As the World Turns
Speaker of the House John Boehner was lying on his psychiatrist's couch sucking on a grape lollipop a few hours after playing golf with President Obama and Vice President Biden. (Dr. Ermann Esse had a variety of sucking objects available for his smoking clients.) Boehner was in a snit about President Obama's refusal to seek a war powers authorization from Congress about Libya. Boehner pulled the sucker out of his mouth, made air quotation marks, and said in a sing-song voice: "It's a NATO action!" He took another grape suck. "The U.S. is merely in a support role!" He took another grape suck. "I mean, who does he think he is?"
"Do you think he is trying to exercise more power than President Bush did?" asked Dr. Esse.
"That's not the point!" shouted Boehner. (He was this close to giving up bipartisanship forever!)
"What is the point?" asked Dr. Esse?
"Whose side are your on?!" demanded Boehner.
Dr. Esse tapped on his own skull. "I'm on the side of your subconscious, trying to bring his voice to the surface. Let's try some more hypnosis." Boehner shoved the lollipop back in his mouth and thought about trying something else.
A couple miles to the west, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was in his State Department office, sucking on a grape lollipop and typing up another round of summaries on communications coming in from Libya, Egypt, and Syria. "Human shields", he kept typing, over and over again. "Refugees", he typed over and over again. "Rape as a weapon of war," he typed again. Then he paused. Unidentified amphibious creature seen pulling Libyan soldiers under in the Great Manmade River. Confirmed by three different sources. Satellite images inconclusive. He shuffled papers; he bounced around computer screens; he tried a few phone calls, but nobody was picking up.
Suddenly "C. Coe Phant" was in his doorway. "What's up?" he asked in his usual snarky way while simultaneously tossing the Deputy Administrator a candy bar.
"Have you heard anything about the Great Manmade River in Libya?" asked the Deputy Administrator.
"What about it?" asked C. Coe Phant, while the Deputy Administrator scrutinized his face and found nothing to suggest he was part of any conspiracy orchestrated to get the Deputy Administrator to make a fool of himself in his memo to the Secretary of State.
"Nothing," the Deputy Administrator replied.
C. Coe Phant returned to his own office to finish his report on Project R.O.D.H.A.M.'s new operation in Libya, and their plan for recruiting Angela de la Paz--who was rumored to be in Libya and hanging out around the Great Manmade River. (He wasn't worried about the Deputy Administrator's inquiry--surely just something about a body count there.) Phant was obsessed with the girl, and had gone as far as to ask Secretary Clinton to have a chance to recruit Angela de la Paz personally, but Secretary Clinton had laughed in his face. Phant was tired of being a desk jockey and wondered how he could graduate to Charles Wu's life.
A few miles to the north, Charles Wu was dunking his head into a sink full of ice water--once...twice...thrice.... He kept his eyes closed, exhaled deeply, inhaled deeply, and dunked his head three more times. Refreshed, he returned to his intelligence reports. Frankly, he was sick to death of Middle East intelligence and wanted to go back to reporting on Asia, but everybody wanted Middle East intelligence these days--including top clients the U.K. (desperate to win a war they had lost a long, long time ago) and China (which despised the "hordes of camel-riding illiterates" who drove up petroleum prices and jeopardized its advancement). Wu had C. Coe Phant reporting from the State Department, the Condor reporting on OPEC, Ethiopian taxi drivers reporting on Egyptian unrest, Che Flaco and Che Gordo reporting on Venezuela's attempts to wrest Saudi Arabia away from U.S. influence, and the Heurich Society's influence in controlling the flow of petro dollars from the sheikhs/despots and back to the U.S. For one thing, too many male spies! He hadn't seen Apricot Lily or Camisole Silk in months! It was extremely difficult to use women operatives in the Middle East, and without women, it just wasn't much fun for him! He couldn't fool around with the woman in Project R.O.D.H.A.M.--they were untouchable, for professional reasons. He stared out the window. I need a vacation. He resolved to talk to the Secretary of State about returning to the Chinese border of Afghanistan to check on the telecommunications shadow networks that Wikileaks and the New York Times had come dangerously close to outing.
Not far away, Congressman Herrmark was relaxing in his man cave while Mia (of the Marianas Islands) stared listlessly out the second floor window, "enjoying" a couple hours by herself. Her English had gotten good enough now to read the newspapers a bit and understand television programs. She was starting to understand more about the huge world out there, and the more she understood about it, the more she felt trapped like a bird in a cage. It was true that human rights groups had gotten many of the factories shut down in the Marianas Islands and there was not much work left for girls like her, and her life here was better than it had been, but Mia did not understand why he had taken her passport to lock it up in a "safe place" unknown to her, or why he had given her shots for things like measles which she knew most people got at a doctor's office. And the more English she learned, and the more she tried to talk to his bodyguards, the more uncomfortable they got around her, and so they were avoiding her. Congressman Herrmark had brought her a toy poodle last week, but it stupidly fell through the banister from the top of the front hall stairs and broke its own neck on the marble floor of the foyer, but he blamed Mia and said he would not get her another pet. Mia thought she made him happy, but what if she didn't? Outside her window, a raven tried to whisper something to her, but all the windows were locked with a key because, the Congressman said, he was a sleepwalker--but she had never seen him sleepwalk. And she never slept a wink when he was home--only when he was gone. (She was nervous all the time.) She pressed her nose against the window and stared deeply into the eyes of the raven and wondered about the future.
Over in Silver Spring, Liv Cigemeier's husband was surfing the internet for a few minutes while his wife finished getting ready for the barbecue they would be attending. "Hey," he called out, "this says a new Director was named at International Development Machine. Have you ever heard of this guy?" He shouted out the name to her, and then heard a gasp.
Back in Washington, the river rats scurried away from the the chaos of the Georgetown water main reconstruction project and back into the bosom of Ardua of the Potomac--well, some to her bosom, others to her stomach.
******************
NEXT WEEK: Lost and found with the cursed Rolex.
"Do you think he is trying to exercise more power than President Bush did?" asked Dr. Esse.
"That's not the point!" shouted Boehner. (He was this close to giving up bipartisanship forever!)
"What is the point?" asked Dr. Esse?
"Whose side are your on?!" demanded Boehner.
Dr. Esse tapped on his own skull. "I'm on the side of your subconscious, trying to bring his voice to the surface. Let's try some more hypnosis." Boehner shoved the lollipop back in his mouth and thought about trying something else.
A couple miles to the west, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was in his State Department office, sucking on a grape lollipop and typing up another round of summaries on communications coming in from Libya, Egypt, and Syria. "Human shields", he kept typing, over and over again. "Refugees", he typed over and over again. "Rape as a weapon of war," he typed again. Then he paused. Unidentified amphibious creature seen pulling Libyan soldiers under in the Great Manmade River. Confirmed by three different sources. Satellite images inconclusive. He shuffled papers; he bounced around computer screens; he tried a few phone calls, but nobody was picking up.
Suddenly "C. Coe Phant" was in his doorway. "What's up?" he asked in his usual snarky way while simultaneously tossing the Deputy Administrator a candy bar.
"Have you heard anything about the Great Manmade River in Libya?" asked the Deputy Administrator.
"What about it?" asked C. Coe Phant, while the Deputy Administrator scrutinized his face and found nothing to suggest he was part of any conspiracy orchestrated to get the Deputy Administrator to make a fool of himself in his memo to the Secretary of State.
"Nothing," the Deputy Administrator replied.
C. Coe Phant returned to his own office to finish his report on Project R.O.D.H.A.M.'s new operation in Libya, and their plan for recruiting Angela de la Paz--who was rumored to be in Libya and hanging out around the Great Manmade River. (He wasn't worried about the Deputy Administrator's inquiry--surely just something about a body count there.) Phant was obsessed with the girl, and had gone as far as to ask Secretary Clinton to have a chance to recruit Angela de la Paz personally, but Secretary Clinton had laughed in his face. Phant was tired of being a desk jockey and wondered how he could graduate to Charles Wu's life.
A few miles to the north, Charles Wu was dunking his head into a sink full of ice water--once...twice...thrice.... He kept his eyes closed, exhaled deeply, inhaled deeply, and dunked his head three more times. Refreshed, he returned to his intelligence reports. Frankly, he was sick to death of Middle East intelligence and wanted to go back to reporting on Asia, but everybody wanted Middle East intelligence these days--including top clients the U.K. (desperate to win a war they had lost a long, long time ago) and China (which despised the "hordes of camel-riding illiterates" who drove up petroleum prices and jeopardized its advancement). Wu had C. Coe Phant reporting from the State Department, the Condor reporting on OPEC, Ethiopian taxi drivers reporting on Egyptian unrest, Che Flaco and Che Gordo reporting on Venezuela's attempts to wrest Saudi Arabia away from U.S. influence, and the Heurich Society's influence in controlling the flow of petro dollars from the sheikhs/despots and back to the U.S. For one thing, too many male spies! He hadn't seen Apricot Lily or Camisole Silk in months! It was extremely difficult to use women operatives in the Middle East, and without women, it just wasn't much fun for him! He couldn't fool around with the woman in Project R.O.D.H.A.M.--they were untouchable, for professional reasons. He stared out the window. I need a vacation. He resolved to talk to the Secretary of State about returning to the Chinese border of Afghanistan to check on the telecommunications shadow networks that Wikileaks and the New York Times had come dangerously close to outing.
Not far away, Congressman Herrmark was relaxing in his man cave while Mia (of the Marianas Islands) stared listlessly out the second floor window, "enjoying" a couple hours by herself. Her English had gotten good enough now to read the newspapers a bit and understand television programs. She was starting to understand more about the huge world out there, and the more she understood about it, the more she felt trapped like a bird in a cage. It was true that human rights groups had gotten many of the factories shut down in the Marianas Islands and there was not much work left for girls like her, and her life here was better than it had been, but Mia did not understand why he had taken her passport to lock it up in a "safe place" unknown to her, or why he had given her shots for things like measles which she knew most people got at a doctor's office. And the more English she learned, and the more she tried to talk to his bodyguards, the more uncomfortable they got around her, and so they were avoiding her. Congressman Herrmark had brought her a toy poodle last week, but it stupidly fell through the banister from the top of the front hall stairs and broke its own neck on the marble floor of the foyer, but he blamed Mia and said he would not get her another pet. Mia thought she made him happy, but what if she didn't? Outside her window, a raven tried to whisper something to her, but all the windows were locked with a key because, the Congressman said, he was a sleepwalker--but she had never seen him sleepwalk. And she never slept a wink when he was home--only when he was gone. (She was nervous all the time.) She pressed her nose against the window and stared deeply into the eyes of the raven and wondered about the future.
Over in Silver Spring, Liv Cigemeier's husband was surfing the internet for a few minutes while his wife finished getting ready for the barbecue they would be attending. "Hey," he called out, "this says a new Director was named at International Development Machine. Have you ever heard of this guy?" He shouted out the name to her, and then heard a gasp.
Back in Washington, the river rats scurried away from the the chaos of the Georgetown water main reconstruction project and back into the bosom of Ardua of the Potomac--well, some to her bosom, others to her stomach.
******************
NEXT WEEK: Lost and found with the cursed Rolex.
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 2:05 PM
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