Men in Veils

"I dreamed that I entered the Chamber, and all the men were in veils!" exclaimed Congressman John Boehner.  "I could see the faces of all the Congresswomen, but the men all had veils over their faces!  What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means?" asked his psychiatrist, Ermann Esse.

"I don't understand what I'm paying you for if I'm supposed to come up with all the answers!" protested the Speaker of the House.

"Let's start with your initial reaction, and I will help you explore it."

"Well, obviously, the first thing is, have the secret Muslims taken over the Congress?"

"But in--"

"Yeah, I know!  It should be the women in the veils.  So everything is backwards of how it should be."

"And it should be that women are the ones in veils?"

"If the secret Muslims are in power, yeah!  But what if they made a deal with the women in Congress to take over?  I mean, if they're willing to do suicide bombs, maybe they're willing to do veils in order to take over Congress?  The secret Muslims could make a deal with the women to take over Congress.  A lot of people want to take over Congress, you know!"

"Yes, my patients tell me that all the time," sighed Dr. Esse.

(Boehner suspected there might have been some sarcasm there, but he let it go.)  "All I know is, Congress doesn't feel right anymore."

"In your dream, or in reality?"

Boehner hesitated for a minute.  "Both."

"What do you think the women are trying to accomplish by making a deal with the secret Muslims?"

"To take over Congress!" said an exasperated Boehner.

"But what would they do after taking over Congress?  What is their purpose?"

"What do they need a purpose for?  It's Congress!  That's the purpose!"

Down in McPherson Square, conspiracy blogger Glenn Michael Beckmann was also thinking about secret deals as he exited the Metro station and made his way back to 16th Street NW.  It had all begun with his unfortunate Scientology phase, and then he had noticed the Scientologists' proximity to the Freemasons.  Then, he had noticed they were also close to the AFL-CIO and the American Chemical Society.  Then he had realized the Swedenborgians and the Christian Scientists were on the same street!  And, worst of all, the National Education Association!  All lined up on 16th Street above the White House!  He knew he was onto something big when he had asked the American Chemical Society to explain why their lobby smelled like vanilla, monkey sweat, formaldehyde, and pepper spray, and they had asked Security to usher him out!  Everybody knows that the NEA is obsessed with vanilla, the Freemasons use monkey sweat in their rituals, the Swedenborgians use formaldehyde to make time stop, and the AFL-CIO has placed mind-control agents in the nation's pepper spray supply.  And now it was obvious that the American Chemical Society had its fingers in everything--and the White House was just a puppet in all of this!  Today he was going to attend the Swedenborgian Sunday service, and if he saw Ted Cruz there, it would all make sense.  He pulled a Bedouin dust scarf over his face as he approached the building.

Back in Dr. Esse's office, the Speaker of the House was out, and Luciano Talaverdi was in.  "I dreamed that I visited her at Prince and Prowling," began Talaverdi.  (Dr. Esse had learned a couple of weeks ago that the Federal Reserve Board economist was romancing Bridezilla, another patient of his, so he had to track carefully the information each was separately giving him.)  "All the men had scarves wrapped completely around their faces, and they were being led around the offices by robots."

"Where were the women?" asked the psychiatrist.

"I found them in the conference room.  Bridezilla was presenting a PowerPoint explaining how the robots had replaced the contract attorneys, and then the robots had replaced the paralegals, and now the robots were gradually replacing the male associates and partners."

"But the robots were not going to replace the women in the law firm?"

"No:  if the law firm had no female employees listed, it would get in trouble with the government."

"So the women were just there as tokens?  The robots were going to do all the work?"

"Bridezilla was explaining that Prince and Prowling actually only needed to provide their clients a few hours of legal analysis per week:  the rest of the billing could be for taxi rides back and forth to Capitol Hill or the courts, filing the same campaign contributions and delaying motions over and over and over again.  It was a mass production system, like a factory."

"Hm," said Dr. Esse.  "And how did this dream make you feel?"

"What do you mean?!" exclaimed Talaverdi.  "It was a complete nightmare!  In my world, men are important--and they think all day, and analyze the economy, and make policy decisions!  We cannot be replaced by robots who do the same thing over and over and over again!  Quantitative easing requires nuance!"

"So did you take any action in your dream?"

"I asked Bridezilla to leave with me--I told her it was a heartless, soulless place, and she would lose her mind there!"

"And what did she say?"

"She laughed and said she loved my Italian flare for the dramatic!"

"She didn't take you seriously?"

"No!"

"Do you think she takes you seriously in real life?"

"Most of the time!  But she is a hard woman to understand!  I gave her my Rolex yesterday because she was late, and she just laughed!  That is a $1,000 watch!"

"I thought you got it as a gift."

"That is not the point!  She laughed!"

"Some men would think making a woman laugh is an excellent strategy," said Dr. Esse.

"She laughs like a hyena!"

(Dr. Esse started sketching Bridezilla as a hyena.)  "Do you have any concerns that the next Chair of the Federal Reserve Board is a woman?"

"Of course not!  I love women!"

"Yes, my patients tell me that all the time," sighed Dr. Esse.

Out in the waiting room, "Didymus" paced nervously.  The ghost of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara couldn't shake his recurrent dream of being placed on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity.  The judge, prosecutor, and jurors all had gas masks veiling their faces, even though the defense attorney kept telling them there was no need for it.  ("It's been almost seventy years!  The nuclear fallout is gone!")  The prosecutor pointed vaguely in the direction of Didymus, and told the jury that some things could only be seen with eyes covered.

"Are we here to condemn Iran for its nuclear program?  No!  Are we here to condemn North Korea for its nuclear program?  No!  We are here to condemn the United States--the only nation that has ever committed an act of nuclear genocide!"

"We are not the genocidal ones!" protested Didymus.  "We were saving lives when we dropped those bombs!"

"Saving lives by not having to invade Japan?  That is like saying using drones to kill 30,000 people in Asia and Africa is saving American lives by not having to invade Asia and Africa!  Acts of genocide against other races to 'save' your own people!"

"You are getting it all wrong!" protested Didymus.  "And it wasn't me, anyway!  That was before I was Secretary of Defense!  Why am I on trial?  I didn't kill the Japanese!"

"Why is anyone on trial?!" exclaimed the veiled prosecutor, unintentionally facing a wall.  "Crimes against humanity will not be tolerated!  Execute him!"

With that, the jurors stood up and lifted rifles to aim at Didymus, but with the gas masks on, they had trouble locating him.  Didymus bolted for the window, desperately trying to smash it open with a chair.

"Didymus!" exclaimed Dr. Esse, upon exiting his office.  He apologized to Talaverdi, saying his next patient was having sleepwalking problems, but all Talaverdi could see was a chair floating in mid-air next to a window.

Outside the window, a catbird flew back and forth, taunting the confused ghost inside with shrill cries that sounded like air siren warnings.  Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac happily contemplated the blind leading the blind.