fathers think
of this, Antonin?” Breyer cried.
Justice Scalia removed his miniature
copy of the constitution from his garter belt and began frantically flipping
through pages. It should be here,” he
said.
“This is why I believe in loose
constructionism,” Breyer shouted as he dove under the table. A set of jagged spikes crushed the dessert
bar where he had been standing.
Justice Sotomayor somersaulted over the
swinging tail of the Tyrannosaurus and cartwheeled to safety.
Justice Kagan looked dead in the eye of the
dinosaur blocking her path to freedom.
“To hell with this,” she said.
Using her head as a battering ram, she charged the unsuspecting
stegosaurus, passed through the ghost
as she would through an open door, and then literally passed through an open door to safety.
Justice Roberts watched Kagan's successful
escape and attempted the same, but with very different results. Instead of empty space, his face flattened against a mound of taught, scale-covered muscle. With a flick of a large hoof, he flew against a
wall. Justice Ginsberg used this momentary diversion to slip unnoticed behind the dinosaur ghosts, where she too escaped.
Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia,
through some unspoken concurrence, formed a semi-circle of machismo near the
coffee and juice table and readied themselves for battle.
Justice Kennedy froze, unable to decide
whether to follow Ginsberg or join his brethren on the right
as they focused on weaponizing butter knives and cocktail forks. He looked back
and forth from one side to the other. “Which
way should I go? Which way should I go?
Which way should I go?” He asked himself as he tap-danced in place.
With a swish of its tail the stegosaurus
crushed a support wall, and his escape route was sealed in a rush of
falling debris.
Kennedy joined the rest of his clan, all
of whom slowly backed away from the approaching Tyrannosaurus.
“Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus,” Justice
Roberts cried. He began hurling melon with all his might. The stegosaurus caught the pieces on its spikes and then proceeded to devour this delightful new form of vegetation. It munched quietly as its carnivorous compatriot devoured the Chief Justice.
Justice Thomas opened his mouth as if to
say something, but then evidently decided against it, just before he too was eaten.
“You wanna piece of me?” Alito said, slapping his chest as he
approached the tyrannosaurus. “You wanna
piece of me?” The tyrannosaurus evidently did not want a piece
of him as he ate Justice Alito in his entirety.
“I changed my mind! I changed my mind!” Kennedy cried, but he too was gobbled up by the tyrannosaur.
“Screw you, you prehistoric bastard,”
Scalia roared. “I sentence you to
death!” He took one last swig of Kool-Aid and then charged the dinosaur ghost
with his cocktail fork.
Within seconds, the carnage was over. The dinosaur ghosts roared in celebration of their victory and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. The room was empty, except for Stephen Breyer, who sat shivering beneath the breakfast
table.
go to chapter
9
