Death By Chocolate

Glenn Michael Beckmann was heading back to his apartment at Southwest Plaza with a carful of sweet memories and weapons after days of wheeling and dealing at America's Gun Show, out in Chantilly, Virginia.  First, he had sold his (fake) antique Colt 45 with the (walrus) ivory handle for a ridiculous $4,500, then he had bartered five AK47s for a used rocket-propelled grenade launcher (it would look great on his balcony, though he wasn't sure the range was long enough to hit the Capitol), then he had swapped a hand-made bow and arrow for three Glocks stolen from the Fairfax County Police Department.  After that, he had met with several of his conspiracy blog followers to discuss future plans for the Hunter-Gatherer Society, including a drone strike on Sky Drive to stop it from stealing their computer documents and hiding them in The Cloud.  (That would be tricky, naturally, since, first, they would have to locate The Cloud, and second, they would have to steal a drone.)  In addition, he had lined up half a dozen actual paying customers for his new business, Beckmann's Bad Asses (code name, Beckmann's Floral Cushions)!  Still, there was a tiny hole in his heart that all the guns 'n ammo in the world could not fill, and he was very disappointed that he had not gotten lucky at America's Gun Show, so he decided to stop off at CVS to gorge himself on clearance bin Valentine chocolate.

Across the Potomac River, the denizens of the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged were also gorging themselves on clearance bin Valentine chocolate, while Freddy Ritchings (AKA Brother Divine of the International Peace Movement) was preaching to them about his brand new religion, the Church of Twitter.  "The pen is mightier than the sword, my friends, but the hashtag is mightier than them all!"  ("Amen!")  "Wondering what God says to you about sin?  Simply enter #sin, and God will speak to you through Twitter!"  (Ritchings paused to do just that on the group home computer, and then let the others gather round to see what popped up on the screen.)  "Now, see, that one with the halo avatar looks pretty good, but it's actually about waffles--you must beware of the false prophets!"  ("Amen!")  "Now here's a photo of a beautiful woman, but her Tweet is appealing to man's vanity--you must beware of Eve's apple!" ("Amen!")  ("Hey, what?")  "Twitter is not for the weak of heart--you must cast your seed on holy ground, and fight through the weeds to find the fruit." ("Amen!")  ("What's this Tweet that says #SIN is Service Industry Night?")  "Beware of the man with a huge, gnarly chunk of wood in his eye, telling you he needs to remove the splinter in yours!"  ("Amen!")  "Now, here is one that speaks loudly to me, clearly the voice of God!"  ("Never underestimate your ability to #sin better than Satan.")  "I will reply, my friends!  I will reply!"  (Ritchings showed them how to reply to the Tweet with his own Tweet:  "To #sin is human, to forgive is #BrotherDivine!")  ("Ooooooh!")  "A new hashtag is born, and at the end of this day, I will have dozens, no I say to you, hundreds of Likes and Retweets, and God's glory will march forth and multiply the loaves!"  ("Amen!")  ("Can we look up #alienabduction?")

Back in Washington, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Hope was heading into his State Department office after a frustrating lunch with his ex, Eva Brown.  (#valentinesdaysucks)  The Eva-shaped hole in his heart had never gone away, and he had foolishly thought the timing of the lunch invitation meant something, but, no, all she had wanted to talk about was Project R.O.D.H.A.M.'s failure in Syria--which she blamed on a lack of funding.  The Syrian peace conference was a joke because nobody wanted peace there except the refugees:  it would be civil war until too many young men were dead to continue the fighting.  "We need an arms embargo on Syria!" she had pleaded, and she was right, it was the absolutely only chance of stopping the bloodshed--but reality and logic did not go hand in hand in the Levantine, and certain people were making a lot of money selling weapons there.  He picked up the latest cables from John Kerry (currently in China), then went to work preparing for the backlash on Kerry's declaration that climate change was a weapon of mass destruction--a bag of clearance bin Valentine chocolate his only companion.

Back at the Southwest CVS, lifestyle blogger Giuliana Sunstream was losing control at the Valentine candy clearance bin when a camouflage-attired Glenn Michael Beckmann approached rapidly from her left and plunged his hand into the fray.  His fingers brushed her wrist--and the cursed Rolex--and they both looked up, and their eyes met.  She waited breathlessly for him to move his hand away from her wrist, but he didn't...nor did she move hers.  "I know you," she said.  "You write that lifestyle blog, and run Beckmann's Floral Cushions."

An impish smile took hold of him.  "And you write that NoMa blog," he said.  "The photo doesn't do justice to your stunning American beauty."  He tickled her wrist under cover of the pink Hershey's Kisses bags, and she looked down, and then back up at him.

"You look different, too," she said, but she was wrong.  He looked exactly like his online photo--a pudgy militia man with an old-fashioned haircut and crazy eyes.  The difference was he had touched her cursed Rolex, and her pheromones and hormones were going berserk.  "I'd love to learn the secret to how you got so many Twitter followers," she whispered seductively.

"Maybe I'll tell you all my secrets," he answered, then he grabbed her and started kissing her for several minutes until the store manager asked them to take it outside.

Across the Tidal Basin, Mia was sitting on the Jefferson Memorial, shoving Dove Promises into her mouth and basking in the sick glow she mistook for love from Ardua of the Potomac:  she was possessed.  (Most people in Washington are possessed, but she was really possessed.)

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COMING UP:  Angela de la Paz decides her baby's fate, and Laura Moreno settles into her new life at Prince and Prowling.