Juanita Dee Rockefeller Versus The Borderline States Part One

Juanita Dee Rockefeller versus The Borderline States brought to you by

the Liberry [sic] of Congrass [sic]

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For Love

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PART One: incoming Exhibit A: Island Map Exhibit B: Correspondence from JDR to HMDSGGGBIBDSQDFDECMBGDLMDNSMHOBSMAMNOTSMIOSPS MDOSMSSMEOBESDSOSISOSMESISMEOIESOBISIOMSOBSROVASR FOKEVIISOMSOMSOCHRVOSMVOHSJJ Exhibit C: Correspondence from JDR to JDR Sr. Exhibit D: Dream Lovers Exhibit E: Be Here Now Exhibit F: Beer Man Exhibit G: Uppity Men Unite Exhibit H: Honey Pie Exhibit I: Break Beat Exhibit J: Watch Out Boy, She’ll Chew You Up Exhibit K: Chamber of Fates Exhibit L: Kid Stuff Exhibit M: Matriarchy in Motion

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PART Two: going in Exhibit N: Whoa Man! Carry a Hatchet. Exhibit O: Ban Nighechain Exhibit P: Ceos Bucks Berserker Exhibit Q: Chopping Broccoli Exhibit R: Contact Exhibit S: Motherfuckers Exhibit T: Losing Energy to Java the Slut Exhibit U: Thai Chi Exhibit V: Two-Ton Cow-Pig Spotted! Exhibit W: Paranoia Attack Exhibit X: Lounging Around the Selkie Bar Exhibit Y: Banana Split Exhibit Z: Feeling the Maze Exhibit AA: Inside the Life Lab Exhibit BB: Bobster Hope Exhibit CC: Floor Show Exhibit DD: Bust!

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PART Three: coming out Exhibit EE: Girls Gone Wild for Fashion Exhibit FF: Weaponry Class with Pops Exhibit GG: Trick Dolphins Exhibit HH: Honey’s Hive Exhibit II: Pink Teddy Bears Are Killer Exhibit JJ: Bobbing for Apples Exhibit KK: Rhythm Nation Exhibit LL: Trail of Crocodile Tears Exhibit MM: Wave Rider Exhibit NN: Tsurprise! Exhibit OO: Making Herstory

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PART One: incoming

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Exhibit B Correspondence from JDR to HMDSGGGBIBDSQDFDECMBGDLMDNSMHOBSMAMNOTSMIOSPSMDOS MSSMEOBESDSOSISOSMESISMEOIESOBISIOMSOBSROVASRFOKEVIISO MSOMSOCHRVOSMVOHSJJ

[JDR Seal] November 27, 2071 Queeny: Rockefeller talking. Listen, I want my 20ºN-66ºW island back. Sincerely, /s/ JDR_____________ P.S. Should you be so kind, would you see to eliminating Java the Slut before my arrival? She, he, it is unsightly.

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Exhibit C Correspondence from JDR to JDR Sr.

[JDR Seal] November 27, 2071 Father: Ever since that cigarette incident, you haven’t been the same. I want the island back from my royal friends, so I’m getting it. Tootles, /s/ JDR_______________ P.S. Tough!

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Exhibit D Dream Lovers “Going to the liberry?” What in the hell is this fruitcake talking about? At the intersection of Doris Lessing Avenue and Zaha Hadid Boulevard, the heart of Mothertown, a tall, lanky, middle-aged man, with flyaway tresses wears a purple caftan, a feathered hat and a yoga mat on his back. With a grin brightening his wonderfilled expression, he faces the mammoth house of books, resembling a ginormous pastry more than a government sponsored facility for higher learning, as it stands across the dirt intersection. “I have to tell ya; the main branch of the Mothertown Public Liberry is a mad cathouse on Friday nights.” Hundreds of women and children gather along the teal-colored tiled stairs leading to the library entrance. The edge of the arched doorway is accented with rounded porcelain resembling a candy cane. This evening, some kid locals taut as a ‘haiku master’ will take the stage, “it will be a real trip,” in the words of my street corner companion. “You’re a tourist I take it? On your way to Lost Vegas? You’re on the wrong side of the island, kid. The stripper village is on the southeast shore.” My disguise must be working. “Even so, your personal babe fest is already underway, my friend. Womyn representing all races, religions and sexual persuasions gather, with children and pets in tow, just inside that concrete cupcake over there to meet friends, drink fair-trade coffee and check-out acceptable books from a feminist ideology. It will be a beautiful experience for you, man. “And, just look at that fantastic building. You can see from here it was built by a team who had absolutely no respect for neo-Classical construction. Striking! Not a single wall in the whole place is straight. ‘Pansy work,’ to use my late father’s words. Can you see the gem stones embossed into the pink tile? How could you miss them, really?” The building looks like a stadium-sized dripping, chocolate cupcake with pink icing on top. Similar in shape and feel to the Gaudi Casa Milá apartment building in Barcelona, its base is circular and made of stained concrete. The ‘icing’ is made of shiny white and fuchsia tiles shaped into smooth hills and valleys serving as a roofscape. The ‘sprinkles’ appear to be a mix of rubies and possibly sapphires. The generous amount of sparklers allows the roof to shine and shimmer like fire as the sun moves across the celestial skies.

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My intersection mate admires the mouth-watering edifice; “I like to describe it as ‘sloppy delicious.’ It’s the perfect collision of a wealth of inspiration and a lack of funding. A mess of a structure accented with finely crafted touches, there isn’t anything like it in the world. Just another reason Unnamed island is a special place to be. And now’s the time to see it, man. One of these days, the whole structure is going to fall apart before our eyes.” His green peepers focus back down onto the busy intersection before us, “In a nut shell, it’s a really beautiful scene inside that cupcake. But to a point, you know what I’m saying? I shouldn’t bring it up but I’m sure you’ve already spotted the less than desirable womyn with a ‘y’ around here. Some of the trolls probably work on the boat that brought you over from Miami.” Affirmative. This chatterbox might be my key source for today’s radio report. Thank Christ. None of these women will tell me anything. I take the opportunity to introduce myself as a reporter for KMAN out of Washington DC. We do a show once a week about controversial happenings called Culture Clubbed. This assignment is unusual in that my editor wants me to stick around the island for a while looking for other story ideas. From the tales we’ve heard back home, this so-called Paradise Island is sure to be a treasure trove of oddities. Hopefully, enough material will keep our listeners in stitches for weeks. Tonight’s scheduled appearance of Hero Little at the library, the kid poet, is of special interest to our listeners most of whom don’t take children seriously and oppose women gathering for any purpose. Photos of the kid are impossible to find in the States, sparking my own curiosity. Dr. Robert Leary-Leech, a.k.a. Dr. Nobody, also goes by “Know Body with a ‘K.’” he tells me. Know Body is more than happy to not only be interviewed, but escort me “into the whirlpool of estrogen” gathering outside Unnamed’s version of a main branch library. Caftan Man warns me the few men on the island are afraid to enter the library: “Too dangerous. For some reason, of all places, the liberry seems to be the most sacred space to this community, even the name is treated with kid gloves.” Three years ago, the word ‘Library’ in the title of the facility was changed to ‘Liberry’ because kids liked it. Apparently, young citizens were having difficulty saying a word with a surprise ‘r’ in the middle. And, kids “like berrys,” according to Nobody, so the ‘a’ was replaced with an ‘e.’ The building was also designed to attract children.

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My source mentions the UI Language Counsel, the government body responsible for not only the title of the facility, but for changing many words in all usages including ‘counsel.’ The first drafts of the Untitled Dictionary in Response to Queen’s English Used by White Men began “130 moon cycles” ago courtesy of a committee of the Community Affairs Counsel of Mothertown. Nobody comments, “The presentation of the thing is more like a memoir than a dictionary.” A memoir! Jesus. Its purpose was and still is to put a female, child, flora and fauna friendly version on record. With the organization of UILC, the mission also incorporated measures to keep the mother tongue as beautiful as possible in addition to other goals stolen straight from the Académie française playbook. In the eye of the beholder? I nod along as I make a note to mention the ludicrous concept during my show. A dictionary-memoir influenced by frogs will get listener attention for certain. And, the university advertisers will love it. Nobody prepares for what he, we and the listeners will be faced with once inside the library, if we can make it inside on such a popular evening; “I brave the stares and glares and occasional punch to the groin in order to check-out books by authors hard to find in other parts of the island, authors who hold no interest in the capital city of Motherland.” According to Nobody, classics by masters recognized elsewhere collect dust on shelves here. It becomes apparent the traffic light we are waiting for to cross the Lessing-Hadid intersection is broken, stuck on a flashing ‘Don’t Progress.’ All traffic signs, Nobody informs me, were changed to replace ‘walk’ with ‘progress’ to include vertically challenged citizens. I take our non-progress as an opportunity to check in with him to see if he’s ready to rock and roll on the sound net once we cross the street. He’s all thumbs up. I turn on my KMAN air mic and put on my press badges. He thanks me for the attention and chance to “hang out with a real man.” Nobody apologizes to me for the mouth-watering wait. “As you can see, the liberry’s along one of these dangerous circles straight from the city design schools of Paris. During a past life, I used to pour concrete for my father’s construction company so I know these rounded traffic ways cause an endless loop of fatalities.” On point, a confused driver moves her horse wagon in a direction to head straight for the median under our feet. “Watch your arms!” Nobody’s eyes widen as his body rises to the occasion sparing me a trip to the hospital.

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We finally cross as I wonder if a land without men even has medical facilities. In my research, I came across mention of a ‘Life Lab’ of some kind along some body of water called ‘Birth Canal’ wherever the hell that is. “This is Henry Wordworth reporting for KMAN along side Dr. Robert LearyLeech, historian and yogi, or herstorian, to use the local lexicon, and known on Unnamed island as ‘Nobody.’ We’re here live standing among a crowd of hundreds of women, children and animals gathered in front of the Mothertown Pubic Liberry moments before Hero Little’s appearance as part of the Ladies First conference inside the Joan Jett Hall of Audio Outrage. “Doctor, can you tell us why you and I appear to be the only men here?” “Doctor? Please, Henry, I’m Nobody. When you say ‘men,’ I assume you mean outside the numerous sexually reassigned men residing on the island?” “Ah…yes, I believe so. Real men, where are they?” “It’s crazy here, Henry, really. The women, with a ‘y’ as they like to refer to themselves, see this island as a retreat from the world of men, a way to get away from the Man, ‘man’ capitalized, if you will. That’s one of the reasons the island remains Unnamed.” “KMAN GO HOME! KMAN GO HOME! KMAN GO HOME!” “Some women, clothed in pink have started chanting to our left. It sounds as if they are protesting the presence of Cayman islanders traveling from 900 miles west. Is that the case Nobody?” “Absolutely not, Henry! The crowd is jeering at you and your station.” “How do they know I’m from KMAN?” “There’s a lot of mind readers in this circle. And, honestly, the KMAN badges on your chest and golf attire give away your status as a mouth piece for the man.” “KMAN GO HOME! KMAN GO HOME!” “Feel the love, Henry? The womyn with a ‘y’ can’t get enough of you.” “What do you mean? They’re angry.” “You don’t understand these cats, Henry. If the womyn didn’t care, they wouldn’t bother to scream.” “Speaking man to man, Nobody, how do you survive here?”

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“For starters, I live outside of my body, Henry. Most women can see that, especially all the Wiccans here. Living a levitational life is well-respected here. On the mainland, existence outside my body was not only not taken seriously, it eventually cost me my livelihood.” “I see. But, why live here? Why put up with…this, them?” “Well, I love women, even the ones who despise me. And, to be frank, Henry, I love to make love. Unnamed island offers plenty of options, making the connections worth the struggle. Nothing in this world can be created without a little friction, Henry, and that includes you and me. Catch my drift?” “We hear stateside Mothertown is the most socially repressed area of Unnamed island. It there any truth to the claim?” “Oh, yes, Henry. Men are not welcome in Mothertown, Motherland the way they are in the more open country of Unnamed island, places like Lost Vegas, Da Blue Hills, mon or the Ultra Sound, for example.” “PIG PRESS! PIG PRESS!” a grating high-pitched voice is heard in the background as Nobody lets out a hearty laugh. The ground moves. Brush! “You OK, there, buddy?” “I think so. The tightly packed crowd is starting to shift like a tidal wave.” “Don’t worry about Betty. She’s a beauty. What an incredible sound! You should hear those chords behind closed doors! But, back to what I was saying. Any outsider, Henry, well, I guess I mean man, is not recognized by locals as anyone who can be trusted. Once you go inside the liberry, if you can get inside, and have a chance to hear Hero do her poetry thing, you will understand more about where the women here are coming from. Their anger has had thousands of years to fester. From the ladies point of view, ever since the overthrow of the matriarchal moon cult by the usurping patriarchal father-god-worshipping barbarians, no place on earth has really been safe for themselves, their children, animals or even plants.” “You sound like a convert, Nobody.” “That’s the Aquarius in me talking, Henry. Astrologically, my nature is to understand all sides of debate. Being an air sign means I can formulate the ladies’

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arguments better than they can and frequently do. I’ve saved my own hide performing verbal loop to loops on several occasions.” “I’m still not convinced it’s worth it for a man to reside here full time. I think the listeners want to hear a few more of your secrets.” “The sun, the sand, the life-threatening excitement. Women have me totally surrounded here and I love it. How many ways do I have to say it? My mind is constantly challenged. And, you know, I’ve been teaching yoga to the local ladies for a few years now and so far we have gotten along better than I had initially expected.” Twat! “Excuse me, folks, the Doctor and I have just been sideswiped with what appears to be a…frying pan?! Is that a frying pan?” “It is indeed, Henry. But, don’t worry. The women just haven’t gotten a chance to get to know you and your mother yet. Isn’t your mother the renowned, feminist author Lady XX?” “Ah…yes. How did you know that? Are you a mind reader too?” “No. It’s written all over your face, kid. Listen, here, put this on. It’s the hat I always wear when I embark into new island territories and you might need it more than I do right now.” “Can you describe the hat for the listeners?” “Sure. It’s a fuchsia-colored feather boa shaped into a swami-style head wrap. Many of the members of the Kode Pinque organization have taken to wearing variations of the same design.” “Kode Pinque?” “The police.” “Right…” “When one wears it around the island, it is assumed the wearer is a member, or at least, a sympathizer to the Cause. And, in my case, with my slim build and love of caftans, many locals graciously mistake me for a transsexual. The hat seals the deal. Not so sure the same can be said for you. However, wearing the boa hat should get the crowd off your back for a little while anyway. And, you could always hide your sound waves inside the feathers if the occasion calls.”

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“I sort of wish I could be living outside my body right now, Nobody. The tension is starting to worry me. For the listeners’ sake, allow me a few moments to describe the crowd before us. Women, children and animals of all shapes, sizes and colors are united under one cause it seems: their own. Signs and banners announce an intention to keep men off the island and women in; ‘No Man Land 4-Ever,’ ‘Poetry for Peace,’ ‘Pass-aFist’ and, oddly, ‘Honey for President.’ As the minutes pass, the crowd grows and personal space lessens. Could I ask you a favor, Nobody?” “Shoot.” “Could you escort me inside the building? Even if I could find my way to easing in, I’m not sure I’ll make it around in one piece.” “OK. The thing to know is the main entrance swinging doors are falling apart,” his nod is accented with a light chuckle. “Close your eyes, open your mouth and chant ‘om.’” “Hold on, listeners!” “Ride your breath, Henry.” “My ears hear the crowd below us as we seem to float above, hand in hand, beyond them. Are my feet touching the ground? I can’t be sure, dear listeners. The wind shifts as I feel us pass the entrance and resist the urge to open my eyes until we touch ground again. “Cathedral ceilings at a slant. Oblong archways. Reflections of Gaudi continue inside. Pink and purple tile mosaics depicting females from times past stand out… “When was this giant cupcake built, Nobody?’ “About fifty moons ago, four years I guess. A group of Spanish and Italian guys put it together. They’re soldiers for the Pregnancy Collective now.” Once our eyes adjust to the light, Dr. Nobody fleshes out the ‘liberry’ a little more for the listeners using his voice. I, however, will switch to Thought Comm to reach you, dear audience. Not only is Thought Comm the best way to communicate silently with listeners on air, it is the most appropriate method of broadcast for this place and time. Each library should be a sanctuary of peace, no matter how these broads cast it. “In most other parts of the world, I would have to say, Bukowski, the Millers, Dostoevsky and Borges mean something. Not here,” Nobody continues aloud.

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“Fredrick Douglass is no hero for the black women at this liberry. Black studies takes away from women’s studies, you see, so, black women in this wacked-up world have no interest in Mr. Douglass. But, women of all colors love Shirley Chisholm.” Through my thought process, I remind the listeners Chisholm was the first black woman, not African-Amerikan, her parents were from Barbados, to run for president of the Borderline States in the 1972 election. She lost in the primaries. “Can you feel the excitement building inside here, Henry? Hero’s fans are going crazy for her.” Hats, wigs, chadris, strollers, cats and dogs flood everywhere. Birds fly overhead. “But, back to what’s actually housed inside, namely a hearty collection of books, mostly unappreciated. All the liberries are in need of resource materials throughout the island, but this main branch here, rolls it out big time. Instead of putting a name on a waiting list for a copy of Naked Lunch at a branch over in New Park Slope, for example, it’s easier to just head on over to the huge cupcake with the gargantuan collection. Nobody advises visitors to check out the events board in the lobby upon entry in order to “see what these far out chics are up to this week.” He points out other signage near the entrance because it “always clues me into what tree these mood swingers are barkin’ up lately. Sometimes headsets and strollers are allowed, other times not. The rules change with the tides. “It says here there’s an upcoming panel of linguists discussing the dangers of the English language, an ongoing topic around here, on the Babs Rockefeller stage. And, ah, look! Pepper Collins is coming back. A psychological journalist, more important, she’s one spicy red-headed devil in my opinion. The last time I saw her for an ear-vision seminar, it was beautiful, man, though it was hard for me to see and hear her standing in back. “One thing to note about seminars is men, if there are any, sit in the back, that is, even if you can get a seat. Men are in the back of the bus in this town. But, it’s worth it if you can squeeze in for these seminars. The women are so crazy, it’s worth hearing them speak, shout and sing.” And, well, Friday nights, including tonight, I only recommend for the bravest tourist: “if you really got the guts for it.” A half-torn pink poster announces starting next Friday and every Friday following, until further notice, Pat Black will read from her latest collection of poems titled Flip Financials and Other Fodder or, Why Men Need to Disappear into Thin Air. “Powerful, loud and anti-man in all respects, Pat and her kind give me the chills. Well, when I can understand her.” Nobody shivers. “She mostly speaks in the local UILC language.” He lets out a sigh before adding, “But, feminist freaks are what Friday nights are all about at the Motherland Liberry. You and your listeners are here on a good night for feminist virgins. Tonight with the kid should be relatively mellow.”

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Hero promotes herself inside the library by way of a silhouette drawing of a little girl, hair blowing in the wind, in sloppy, brownish ink on a pink piece of recycled paper tacked with a rusty nail to a tree stump. Did she do it herself? A little blob of a logo on the bottom right hand corner helps the eye detect a special appearance by ‘LUMP’ after the main event. Dr. Nobody speculates ongoing radical feminist activities in this facility make sense given the Liberry of Womyn’s Herstory is right down the street. Housed in an old mansion transported piece by piece, it was donated four years ago by Sri Lankan gem wives from Kandy. LUMP, Literature Usurps Masculine Power, was founded five years ago in an attempt to remove unwelcome literature from the shelves of all of the library branches. Regarding the name, Nobody comments, “What an unfortunate acronym to have. It’s appropriate, too, just as silly as the mission.” The book club is a subject of which Nobody speaks with passion; “I seemed to be the only one around here who found it inappropriate. Turns out, the Federal judges found LUMP’s case to be unconstitutional as well. The case was thrown out of court and the incident made front pages of the oldpapers across the divided nation. You might have seen it.” “I didn’t. However, some of the listeners out there may have,” I venture with my out loud voice. Enraged, the women of the committee and the other locals took the court ruling as another example of the power of man, the fraternal patriarchy, pre-Karen Horney penis obsession, post chauvinism, or as Dr. Nobody says, “all those phrases dedicated to ratting out the faults of us poor guys and using it as a reason to ruin our lives. Quick as lightning, it became another excuse to break away, live apart, and unfortunately, destroy the yang part of the yin, if you know what I mean.” “On the one hand, it was funny, but on the other hand, I am afraid people outside the island just don’t understand womyn. We don’t. “Womyn aren’t all crazy, Henry.” They’re not? “LUMP did, succeed in dedicating a room to ‘Mother Earth Happenings,’ the island’s terminology for ‘women’s studies,’ and another lounge to ‘Womyn in Literature.’ Our guide recommends the lounge; “That’s a good place to check out the younger, cuter females in the hood. They’re fresher so their whole lib thing is still soft

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and cute.” He is disappointed in the short spurts of time he is limited to in the lounge; “girls quickly lose trust in the only man in the room.” He tells us the womyn’s areas are the “perfect place” to check out books from Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf, books written by women or where powerful women play a central role in the story. Tennessee Williams, Anais Nin and Margaret Mitchell are favorites. Tennessee’s a man, but, according to our guide, he “got in” because he’s a “doofruit,” local slang for a man thought to be a mixture of a “doormat” and a “homosexual.” ‘Doofruit’ is meant as a compliment, folks. The power of women in the books written by the male authors LUMP intended to ban, sit eerily undisturbed on the shelves here in unmarked rooms. Says the impassioned source, “Doesn’t it occur to anyone Daisy Miller, Catherine Sloper and Sadie Thompson are powerful figures? Thought that was obvious. But, no one here is going to listen to me. In their eyes, I’m Nobody, the shadow man they’ve seen slinking around town with japa mala beads in my hand, and a mischievous smile on my face.” He accuses the female islanders of “self hatred.” “The Mother Earth Happenings rooms includes sections on child care, French writers of both genders, every Betty Freidan book known to man, in multiple copies. Big picture books of Marlene Dietrich donated by los Mujeres de la Argentina line a bottom shelf. Geisha guide manuals, written by Japanese women, are a radical entry from the house of Yakamojo Fokito. Apple tree cookbooks by Bolivian ladies are in English y español.” Nobody leads us on to another large, circular room. A large, framed photo of Phillis Wheatley, the first published Amerikan poet, mounted on a red wall greets us. “The Oprah-Ono-Onassis Memorial Suppressed Freedom Reborn Collection offers an assortment of works banned in their own places and times. Women writers of the former Iran, textualists of Judaism, Swedish folklore and aboriginal Australian hunting guides all have a place here.” “As you can see, Henry, the center of this circle is accented with the Andrea Dworkin Memorial Fountain of Recycled Paper.” Appropriate for memorializing the infamous anti-pornographer, the fountain uses solar powered energy supplied by a circular window above to shred pages of male-servicing imagery, creating cascades of paper strips flowing from various directions. The paper disappears in a shoot leading below ground where it is collected for recycling. The sight tears me up, folks. Dr. Nobody broaches the subject of security as we come upon the curved entrance to the Joan Jett Hall of Audio Outrage. The battalion of guards are difficult not to notice.

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An extension of Kode Pinque, larger than life ladies mean business in magenta uniforms, holding bright red steaming curling irons in place of billy clubs. “Lots of people know me here now, but sometimes I still have problems,” he laments. “Security, fembots one and all, is all about ladies first.” Nobody stiffens up and pays the necessary respects to the forces of security with nods and winks. He searches the scowls of the perfectly aligned ladies, looking for an opening. “Oh, shit, look, there’s Peg.” His caftan flows open towards a large woman with a welcoming face. His shoulders relax. We might be in the clear. “Peggy O!” KP force members are turning towards the male voice. Some shake their heads in disapproval. “She’s a security guard but she’s also a friend a mine from the Hideaway. She’s on the hockey team; pretty damn good too.” Women of all sorts continue to glare in his direction. Short, tall, dark, light; shape and size does not matter; the women in this library here today are annoyed with him. On alert, Estée Lauder hair baton erect, Peg is prepared for any shenanigans we might pull as she hesitantly waves back to us with her free hand motioning for us to enter. He confirms the stares with; “A man has no rights in this building. Sometimes someone like Peg is my only friend.” We’re inside the beating heart of Mothertown, listeners. Once past the security guards, the room is crammed with bodies. We move between ample breasts and soft backs as graciously as possible, attempting to find an empty spot. Nobody smiles as his body bounces above the sea of female heads as I fiddle with a notebook and pen. Two men are swimming through a sea of women. The oval room is padded with walls covered in red sateen. Nobody’s long, thin fingers point out over the crowd towards the LUMP group preparing to perform. Fifty women wearing brown tights and leotards hold tambourines as they stand behind Hero’s podium like an army of polished terds. With an eye out for a bratty little girl, your reporter is unable to spot Hero on a stage or in the crowd. Where is the front of this rounded room? I do, however, feel a force pulling me towards the podium. “Can you vibe on the energy, Henry?” “Vibe on?” “Women are free, fly!”

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The voice is coming from the stage. A small girl wearing a bright orange satin kimono stands on an elevated platform in the center of the padded room. Her tiny right fist is held high towards the circular skylight above. She waits patiently allowing women and children to scream and shout. Tambourines shake. “Engage the root chakras,” “I love when she puts yoga references into her haikus,” Nobody whispers softly into my ear. His breath smells of mint and his skin like fresh grapefruit. “Send the spirit high.” The crowd goes wild. Nobody raises his hands in ecstasy. The child’s presence puts me at ease here. As the crowd focuses on the stage, he and I, seemingly the only two y chromes in the room, go unnoticed. And, that’s fine with me, dear listeners. “Let her haikus wash over you, Henry. The best way to feel their power is to release your mind and just let them swim around inside your skull,” Nobody advises me. I don’t know about you, listeners, but I don’t ever take orders from a kid, let alone allow a tike’s thoughts to swim around freely in my head. In addition, and this is just my humble opinion, knowing next to zero about haiku, I think that first haiku she just shared with us blows. The tight crowd, here, however is hypnotized by the words of the child, Nobody included. Standing at about four feet tall, she appears to be around six years old. Her hair is a mess and she needs to wash her face. I have to say, listeners, when my editor first proposed I cover the phenomenon of a popular child poet, an overnight sensation, in the land of ladies, I thought he was pulling my leg. I mean, how good or popular could a child poet really be? My editor had a hunch the scene would be unbelievable. Though true, I don’t think he had a cupcake with sateen walls and a porn shredder in mind. I tried my hardest to research Hero on my own last week before my arrival. However, listeners, as many of you know, much of the goings on of Unnamed island are of no consequence to today’s stateside interests. Our fatherland is going through another misogyny period, a time where the voices of women and children are hard to hear. I probably shouldn’t think it aloud listeners, but if a story is not about guns, drugs and war, it can’t get any coverage in the northwest 48, including right here on KMAN. And now with the Crisis personally affecting each and every Amerikan… “Find the enemy…”

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Hero’s loud mouth is back, shouting out after a few minutes of soaking up audience accolades. “Man stands before and among,” People start turning around to face Nobody and I, at least I think hundreds of eyes are searching for us as we stand silent and motionless near a shelf of books written by various authors dedicated to the theme of the ‘Siren.’ Nobody doesn’t seem to notice the attention, his eyes closed, body swaying. Your host is turning his head, dear listeners, in hopes the action is somewhere else. Nothing stands behind us except the bright red padded wall and the seemingly harmless Greek poetry, Swedish folklore and driving manuals. Where did I hear red walls make people angry? “Tame the hidden cat.” A semicircle of women advance towards us, threatening to crush our bodies into the shelf of Siren books. Nobody, help! Dear, listeners, our Thought Comm might cut off as it appears an angry mob of Harpies are about to inflict pain on your humble correspondent… Fists rise. “You perverts!” A shriek. Curling irons steam. “She’s just a child!” A shrill. A wave of bodies. Breath. Lost. S.O.S.

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Exhibit E Be Here Now ‘Unnamed Wonder of the World,’ a title of a feature story written by Chris Stills in the February issue of National Panagraphic, an international guide to geography, popular science, world history, culture, current events and photography of places and things all over the world and universe, published in 32 languages. …The most prolific ingredients in our biosphere are not tropical rain forests. In the case of Unnamed island, 40 miles north of Puerto Rico, it’s a laboratory in the rain forest. Although only 80 acres of this small island is covered in rain forest, it holds, as of this printing, 18 times as much organic source materials per acre as its tropical sisters. The forest lab can also produce as much as five times more biomass per acre as any tropical forest. The north and south mouths and estuaries of the Birth Canal water source run in and out of the Atlantic Ocean. Snaking through land, forest and laboratory, the green liquid flows back fertilizing the environment it touches at maximum volume. Various habitats meet and greet and mix it up with each other to swap species and nutrition. The result is a rich and mysterious ecosystem... …Earth’s natural wealth has become more valuable in recent years. Civilization spends more and more energy finding ways to best utilize it to assure its own future. But, what does natural wealth actually consist of and where is the line drawn between lab experiment and reality? And, why is it accumulating on Unnamed island in particular? With a superabundance of life forms both above sea level and below, Birth Canal Sound seemed like the perfect place to gain insight. I was especially curious about the connections between the wild creatures, the experimental beings and the humans, sometimes steps away from each other. Finally, the hundreds of retired strippers, who have made a home in Lost Vegas, 10 miles from the Sound, were also of interest. Do science and nature collide or harmonize along the murky waters of the Birth Canal? …One sure fire way to assess the condition of such an ecosystem is to check on the big predators. In the Unnamed case, that usually means scientists along side the habitat’s largest fauna… …Though it has only 700 inhabitants, the small port town of Lost Vegas, in the Bunny Bambi region, lying close to the Sound’s southeast end is considered a population center and commercial harvest town. From it, one can see wolf packs of men of all stripes coming and going from boat, yacht, ferry and home-made raft. Deer swim across the river to cool off while local women fill buckets of water to wash lingerie uphill and grow feet in secret gardens. Flotsam from the Life Lab 50 miles north flows into the delta. Biological possibilities appear to blur along the boundaries of man, woman and animal…

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…One sees trees that are forest communities all to themselves, moss drenching bark as it oozes with calcium, outweighing the cacophony of leaves. Three-toed sloths hang on to thick branches as snakes are found slithering into doorways of vibrating love shacks. Conversely, the Band of Brothers on the southwest side of the Birth Canal, near the Undecided bank, currently number 200 and live spread out among several caves… “…You have to remember,” a young Amerikan football player employed through local beer money said, “men had 10 times the population a century ago.” Back then, before scientists, enticed by the rich rain forest, and women, seeking warm weather and civil rights swept through the land, natives inhabited, children were schooled and land was farmed. Four summers ago, a momentous pro-life science demonstration bringing the former Princess Diana back to life put the Unnamed Life Lab and Birth Canal Sound on gel cams throughout the biosphere. The aftermath was unexpected. Since the success of the project, an average of 50,000 people ‘visit’ the island annually with an eighty percent retention rate. Locals enjoy creating their own laws, helping neighbors for no good reason and donating copious amounts of fetal matter to the Life Lab. Due to its abundance of earthbound gemstones, The British Museum used to own the whole of Unnamed island. In 1814, during the War of 1812, parts were sold to the Borderline States with the agreement the curator of BM and the King of England would retain seats in the local government under the name ‘Curator Party.’ Around the same time, Leaders of the Borderline States made statements claiming the island to be unnecessary to either the health and/or wealth of the BS nation state. According to Hans Barbara, in a statement made to the public, the former BS Secretary of War, “We only took it to prove the King to be a mamma’s boy.” The lab, with the help of some royal funds, brought back William’s mother, Princess Diana of Windsor, from the dead. Honey Hives, a popular UI politico, and King William have been peers as well as close associates since Honey’s days in British Parliament at the turn of the century under the name Henry Hives. The relationship allowed both governors to facilitate the Princess of England’s revitalization project. On the foot of the project’s success, Honey shot into stardom within confines of the island... A former hunting lodge used by the British Royal Family housed the beginnings of the Unnamed Life Lab up until five years ago. Before mainland laboratory facilities relocated onto the Unnamed estate, the lodge went unused by the HRH for years due to the lack of animal game. Minor characters of the royal family periodically resided within the thick walls. Rumors members of the Rockefeller family stayed as guests are unfounded . Though poor for hunting, it proved to be the perfect place to hide from the watchdog press and avoid royal duties.

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Today, the palatial lodge houses most of the offices of the Unnamed central government and most of the Lab has relocated to the rainforest. Due to the baroque beauty, the complex is referred to in many tourist books as a ‘mini Versailles.’ The multiple building complex shows off greatly contrasting architectural styles. Illegal as a public space on BS, the various departments of the loose network of Unnamed Life Laboratory for Homo Sapien Exploratoration operated for years out of trailers and basements peppered all over the main land. Between local popular enthusiasm for gender bending and resources pumping into the Princess Di revitalization project and Borderline State’s lack of concrete interest in the island, a concentrated version of the disparate trailer labs moved to the large lodge five years ago and took on a shorter title. The world headquarters of the Unnamed Life lab relocated four years ago into the heart of the Unnamed rain forest. Today, it is expanded to include animal and plant studies. Coincidentally, near the same time, fantastic growth in the northeast territory of the island became apparent; leaves as tall as trees, bananas the size of boats and tomatoes mistaken for basketballs appeared within weeks. Local scientists claim a link to the lab’s presence. Outside scientists aren’t so certain.

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Exhibit F Beer Man We are in the last days of summer and spring is in my step. I lose track of Gregorian dates and Greenwich-mean time. I am a man riding the moons of sisterhood. Time and space is collapsing into the womb. Life is floating along the menstrual blood tide of my ladies in waiting. After hanging around for six weeks, Dr. Nobody’s suggestion to relax and stay away awhile in Mothertown after our near-death experience at the liberry is in full effect. And, I have to admit, there’s enough material here to rewrite Moby Dick. But, then again, who wants to fry that fish? It might be a good job for me. When I was a cub reporter, I would have jumped at a big assignment like this. But, shit. Not now. In fact, I’m heading over to the Hideaway on Fifth Avenue, for a much-needed drink while I consider my next move either on or away from the most mysterious of the Caribbean islands. For the past few years, ‘congresswomyn’ have been trying to come up with a name for this place. Stellar ideas include G Spot, Cleopatra, OprahOnoOnassis Oasis, Gloria Hallalujeh, Ixchel, Ludlow… But, you know how women are; they can’t make up their minds about anything. And stick with it anyhow. So, the island’s unnamed status has become the only moniker anyone can agree on, or use in everyday speech at least. So far, Unnamed is it. Kind of like Nonsuch, Bermuda. What a screw. Everything’s got to be so goddamned complicated with them… Last night, Honey Hives announced with the conch shell she is going to retire from Unnamed Congress and the news hit the town hard. But, that’s no matter to me, not now. Journalism is dead. Well, it’s buried for this beat reporter. Sure, my editor asked me to stay on here weeks ago to find out why women have been moving to Unnamed island in droves for the past couple of years; but fuck it. That

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jackass is under the impression the only son of the infamous fembot Lady XX is the perfect person to do a series. Like I have some kind of genetic advantage. Moms was not that much of a mover and shaker in the realm of women’s rights anyway. By the time she was on the mainline of suffragette thought on the mainland, the female cause was a flop. Like trying to pull off Booker T. Washington in 1954. Forget it. Progress ebbs and flows, my friend. And, mama’s was waning. Like these women surrounding me; walking in circles, distracted by all the kiddies falling out everywhere… This young man is more interested in touring some of the mind blowing sites; Lost Vegas, the Maze of Sexual Gratification and the colony of football players rumored to be hiding out in the grasslands. If a story comes out of it, fine. But speaking for today, right now, the press can kiss my ass. After 10 years of writing for the Man, I need to cool my heels a bit. It seems an island of women could be the perfect place to chill. Without a job and only ‘womyn’ on the horizon, I could be the happiest man alive. Maybe I’ll retire here. Why not? No red-blooded Amerikan can work under these conditions, anyway. All the estrogen swirling around the atmosphere is distraction. And, the kudzu’s a bitch… Damn! Here comes another one of those energy waves that’s been hitting me since I crossed the unofficial boarders of the Bermuda Triangle… Celestial sky floats above with accents of puffy white, tree branches spider web porches and mailboxes and street lamps hiding Zaha Hadid’s sleek ripped-off arabesque style. Southern gothic could only wish for a festooning scene such as before me. Greenery takes on new life atop this Paradise Island invading all man-made material items. Human constructs quickly corrode. As I saunter along Fifth Avenue, I pass a new building, probably three years old, rotting from the inside out with wet life. The sounds of children seem to dance to the movements of waving kapok, Poinciana, breadfruit and coconut palm trees. A cry of desperation calls out between thick foliage as dogs bark in response. Cane toads answer them. Cicadas comment. Tarot card readers sit at fancy folding tables to flip through intricately designed decks, women of Wiccan persuasion slide curtains across display windows unveiling the entrails of shops as proper old bags break open tea taps to serve night-time customers. Oval orange window stickers prove every business has volunteered as a child ‘safe house.’ The confines of bodegas and carnicerias grow larger as families, dads be damned, pour out of shops and into the streets. Vines, leaves and branches get in everyone’s way. Golden gams and sausages sealed in cellulite circumvent a ground thick with foliage. Frogs, lizards and other colorful creatures travel low among squiggly toes, paws and claws. Some kids, distracted by the fauna, trip on moving life. Bastards, every last one of them.

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Heavy lifters are rare on Fifth Avenue. Yet, people have been moving in and out of street huts and tree houses all Utero Labor Day weekend with surprising ease. Yesterday was wet, leftover hurricane weather, while today is all crisp, cool, sunny inspiration. The 'curanderos,' the healers, are saying the rains will return tomorrow and hang around for another weeklong period. A mid-aged woman with purple hair removes candles and crystals from a cart. A half-rusted animal cage is tied to the vehicle by way of holes, drilled just under the lip of the wheelbarrow, creating openings for bungee cord to thread. A young girl, moving behind her, tries unsuccessfully to roll a red wagon over a fallen branch as thick as a beer keg. “Move around it, Kaleidoscope!” Crystal Woman calls. Another family of small children led by a heavy-set beast of a lady, finds adventure while moving into a new hut made of sheet metal spray painted hot pink. One of the boys acts as captain of the moving mission. Wearing coins of various currency as war medals over his left breast, he battles with a girl playing the part of enemy as she holds a well-worn broom like a sword. The boy’s dark hair is cut into a Mohawk style while the girl’s head is home to a flaxen bird’s nest, tangled and dreaded with twigs and beads. Irish fairies? Both wear clothes made of identical purple and red satin. Having seen better days before hours of play, the pilled material still outshines some of the rags I saw the Crisis kids wearing in the States before I left. The kids back home are in rags now. Nobody can do laundry with the Energy Crisis in full swing. Who has the time to hand wash everything anyway? Oncoming energy wave. Sometimes, everything here is so god damned beautiful it makes me cry. A man could die and go to heaven in a place like this… “Sistahs!” A shout from just ahead and down below invades the street. Music seems to play all around here, from the stores, and the metal huts and now a church. Folk songs, African beats, Indian chants… My angel! “SIS-T-A-A-A-A-A-H-S!” Gloria Goodwomb praises the Queen in song as I spot my earthbound crush, my Virgin Mary, my triple goddess Ezili: Ms. Viva Vixxxen. The zoning laws in this place are unbelievable, if there are any.Passing by The Triple Goddess Community Center of Mothertown, children are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their guardians after a long day under the care Viva and her tangy troop of babysitters provide at street level. Below is the Mothertown Church of the Queen G, a.k.a. Triple Goddess Church. The sign on the door is blank. An off-hours ‘love making’ club, as they call it, is housed on the second floor. Energy wave. Sweep past me, Viva Vixxxen. “HEAL!” Gloria shouts from inside the basement church.

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Gloria Goodwomb, the preacher lady, has got the goods when it comes to comforting woman. She’s the reverend queen in the underground church. Not only does she have the windpipes of a Mississippi steamer, she orates to the rhythm of a hurricane. Her voice attacks in torrents of inspirational psychobabble any cocaine addict would be proud to call his own. Gloria’s sobering words are a sister sledge of song. No one leaves her heavenly hovel with the least bit of desire or courage to disobey her brand of 72 or so commandments. For a few minutes anyway. Man might be the enemy in her King Jane book. Still, I like her style… “Then praise,” her voice lowers but is still audible courtesy of the echo effect of two stained-glass doors open to a set of mud stairs leading up to the Fifth Avenue path. “Can you feel the Queen?” the preacher roars. Witnesses call out affirmation while an unseen organ plays. Back to Viva. Oh, Viva, you vicious vixen. You need a man to bring out the vivacious vulture you are, to explore your nom du plume. You may have left many a man behind, but there is still one ahead of you and, with any luck, below you and on top of you. Inside of you could work, too. Swallow me whole, Viva! “HEAL! Then praise.” Viva pretends not to see me as she buttons a boy’s jacket, smiling a little too mischievously for the task at hand. Or is she? Gloria’s daughter, Coo Coo, jumps rope with a vine. Does mamita see me? How can she not notice one of only two grown men in town? Lesbos! “When the Man brings you down, what do you do?” Gloria’s voice sounds the expanse of the path; “HEAL!” I see you, Viva. “Then praise,” Goodwomb’s voice cascades. Ever since you saved my KMAN mic during the Hero Riot, the fan attack at the library, I am in your debt. Just say the word and this boy will be yours to guide, teach, love. “HEAL! Then praise.”

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Thirst moves me across the wide path towards the only place to get a decent drink in this otherwise dry town. Carrie Nation of freaks! Abolitionists! Strong spirits are needed and Blackbeard’s Hideaway is the only option. But first, I must get caught up in this clump of greenery hogging up the entire corner of Fifth and Widow’s Peak. A cacophony of trees, vines and plants, the path intersection looks and moves more like an animal, a carnivore of foliage. The tame weeds, willows and tiny plants of my past have been overgrown with images of facesized leaves and roots snagging miles underground. During the darkest hours of the night, shoes, sox, boots and jewelry are gobbled up by arbor strength, seemingly eaten by the wooden bones. As I look now, the cherry-red leather upper of a wooden clog is barely detectable, glowing and growing moss, tied down by vines, protecting new souls made of tiny branches. Word has it, Congress is paving the Unnamed dirt roads this year. With what? Money and men are nowhere to be found not even growing in trees. Climbing over these worn streets and foot paths, I am reminded of other lands of fantasy. Alice’s forest in Wonderland, the emerald lands Tolkien’s hobbits inhabit. Munchkinland. The rain forests of Brazil. The whole scene is peppered with Russ Meyer-style authority figures, the female force of volunteer members going by the name of Kode Pinque. Like the Guardian Angels of 1970s New York City, these ladies have stepped up to the plate in an otherwise police-free state. Faster, pussycat. Go. Meow, ladies and germs! How can a man perform the duties of journalism under such conditions? Help me. As my mind clearly faces my fantasy with open eyes, it blends in with a pretty ugly reality. For example, the pear-shaped woman standing by the banana trees isn’t so hot. Neither is Bookshelf Hips with the library cart, the fat one gawking in the window of the men’s underwear store on the other side of the avenue’s path over there. Look at that other lady sprawled out on her front stoop, made of paper cups, facing north, as she cuddles her little Pomeranian like a desperate lover. The broad on the corner with the handsome moustache digging through the trade bag is a dog. Here come beauty and the butch… Ah! Finally. We’re here; Blackbeard’s Hideaway. Who’s playing on the gel tonight? California and Hawaii: blond girls versus hula dancers. Sweet! And, Nobody’s in the house! Dr. Nobody sits atop a deep blue yoga mat set on a tall table over standard bar stools. Round and painted black, to the untrained eye of the poorly lit Hideaway, the table

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disappears while Nobody appears to levitate. In reality, he is simply holding what he calls a ‘crow pose’ with hands flat on the invisible table top, his feet pointed gracefully behind him due north and the rest of his body balancing like a ball above his straining forearms. The purple caftan and loose linen pants he wears blow as the wind pours in from the side windows. I know what you’re thinking. I thought he was a fag at first too. However, the man’s a living legend with the ladies. Believe it or not, pulling moves like that gets him hooch. That is, when he’s not getting trades to teach his muscular moods. The women totally dig his moves in ways I’ll never understand. Contrarily, poses like ‘crow’ disconcert me enough to find comfort in the taps. We go there! Molly Rodriguez, the Hideaway’s mistress of mixology, is something else and much easier on the eyes. She’s usually the first voice one is assaulted with upon arrival at the Hideaway and this afternoon is no different. Her fog horn wastes no time demanding drink requests, sports reports and news from the outside. She lives in a tent in the back of the bar and it shows. Puffy eyes, bloated cheeks and an ass the size of a party barge, to say Molly possesses a saucy spirit is to say the least. In lieu of security, she has a jar of ears on the bar to remind people who’s boss. Claims they belong to Rockefeller men, but that’s can’t be true. However, there’s no denying Molly knows how to liquefy a glass. Her gin fizzle is the nectar of wonder women. I hear her Bloody Mary’s not so bad either. By the time I reach the bar, my doll’s got my favorite drink waiting for me. Ms. Rodriguez has a life-sized dummy that hangs on a coat hook near the Norwegian wood bar. He’s a pirate the ladies refer to as ‘Pig Man.’ He wears a gold earring and has a heart made of straw. His jeans are well worn and he never feels the need to reach for the sword fitfully snug between his torn white shirt and the pink sash wrapping his waist for protection. With patches over both eyes, the pirate is unable to spot a single woman in the bar even when it’s filled to its capacity of 500. The man of the house does not hear, speak, nor see evil. Instead, he silently hangs. Outside of Viva, Pig Man is my favorite Hideaway regular. He doesn’t talk, looks good in the wee hours and nods his head affirmatively when the wind blows just right. With a height of only five feet, Pig Man seems like a taller man of the sea, monitoring the tidal waves of Mothertown. His still face is the calm in this storm of menstrual madness. Some days, when Nobody’s not around, as Pig Man’s head bobs up and down, he feels like the only being on my wave length. Poor me. Motherland is paradise; don’t get me wrong. But, sometimes it’s just so, so… Loud!

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Women really like to talk. And the kids?! It’s not just a mental thing. Women are in charge here in totality. They’ve got the ground completely covered. If I’m not sitting at the bar listening to the state of the world men screwed up, I’m listening in on one of Gloria’s church sermon’s being vilified for packing a punch between my legs. If I’m not spit on at another lady’s night outside the sex club, I’m walking past another street side stitch-n-bitch getting insulted for smashing delicate plant life with my bulbous, clumsy feet. The Unnamed broads waste no time telling you what is wrong with the States and how and why and what needs to be done. They talk about issues, write books about them, give speeches about them, sew quilts about them. As much as I cringe at the sound of the word ‘patriarchy,’ in the end, by the time the last syllable is ingested change feels good. Insults revitalize me in preparation to face another day of second-class citizenship. Somebody has to do something about the Crisis and the women I see before me seem to be the only ones willing to face the corrupt powers of our shared central government. Besides, women are right; Men stink. And, I, for one, am sick of towing the stink line; let someone else run the show for a changes… Why do I love it, them, so damn much? The scents. The skin. Certainly the laughter. God, no, not the drama. My gin fizzles. Before I left home, folks were starting to talk about Lost Vegas, simultaneously tantalized and frightened of what a retirement community for strippers could be. Old ladies flapping in garter belts. Sagging gams on parade. Grannies groping lost treasures. Of course it’s location on an island of freak women spiced up conjecture that much more. How could half a million women, the guys back home speculate, in one place be stable? Sane? Or, simply functional? A few months back, in the comfort of my own neighborhood bar, fear would freeze me in place thinking of the dark possibilities. Now that I’ve had a whiff of what goes on here and survived, I might stick around for a while. The magik queensreich is a comforting trap. Here I am, not heading home, seeing what’s in store here, daring myself to be different. And really, more than that, I’m getting away from the Crisis back home. Who wants to live through that mess let alone do a broadcast show in the muck of it? Killing fetuses, selling bombs, freezing women… Maybe a story will bust out of me somehow, some other way. In any case, over my dead body will my experiences be reinterpreted as a travelogue, an anti-feminist

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opinion piece or an exposé of the world’s most influential outdoor laboratory. No photographs of the fetish feet growing on the east side will be shot. Off record; I am interested in one story lead. My editor tells me a football team of men is rumored to be playing for beer money outside the caverns of the southwest. Questions. If the games do exist, how did the players get there? Is there anything else keeping them there besides beer money? Do they wear uniforms? Is there a half-time show? Here I go again…What am I doing? Forget journalism! Maybe I’ll write a novel. I need to just focus on my drinking… This is a man taking back the time of his life, wasting it with cocktails and maybe with some crunchy male bonding stories on the side, but certainly not with silly assignments promoting war, politicians or pretty white girls in danger. I’ve had it with that shit now. The party line will not speak through me via any newspaper, radio, Thought Comm, brain wave, motocam or gel screen. That Hero Little assignment was a living hell! Nobody saved our lives with that levitation trick. He’s a hell of a guy. Owe him my life now. It didn’t hurt that Viva pulled her so-called man, husband, whatever, off me while he was strangling me… From here on out, I am a freelance employee of life, maybe noting some things here and there, for a small group of listeners maybe…Who’s with me? The drinks finally kick in… I am a sentient being overwhelmed with the miracle of this isle of Lesbos and of Sappho, a place many men have dreamed of but never dare visit for fear of some fury like public speaker Pat Black. Understandable. However, my heart is speaking inside the Boca Raton of the vagina dentata, dear brothers, and I can safely report I exist not only without a scratch, with the exception of that one bruise I got bumping into the ceiling of the Joan Jett Hall, but alive, happy, exuberant and jubilant. I refuse to continue to be beaten down by journalism. I am a fantastical spectator free falling into The Birth Canal happily drowning in its elixirs. No one here can understand the pure ecstasy felt so far away from the speaker phone of Man… But I got to make money. That’s always the problem, isn’t it? Actually, people mostly do trades here…What kind of trade am I? Hula skirts up by three! Some chic artist painted an oversized diptych in the 00s called something like A Typical Day in the Future. I don’t really remember the exact name, but the imagery of it will be burned in my mind forever. Hundreds of little women hunt for the sperm of fullsized men. Caves. Knives. Riding horses, English style. Machine guns pointed at penises.

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Nut sacks carried cross-country in net trapping without the protection of a single cod piece. Whenever I gaze upon it’s swirling primary colors in my mind, a feeling of both rage and eroticism excites and frightens me. What’s wrong with me? I’m not safe here, am I, dear reader? …Surprisingly, lots of boy kids live here. Training for the football team? Then again, the massive influx of women really just started a few years ago. Where the boys will go when they grow up is anyone’s guess, maybe those full backs in the south are lost sons already. Headline idea: Amerikan League Football team goes missing during flight over the Bermuda Triangle. Trannies walk through the front door. Actually, just a really old trannie wearing gorgeous jewelry and a collegiate, freckle-faced girl. Some parties sigh out in disgust. Others sneer at the sighers. Confusion. Nobody moves into eagle pose. The half-broads on the journey to womanhood are the worst. Jack Fruit and Crystal Vision roll their eyes. Then, there’s Sophia LeWren and Fatale Patel striking their fans. Of all the couples with a trans freak streak, Viva and her dickless husband look the best of course. At least, I think it’s dickless. There’s some real characters around here and Viva’s life partner is on the far right of the scary spectrum. Now, public speaker Pat Black is a cunt! She is a tornado of hatred. Anything attached to a dick needs to be chopped into a million pieces in her opinion. Her lungs supply just enough gale force to shred the body of man into a Jeremiah-style Uriah rubbish heap. Positioning her on a podium, unobstructed, gives her prime position, especially if she is facing due east. She has no use for stable structures, scientific theory or sperm of any kind. She rides the man-made highways to destroy them, travels by boat to barge them and crosses bridges to burn them. In short, Black is just Nobody’s type. Nobody, adventurer at large when he’s not teaching yoga in the streets or bugging me for rent trades to stay in his tree house, dragged me to one of Pat’s seminars about reading ‘people’ at the cupcake two weeks ago and we almost didn’t make it out alive. Again! That male minx can talk me into anything. Now that I think about it, Pat’s seminar was actually worse than the Hero fiasco. Hero saved our lives when she calmed the crowd down with that haiku about ragweed. Not Pat! Like a despot, she ruled the room’s negative atmosphere and turned it into a tool to try and destroy us. First off, every time I walk into that god-damned pastry puff of books, I can’t help but make fun, aloud, of the pseudo-word ‘liberry.’ The architecture is silly enough! Note

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to self and listeners; this writer wants no part of the womyn’s dictionary or memoir or whatever these broads choose to call it… The hula girls get a home run. Pig Man sways and floats in dance. …So, Pat was all fired up, commanding the podium in Joan Jett’s Hall of Audio Outrage. There she stood like a whale in heat blubbering and blundering, misrepresenting the classics with unadulterated misappropriation. The Greeks were brainwashed into god fear, French salons were meant to dismantle the feminine form and Henry Miller is a jerk. At one point she turned our direction. As we stood in the back, curious attendants turned around to us, necks like owls, burning holes through us with their eyes. Hundreds of pupils. I thought, ‘Shit, here we go again.’ While I sweat and I shook with fear, Nobody glowed at full attention. The bastard was enchanted. He winked and waved, taming hundreds of harpies. Face-to-face flirting. “Barbara, you look beautiful, but it appears your back needs a slight extension. Bend over and let your head hang.” Back here at the bar, Nobody’s at it again. He’s moved out of eagle pose and into dancing. Now he’s talking to some feline in tight track pants. Nobody enjoys stirring the fires of the female loins. He likes to agitate, invade and disturb for the sake of final victory. Not that any sleuth would ever suspect him. He’s a cunning cat, a lynx in loose clothing, a tenacious Turk. He’s an active listener. Actually, that’s not true. His powers of reception and perception only tune into key phrases, gestures and hot buttons as he spits back seemingly authentic responses from file, created at an earlier date. And, his timing! He moves to each and every speaker’s rhythm. If a woman has been abused, his words provide a soft pillow, if she needs a hand, he offers the strokes of the well-trained masseuse. If a woman loves the sea, he transmits his thoughts on dolphin SONAR with the power of Chuthulu. Hell, some days my own heart starts skipping beats the bastard is so smooth. It’s hard not to kiss him on his organically peach-balmed lips. I think I already have, actually. Some nights, memories escape from me. The past rolls into soft focus. Nobody’s lips could be as kissable in the dark times as they are in the light. Before Nobody let me start crashing at his pad three weeks ago, I think it was three weeks, it’s getting harder to keep track of time, people use confusing moon cycles here; I slept in trees. With the exception of a few desperate trannies, the midnight streets of Mothertown are pretty safe. According to locals in the bar, last fall’s appointment of the Kode Pinque Tree Patrol, a specialty team with experience from Florida, has helped the safety situation. Even during the full moon, the emotional tides of Motherland seems surprisingly stable so far, based on my 40 days or so of experience. And, being the town’s run by a bunch of bleeding hearts, authorities have a tendency to let tree-sleeping dogs like me hang. Then again, who am I to say after only experiencing one, almost two, lunar cycles…

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Back home, nobody can sleep in or above streets without being given a ticket, shuffled off to a shelter no one would want to die in, or worse, sent to jail. Believe me. Amerika is exile on main street. Although, Nobody told me he slept on the streets all the time back home. He’s a god damned liar. Then again, I can’t believe the bullshit he gets away with. Two years ago, when the so-called Life Source Laws started passing in the States, before the Crisis starting taking hold, I could catch a nap anywhere. Point being; invisible-homeless is fine by me. Criminal-homeless is not. Nobody is slow dancing with Track Pants right now to an old-time Pointer Sisters classic. Look at that bastard go. He slyly moves his minty mouth up to her ears. Nobody is doubtless dealing in sweet nothings. His lanky arms wrap around her waist as she laughs into his chest. What is he saying to her? They move to their own rhythm. The electric keyboards propelling He’s So Shy aren’t quite slow enough to match the languorous movement of their hips. In any case, the man in question is so not shy. Emergency! There’s an audio-only call coming in. For the sake of such moments, the Hideaway is equipped with a gel com. I didn’t even know it was turned on. Maybe fans from afar are placing bets on the game. Unfortunately, a shriek of a voice, somebody’s wife is my guess, indicates no such luck. Oh, yeah, FYI, the ‘womyn’ get married here. Rumor has it that Viva’s been married to that troll for 10 years. But, that’s of no consequence to me unless her husband has a dick sewn on. Oh, shit; the Unnamed Boat Lady is busted. I guess now’s not a good time to ask her about catching her one and only ferry to Lost Vegas. There’s no airport here. Crap. My mind was wandering. Again. Keep forgetting her name anyway. Customer’s say she’s been going to AA meetings for months. The vibe is she’s just showing up at the bar to snatch vulnerable women. “I’ve been looking for you for days!” the faceless scream belts out over the airwaves. Cringe. Who hasn’t been chased down by that voice? Every customer in the joint can hear it, too. The accused squishes down on her vinyl upholstered bar stool in humiliation. Not one of the 30 bar stools in this place match another. The trannie shouts out she wants another round while her young, freckled companion bushes in embarrassment. Boat Lady, desperately tries to get Wifey to believe she is drinking one of the well-known kiddie cocktails younger Hideaway customers love. Useless. Wifey’s not buying another round of lies; “Say that to my face!” The voice screams hinting for someone to pick up the screen signal. Molly faces the Boat Lady, on the edge of tears, pleadingly, “She loves you, man.” Boat Lady begrudgingly accepts, passing off her glass of alcoholic goodness to the woman next to her,

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I’m thinking now the Boat Lady’s name is Michelle. Michel? These chics are totally into unisex names. See, this confusion would never happen inside the comforts of an Irish pub back home. The bar men don’t encourage customers to face the realities of anything from the outside world. Well, OK, maybe some speeches about drunk disturbance tickets are served with the drinks of happy hour. My old man Paddy at the Shamrock Shake used to hang up on women all the time. Actually, he didn’t even turn on the communications equipment unless there was an important game on. And, speaking of games, that’s another thing; these dykes are always fighting with their lady friends. It’s something else. I’ve never seen such cruel emotional abuse. Every weekend launches off with Friday Night at the Fights. But, maybe it’s just this Mother of a town, not the whole island, I don’t know. That’s another reason Nobody’s a hit with the ladies. He’s so zen-ed out all the time he never makes moves to argue back. Women love that. Even now. Track Pants is going on and on about something and he’s just nodding along. Women buy him drinks all the time and he doesn’t even need them. He just graciously accepts them and subtly hands then to someone else, sometimes me. I get a lot of free liquid that way. As Wifey continues shrieking through the speakers overhead, I ask myself again why I’m sticking around when I could be rolling in the dough licking the balls of our collapsing central government. Telling people the military is the strongest it has ever been pays big bucks. It has to. It’s getting harder and harder to fool people into believing the military we are paying so dearly for is made up of either the brave and/or courageous. And the Minutemen are a whole other story I don’t feel like writing. One thousand troops can be wrong. Forget pretending they can strategize. Why can’t we just tell people all our arms go straight to the enemy? We all know that. When he christened Viagra Falls Park, everyone found out anyway. Everything is so passive aggressive over there. They’re real Puritan pussies back home. Then again, what the hell do I know? And, why am I telling you people? Spilling my guts feels fantastic.

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Exhibit G Uppity Men Unite ‘Code Miserables,’ the title of a political opinion column written by Bob Bobster in the weekend edition of the Daily News of Wyoming, the major news source for the Busch Mountains. Henry Wordsworth is not only a well-respected partner in journalism crime, but a close friend of mine. Before Reno was invaded and permanently disfigured by the work camps, we used to get silly under the light of big sky stars in little bars between assignments. I don’t know what’s happening to him down south on lady freak island, but I’m worried. And, if you are as big a fan of the modern male voice as I am, you should be too. More important, his disappearance is a sign that the uppity women down south are getting a little too big for their pantaloons. The island of floozies has been easy to ignore up until this point. However, I urge readers to pay closer attention to what could unfold on the girlie island in the near future. Events could get uglier than they already are. Here at the Daily News, we’ve been getting conflicting reports on the wire regarding the whereabouts of former DNW reporter Wordsworth. Some witnesses report he was killed by a child poet named ‘Nero,’ a few say he disappeared into a black hole speculated to be located along the Bertha Canal of the island, others, looking on the bright side, believe he is simply soaking up the tragic action in the laps of old dame luxury in Lost Vegas. I, however, suspect he could be in a crimson jail cell, dear brothers. That’s right, a padded cell of pink persuasion. Have you heard about the Code Pink army? Is that ‘Pink’ as in ‘pinko,’ ol’ Bobster, you might be asking yourself, or ‘pink’ as in ‘pink slip?’ Code Pink might have been a big joke during the effigy burning they conducted during the last presidential election, but no longer. What started out as an ignorable group of protesters a few years back is now an army represented with the help of radio shows, bookstores, a school. Unnamed island, a commonwealth of the Borderline States, along with Puerto Rico, has been hit hard by the recent slashes in BS government funding. And, Unnamed, in particular, has recently gone uncared for by its host country. In fact, most Amerikans still have never even heard of the island located at 20ºN, 66ºW. In any case, we’ve all seen how feisty freeloaders can get without their daily dose of our tax dollars. The recent loss of multiple federal programs and services for women and children has catalyzed a metamorphosis in Code Pink. The rag-tag bunch that embarrassed itself at the Vietnam Memorial last year has morphed into a respectable society of ‘womyn’ with decent politicians and a budding army. Last fall, military stores on the island started

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selling bomber jackets with the punching power of a Code Pink logo, a purple apple bursting through a pink flag designed by a 10-year-old. (Of course, the mothers are too lazy screwing Puerto Rican men in order to sell fetus parts to the rain forest lab to bother with their own self identity. But, that’s another column.). As the UI population takes on more disgruntled mainlanders and uppity women from all over Mother Earth, half a million at last count, pink numbers grow. The more the citizens feel their needs are ignored, according to their barely legal local hemp papers, (yes, they still use hemp!), the more the streets glow with patterns of pink, covering rivers of flesh, pulsing and advancing, growing as rapidly as the rain forest to the tap of a décima snare drum. Uniformed head to toe en rose, the troops represent every nation of the planet. Females from Christmas Island, County Kerry and Kalifornia form a band of sisters on the island of Unnamed. Admittedly, it’s the most beautiful outfit the world has seen in moving pictures since Leni Reifenstahl’s films of Nazi rigidity. But, unlike the monochrome of German youth or Olympic sports outfits, Code Pink on the march is a colorful tapestry of stiletto heels, pink camouflage, spiked bracelets, beaded jewelry strollers and Slutz Dolls obstructed from view behind the arms of small children.. As of late, tourists have taken to filming the female security guards, decked out in skirts and heels armed with metal helmets, and posting them on the wire. She-males in lab coats, ‘fathers’ baking cookies, ‘men’ jogging in rubber high heels, and female heavyweight champions in training are just a few of the sight gags. But, while upstanding, tax-paying citizens laugh, the larva is grows wings, people. Protecting that little stem cell research laboratory of theirs has become another role of the group. If Amerikans are lucky, they’ll continue focusing on that black hole of a science project and stop bothering Washington. But, with the disappearance of Words, I doubt it. When the War on Gender started to get really chaotic in the BS a few years back, budget constraints started affecting all territories. When food and troops were running low, BS government made some fatally unpopular choices. Schools closed, jobs and alimonies disappeared and women and children lost access to safe health care. Well, survival of the fittest is what I say. If they want to take us on, let them. Still, I’d rather avoid a fight altogether. Call me a chauvinist, but hitting girls still goes against my principles. In contrast, many members of our stronger sex enjoy the legal right to endless Viagra and mail-order brides from whichever country needs the assistance of BS at any given time. As we should! Are we not the men? Am I missing something here? As funds are used to buy brides, the Department of War ignores the silly demands and concerns of Unnamed island and, in turn, Code Pink and every cause for which it

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stands. The most absurd causes, in case you haven’t been reading up on the Unnamed soap opera, include: equal rights for genderblenders, the Diaper Program, school books for children, UI public ownership of its own water, school vouchers for orangutans and finally, detoxification for dolphins on the dole. Are such programs really necessary? Understandably, stateside citizens and BS Congress have found women and children and especially animals not worth the funding anymore. And, making demands in SONAR isn’t helping the Pink cause. Kids and livestock are recognized as solid longterm investments, sure. But, that’s just not good enough for the bottom line right now. The only reason women have maintained the right to vote is because at 200 euros a pop to pull the lever, the Secretary of Treasury can’t afford for 200,000,000 women not to vote. Pornography, alcohol and fire-arm funding is crucial. Besides, female votes can always be discarded anyway. Our Congress takes the commonwealth less seriously than the French and Belizians for example, who enjoy mutually beneficial relationships with both the marine and reproduction labs. Sri Lanka values the island for gemstone exchange. Britain still loves their old territory and the former Lady Di and its citizens visit often. Many Brits have stayed and taken jobs as members of the island’s government. The well-known Honey Hives is a local star. But, what do Belize, Sri Lanka and Britain have to do with us? This is Amerika. And, that island is supposed to be Amerikan land. Won’t those bitches ever learn to stick to their own? Excuse my language, but my buddy could be trapped in a foxhole without food or water or football as I relay this. My humble hope is for Henry to unearth before Pistons takes on Chicago next weekend. Our man Words could be dead down there, readers, listeners, empathizers to mankind! The reporter who uncovered the sexual harassment scandals, the insider who was on site to witness the first official Minuteman battle, the foreign correspondent who brought us the Chinese princess in a box, could have vanished into thin air, another number on the Bermuda Triangle casualty list. What’s it going to take for citizens to wake up and realize the backlash is building an army of killer babies out to get us and possibly has already taken one of our god given country’s finest men hostage? Years ago now?! Henry, please respond to this writing if you can. Your fans need you safe back here on the homeland.

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Exhibit H Honey Pie “People make fun of us for always being together.” Two mismatched women speaking in British brogues sit on elaborately handcrafted stools made of computer chips at the Norwegian wooden bar. Face to face with the famous sapphire taps of Blackbeard’s Hideaway, the young woman is lanky, sun burned and annoyingly vivacious. The old woman is pale and fragile, holding onto the bar and hanging at half-mast. Turns out she’s not the trannie I thought she was when they first walked through the swinging front curtain. “Pete and re-Pete the tabloids like to say,” the bag brags. Tabloids? Paranoia alert. Acute narcissism. Or, are the elegant ladies suffering from dementia? Maybe I have a chance to get some free drinks here. The whacko duo swings arm-in-arm. Bag lady sways back as peppy girl sways forth. I order a double and gear myself up for a good time. These chics are definitely intoxicated. Maybe bombed. Hopefully, borderline. Just my type. Even Sappho the Satanist doesn’t scare me after a couple of good gulps of fire water. “Which we hate because Pete is a man,” skinny screeches. “Man is the enemy after all!” granny growls, raising a fist freckled with liver spots. Her fighting words spring out from inside a life force of 75 or 80 years. Granny’s organic features are striking and set her apart from the great number of women her age who have been enhanced with stem cells or, most unfortunately, aging plastic left over from the old days. The deep creases in her skin are a rare sight as is her grey and wiry hair. More than one tuft, with a mind of its own, stands up at full attention next to rows of tight curls. The cut of her clothing and sparkle of her jewelry show off an elegance of yesteryear, the type of woman who can afford not to give a shit about skin flaps. A royal walking stick of style this media burnout can respect. “Cheers!” she suddenly salutes me for no apparent reason. Maybe she is gunning for me to buy her a drink. Do men get in trouble for doing that sort of thing here, still a ways from Lost Vegas? My enquiring mind airs on the side of caution. “For Pete’s sake, stop saying ‘cheers’ already, auntie. It’s so dated.” “Get off my case, kiddo.”

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“Now you’re using Amerikan slang?” the girl squeals. ‘Kiddo’ appears to have a mere 22 years of spring-charmed life. Her strawberry blonde hair and smooth, freckled face contrast greatly with her companion’s rugged features. Though her clothes sparkle and pop like her elder companion, her shimmery grey shirt and rumpled skirt are mismatched and worn in haphazard fashion. Neither fitting nor becoming, the rich rags show-off the style of today’s youth: loose, formless and energetically ridiculous. Toko the Toaster Lady knocks past me and shimmies sup to the bar in-between the two women. She’s all over the Mother. A part-time trash lady, T’s made a side gig out of selling used toasters she finds on her night routes. They go for “10 centavos a piece, or comparable change.” Between the two ladies, there’s bread here and TL knows it. However, the prim ladies properly thank Toko for her time but decline a sleek, silver, freshly polished ToastATime. Toko asks for change in lieu of a sale. Golden grannie hands her a 50 lev piece before Toko moves on to the next set of blurry-eyed victims falling into the sapphire bar. Any and all currency seems to be good here, even change from pre-European Bulgaria. This island of bleeding hearts hosts all sorts of buzzing beggars; homeless hustlers, sponges and sprangers, to name a few. But who am I to talk? My current status is also home free. Well, OK, Nobody’s letting me sleep in his hammock in his oak tree but how long’s that gonna last? “Forgive my aunt for being so impolite. Allow me to introduce ourselves,” the freckled girl turns away from Toko to take a pull of a Marytime beer, a local brew from the Life Lab, before announcing, “I’m Winnie Windsor and this is my great auntie, Honey Hives.” No shit! The one and only Brit congressional grey fox here in the flesh. No wonder these broads are wearing sunglasses at night; proof enough for me they’re not look-alikes employed by the Life Lab to imitate them. “We are senators from New Babs for going on, how long has it been?” Drunk in public, even. Surprisingly candid for being public figures. No monikers or anything. Maybe just so tanked they don’t care. I definitely need to stick with these two. I see many free drinks in my future. My editor would want me all over their story if he knew. Definitely not telling him, not now anyway. “A lifetime for me. About three weeks for you,” the old bag shudders at the realization. “Yes, about 17 days,” Winnie adds. “And, ever since the milk crisis spilled over into our sector…” Hives cuts her off, “Crisis? It’s a bunch of bullocks,” Hives’ bangles shake at 100 British pounds per second as she waves her arms in the air. “No shit, Shirley!” Windsor admits.

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The ‘oldpapers’ of Unnamed island are suddenly curdling over with front-page stories and opinion pieces dedicated to the recent development of an Unnamed milk crisis. Maybe I should take the lady press more seriously now that I’ve found these two. An Amerikan lab has reportedly found evidence of disease in the breast milk of many women on the island. Breast milk, among sapphires, and creative life forms, is one of the island’s staple exports. Some citizens and politicians, Honey Hives included, believe, in her words, the crisis to be “a simple ploy to get more people to buy treated milk from the cow cloning branches on the main land.” Dodging an urge to do a story in local politics, and milk in particular, I enquire about the UI territory itself. New Babs, a Plymouth of sorts, is along the coast about 20 kilometers northeast of Mothertown. Rumor has it marked as the first outpost of feminist refugees from the BS. Between sips of sherry, Hives tells me her version of the Unnamed beginning. “A boatload of women and children escaping the battlefields of Life Source, carrying planting seeds, boxes of all-cotton diapers and tampons arrived on the northern shores of NPS seven years ago.” “My great auntie and I have been having a bomb of a time working that district. Of course, she’s been around much longer than I have so she totally knows how to govern with Unnamed style. I’ve really just been tagging along the past few weeks, learning the ropes.” Having finished her drink wafting with strength, Windsor turns to Molly for more, holding up her empty antique glass. “Oh, dear. Cheers for the vote of confidence. I can’t judge the actions of my political career. Though when it comes to seniority, it is quite true, however, I have been of service to several governments since the Stone Age.” “Auntie was paying her dues for decades on all types of government assignments with only slight satisfaction until she arrived here,” Winnie sells with conviction. “Whether working with her secondary school alma maters in the English countryside, or ruffling through city governments back in London …” “That takes me back a lifetime ago…” Loud cheers come from several of the gel screens as many of the customers in the Hideaway wave their arms up in the air making out victory salutes. Honey looks around, puzzled, having forgotten where she is. For a brief moment, her eyes dim, elderly and forgetful. “Oh, right, we’re not at the palace.” She comes to realize where we are, looking up to the air waves of softball games depicting ladies in play from every angle of the bar, she smiles. Palace? Suddenly, two ugly ‘womyn’ with stars in their eyes invade our space. “You’re that old lady who’s friends with the Queen!” shouts what appears to be a large woman donned in turkey hunting gear. Honey is flattered, her white face blushing with color as

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she comes back to the present moment. “I recognized your wrinkles!” a pixie, sporting a baby blue and light pink field hockey uniform, beams. “I’d recognize those lines on your face in the dark.” Windsor ignores the distractions of the Hideaway fans and continues talking about what’s on her mind much to her fans’ delight; “Brit women only see so much freedom, gained in little steps. Certain minor liberties are allowed, but nothing significant for all women, only a few. In contrast, for a long time, the living situation had been so much better for women on mainland BS than other G pots on the globe. Not so much anymore. It’s still pretty good here on Unnamed island, I have to say, but civil rights are slipping away thanks to the regressive vacuum forces of DC. And, ever since the Life Source Laws were passed and the Victorian bindings broke out…” The same vacuum power importing wives from China, outlawing work for women and handing out free Viagra samples on city street corners. Why did I leave it? Because it was the rich guys’ party not mine. Even if I would have uncovered the story of the century, I would never have been part of the real V.I.P. room. Honey braves a bold face flanked with admirers: “The government of BS has turned into rubbish. It’s ridiculous the States are still claiming to be the land of the free. Like they ever did some bang up job in the first place.” “How many times do I have to explain it to you, auntie; ‘freedom’ means a few men are free to make rules for others.” No shit. “That’s what ‘freedom’ means for Amerikans now as it has always meant since the inception of the reinvention of the country. The accounts are all written in the text books plain as day, auntie.” Windsor cannot help adding proudly, with a wide grin, “I tested well on it at university.” “Yes, yes, yes! We’ve all read the books bollocks.” Hives sighs. “That’s textbook learning, dearie. My point is, darling, the grammar and usage of the word is so misleading it’s insulting. It sounds like freedom is meant for everyone. Amerikans sure know how to mangle our bloody language.” I wonder silently what the opinion of the elder stateswoman with HRH ties is regarding the local dictionary, sorry, I mean ‘memoir,’ as women call the it in the local Response to Queen’s English Used by White Men idiom. “And don’t forget Amerika also claims to be the ‘home of the brave,’ auntie.” They look to each other and break out into a unified cackle. The sycophants laugh with them, trying to hide the puzzled expressions on their faces and mirror the senators. The comment also strikes me as humorous. Still the dark edge of their chuckles makes me uneasy. “Oh, yes: brave. What a tittle,” Winnie jokes. “Brave men in the Borderline States? Maybe there’s a few stray gents in places like Pistons or Chicago.” Hives nods

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her ancient, big head in agreement, “Or maybe a few of the clown-men operating the carnival streets of N’Orleans could be.” “The Minutemen; maybe.” The mention of the Amerikan makeshift military gives me the shudders. Reincarnated during the immigration hysteria of the early 00s, the disgruntled Minutemen eventually took it upon themselves to start replacing stateside police and military. Their numbers have grown exponentially ever since. “No, not here. There aren’t any brave men on Unnamed island just at the moment,” the sycophant holding the hockey stick adds, desperate to join the conversation. Hey! Those words hurt. “Well, we don’t know you…” Winnie innocently points out before I have a chance to say anything. All four women turn to me, suspicious, eyeing me up and down. In response, my gangly body tingles in fear and excitement. The negative attention of the ‘womyn’ turns me on in a way I don’t like. Somehow my shaking hands find a way to pick up my whiskey special in desperate defense. As their peepers study my worn dress pants and faded Hawaiian shirt, the urge to be with my own kind strongly strikes. There’s got to be another Y chrome around here somewhere, besides the hints of it hovering around Pig Man’s aura. In desperation, my mind considers asking if the rumors about the Band of Brothers are true. They’re still staring. Can these harpies read my mind? Even though these two elected officials probably know where to find my boys if they exist, something inside me, maybe my lone X protecting iteself, urges me not to mention men in multiple to central UI government officials. Especially not in Mothertown, known by outside sources to be the most radically feminist of UI’s six cacigaznos districts. “I think these god-awful Amerikan women ruin men, sweetie,” Honey finally offers. My nerves relax to the rhythm of her indirect sympathy as my head nods in easy agreement. “Well, that’s up for debate, auntie.” Hives’ face winces at Winnie Windsor’s elementary naiveté. “Do you always have to be so god-damned diplomatic?” Hives strikes back. Winnie blushes as she turns away from us. “In any case, the more this bloody Milk Crisis blabber continues, the more this lady will be in the oldpaper spotlight kicking and screaming,” Honey loses her place in the anti-man conversation and thankfully we’re back to talk of mother’s milk.

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“The more I’m asked for an opinion about this milk madness, the more I’ll be saying it’s rubbish and drinking lactose-free cocktails to cope, if you’d like to join me for the ride,” she coyly turns to me again, as she heads back down to earth. Is Honey Hives flirting with me or just a senile bat flapping her wings along a dark path? Would I? Could I for drinks and laughs? “We could always use one more body.” The use of the word ‘body’ makes me uneasy. Dead or alive? “We have a few little secret places where the press never sees us. There’s this one joint in Lost Vegas with these cute, little…” “Hush, auntie. Our constituents don’t need to know and Kode Pinque could arrest us for drinking as public officials.” “Bullocks to Kode Pinque, sweetie. And, this man is obviously a tourist from the outside anyway. Are you a tourist?” The politicos don’t know I’m a former, well-known journalist and I’m not about to share the information. Now’s definitely not the time. My glass is almost empty again, leaving no distractions as I search for an answer to the Female Inquisition. “A tourist for the truth,” my voice hollowly sputters. The ladies raise their glasses in celebration of the Cause. Clink.

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Exhibit I Break Beat Term paper discovered balled up and discarded inside an oak tree trashcan outside the Mothertown Montessori for Kilthei at Orange-Red-Pink and Seventh Avenue. Based on the handwriting, the paper drafted in erasable bug ink on lined paper was seemingly written by a pubescent student: Unnamed is the size of a small peanut at 175 kilometers east to west and 56 kilometers north to south. German scientific theory has it, but who can really be trusted to tell the true story of Unnamed island at this point, that what we know today as Unnamed, named after Nonsuch, Bermuda, began some 100 million years ago as a volcanic mountain, with the volcanoes having disappeared 70 million years ago. Some British oceanographers, pressured to meet the demands of Amerikan biologists, say the precipitance mountains, the largest of which supports the Unnamed we know today, on the southern margin of a shallow water platform, with the Undecided bank to the southwest are only part of what it once was. Resident population last year was 440,504, not counting the thriving homeless population estimated to be at 6,734, growing rapidly, and what is documented on the island as ‘human cargo,’ made up mostly of illegal aliens in the form of men, at either 500, 1,500 or 7,000, depending on the source in the 50 square miles, compared to ten years ago, an increase of 20 fold. Unlike most other places with a native population dating back to the mists of time, Unnamed had no resident or permanent population at all until 1801 when French settlers came by accident, (sure, right) then returned deliberately the following year. Only a few hundred stranded mariners clothed in strings and feathers were here earlier, involuntarily and briefly though remains of a magnificent palace still stands today and is one of the island’s most popular tourist attractions. Unnamed island was too tiny, had no natural resources, no gold or silver or anything else that could be mined or refined with the exception of the inordinate amount of sapphires owned by the British Museum and a few Standard Oil derricks. It remained without a permanent population long after the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch East Indies empires were established, the French founded French Canada and the British founded Jamestown. So they say. Nowadays, Unnamed is a commonwealth of the Borderline States inhabited mostly by female lunatics subsisting on proceeds from a highly lucrative stem cell research laboratory of international interest as well as an admirable fashion industry, an unbelievably old, yet thriving, population of body workers and a world-class gem industry with continuous new finds in local mining.

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Exhibit J Watch Out, Boy, She’ll Chew You Up ‘Henry Wordsworth, BJ ’44, disappears in Birth Canal Jungle; Jesse Hall Students Hold Candlelight Vigil,’ the title of a lead story written by Robin Bird in the Tuesday edition of The Maneater, a student newspaper of University of Misery-Columbia.

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Exhibit K Chamber of Fates “Well, it’s sort of an embarrassing story, really. I mean not for us; we’re English.” Windsor is sitting at her desk in the Chamber of the Fates, the nerve center for policy decision-making on Unnamed island. Within a somewhat warped version of the Taj Mahel in miniature, the Chamber is part of the palatial grounds. Last night, while we were sharing Molly’s Wèdoday special, it occurred to Unnamed Senators Honey Hives and Winnie Windsor that it might be fun and funny, to bring a male visitor into the exclusively femme club. Since Honey’s planning on buzzing out of government soon, bringing me in puts a rebellious spin on her closing ceremonies and helps her appeal to the young, or so she told me. “I can’t wait to pull out my flip-card placard of protest messages come meeting time,” Winnie smiles. In fact, right about now she’s becoming the fresh face of Motherland politics, according to local papers. And, the flip cards are part of her look. An oversized, spiraled notepad marked up in large felt pen advertising multiple messages allows her to change positions on a moment’s notice. A sign reading ‘Sex for Dolphins!’ can quickly flip to ‘Toys for Tots for Rockefellers!’ or ‘March for Monkeys!’ with a flip of her nubile wrist. The issue today is milk and Winnie has properly prepared her flipping prop to include options: ‘Mother’s Milk,’ ‘Lactose Tolerant,’ ‘Cash Cows.’ Having been on the job a measly 21 days, Windsor admits to not knowing quite where she stands on the issue yet hence her prop are pro-choice in multiple. Of minor importance to this community for over 20 months, the milk issue has come to the forefront overnight, four days ago. Outside of Honey’s rants, the issue has made front page news in the local oldpapers three times this week. Yesterday, press parrots at the rainforest lab announced the facilities would no longer be milking volunteer women. Technicians, however, plan to continue creating milk from sub atoms as they have been for 18 months. Windsor’s great aunt has attempted to convince her neice the milk issue is bunk. In Hives’ alcohol-inspired words; “It’s an all-out cover-up! The lab has done something awful and they don’t want the public to hear of it. Creating fear over natural milk is a diversionary tactic so Washington doesn’t get sore at the sluts who are selling their milk.” Thus creating her niece’s ‘Milk Money is Moot’ flip card. The coed’s winning signs stand out from the chamber’s interior design. The Chamber of Fates was envisioned by Yumi Kashiwabara, a 30-year-old Canadian woman who moved to Unnamed island for the sake of building tiger living quarters at the lab. Only a student at the time, her design idea for the pod best suited to tame a ferocious lifestyle of a congressional breed was chosen in a contest sponsored by the Ecoles des 61

Artes de Montréal. Some womyn were angry the board didn’t choose a design from a tiger. The atmospheric effect of the Yumi design is airless and free, white and delicate, with floor-to ceiling windows taking up almost the entire northern end of the space. Tall blocks of natural sunrays provide enlightenment for the congressional day sessions. That’s another thing; there’s like 250 sunny days a year here. The geometric precision of the well-placed windows matched with a view of the lush bush garden outside create a welcome, serene feeling upon entry. Hundreds of ‘desks’ sit in front of women, children and animals representing territories of the Unnamed commonwealth, or ‘queensreich’ to use the local vernacular. Some senators speak for single families, others for a couple hundred constituents. Numbers vary, depending on the population of the area and their respective trades. Districts of a mere-six years are respected for their longevity, Winnie tells me. And, lately, ties to the life lab sway votes. “There’s political parties, too, based on belief systems, not just territories. In the end, there’s too many to count!” The girl senator is incredulous. “We’re better than Italy. Every walk of life and where it resides is represented.” This former reporter makes the mistake of asking about the Sex Party rumored in the States to have ties with the old girls of Lost Vegas. “The Sex Party?” The girl is confused. “No sex party exists, per se, though I am aware it is widely reported in the States. A title of the kind is too general. Now that I think about it, there’s probably 20 different kinds of sex parties; the Breeders, GenderTrend, the Breast Party, the Sex and Lovemaking Party, the Birth Canal Party, the Male Man Party, not to be confused with the Mail Man Party created simply for the sake of distinguishing itself from the unpopular first. “Of course Unnamed wouldn’t be Unnamed without the associations created for the sake of children. The Teen Party, the Mother Party and the Osmond Party might not be very active during today’s session. Whereas, Mother’s for Natural Milk and the Breast Party will have a plenty to say about the milk crisis. “The parties with the best get-togethers are the consumption parties…” “I like the sound of those!” “The School Supply Party, the Kentucky Derby Hat Party and the Garden Party have very different needs from the Prescription Drug Party and the Medical Party. And never confuse the Wine Party with the Beaujolais Movement.” “How could I?”

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“Martians have their own party and animals are represented. Unfortunately, both parties are run by humans with the exception of the elephant with the memorytrans microphone and the tiger on ROAR control.” Winnie is only somewhat surprised to hear mainlanders don’t know much about any of the parties she mentioned. “Amerikans only seem to care about Republicans and Democrats for reasons unknown to us. Why would anyone be so interested in those two wanker fests is truly astonishing. “Instead, we’ve even got a few throwbacks from Amerikan history. The Dixiecrats sit near the center of the room near Shakers while the Know-Nothings sit at an unmarked table near the wall. “Then again, what do we know? Before the war, this whole island was a mineral and fine gem property of the British Museum. Most Brits were not even aware of its existence. I only found out about it myself through a summer work program at the armor museum on the Isle of Man,” the girl proudly relays. The senators ‘desks’ are not the type found in most state senate halls. Each ingenious structure is unique and fascinating. Limited resources have forced creative spins in all decorative directions. Big decisions of the island are made from a mix of folding tables covered with heirloom quilts, pieces of antique dining sets dating a few hundred years and hand-carved wooden tables made of nearby bark. Hand-carved bamboo faces mark the workstation of two women from Hawaii. Several representatives from Sri Lanka sit at jewel-encrusted brass treasures while Danish women sit at a plainJane, yet sturdy structure made of teak wood and steel. Three ladies with light in their eyes honor the vodoun lwa Ezilie as they lie on a bed adorned with metallic pink and red holiday garland. My senses spot the tiger holding court from a bear rug. It seems my eyes deceive me with a walk on the wild side until Winnie, possibly taking note of my grimace contorting in confusion, reminds me animals inside Chambers are “friendly creatures.” Of course! Women are just ridiculous enough to think of something that absurd. God love them. My face muscles can’t hide my amusement as Winnie urges me to visit the life lab across the Birth Canal to “better familiarize myself” with Unnamed “cultural norms.” From what she tells me, animals have been employees of the lab for “close to four years.” Her care-free expression convinces me it’s true. Whenever an editor would send me on some far-out gig, boats during monsoon season, elephant walks in Africa, the monstrous flower market in the Netherlands, I used to repeat to myself; not wrong, just different. Why not give the king of the forest the power he deserves? Not wrong; just different.

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Still, my relentless sense of reason keeps me feeling dizzy and disoriented. Like talons, my hands grip onto the furniture in front of me for support. Fittingly, the desk Winnie shares with her antique aunt is an old gift from Queen Diana of Windsor. The heavy piece used to sit in the study of her son, King William, before her death. Varnished teak wood, the bureau is crafted in Georgian style. Detailed ceramic etchings set besides drawer handles. Swirls of men hunting, hand painted in pastels, depict this very land in relatively simpler times; natives were killed en masse, no questions asked. All the lighting in the hall is solar powered; either through bicycle-pump powered bulbs or the massive windows allowing sunlight to flood the space. Views include a cast of characters hanging around the Hall of Horrors on the west side of the grounds and magnificent manicured gardens, resembling the landscaping of Versailles, over to the east. As I look towards and out the tall, curved windows of Chambers, my eyes detect men working the gardens. Light reflects off bald heads. Male gardeners?! Rising from a velvet-covered Victorian-style chair, I walk by a dykes’ desk made of steel piping. My feet glide past the reps from 6th Avenue, a gaggle of women, faces heavily made up, as they work from behind what appears to be a cosmetics counter. Pieces of paper, appearing to be bills and propositions, appear on display under soft lighting. Approaching the window, it becomes clear my eyes weren’t deceiving me from the distance of King William’s bureau. Dozens of men, the only XYs spotted since my arrival, outside of Nobody and the kids, work a green, lush field of sculpted bushes: female bushes. Men slice and dice brush as they swarm around curvy shapes of foliage. My eyes make out large, leafy ‘feet’ on some ‘statues’ and flowing, festooning ‘hair’ on others. One shrubbed lady appears to work a butter churn, another appears to hold a baby. Another with lots of fancy shear work wears as bonnet and carries a parasol. Burning curiosity and desire urges my soul to leave the Chamber of Fates to get a closer look, but my body, my nerves start to freeze. Fear strikes me unexpectedly, as my hips swivel away. Where’s Honey’s flask? Hundreds of kids help me tap back into the present. Munchkins run around the circular chamber. Little feet pitter patter. Some kids are drawn to a commotion at the main entrance. Others are frozen in awe, blocking my path back to the King’s desk, insensitive to my need to return to the Victorian velvet before I collapse. Children point towards the entrance. Some run towards their mothers. What in the hell is so fascinating at the main entrance?

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Oh! It’s that god damned Kid Poet. The one with the killer fans. The girl in the kimono, the one with the grimy face. The mischievous child still hasn’t combed her hair since I saw her a moon and a half ago. A calico pattern of filth and food on her mug effortlessly grabs hold of the tikes’ attention. Taking notice of her fan base with a serious salute, she walks grandly into the Chamber of Fates as dozens of stiff little fingers motion to her in kind. Taking my eyes away from the kids for a second, the ugliness of some of the ‘womyn’ here becomes clear. Compared to the soft, sweet faces of the children, even the mean kids, those menopause faces can stop an unsuspecting man cold in his tracks. When there aren’t any men around to impress, it shows. Badly. Culture shock, momentarily relieved by the commotion of the kids, creeps back as I study the adults faces and mannerisms. Trolls. Dwarves. Hunchbacks. Nasty. “There’s our Hero,” says one kid. Like a cape made of flames, the orange silk of the Kid’s kimono blows with the breeze blasting into the room from behind the entry curtain. Her waist strap, weaved in braids of shiny red strings, is untied and flies free. “My mom told me I can’t talk to her because she plays with Slutz dolls,” one fan boasts from below. Finally finding comfort back at King William’s desk, my legs collapse back into my mercy seat. The fall of my face concerns Winnie. “The men,” my dry lips stutter. “The men…” “Oh!” she nervously laughs, her face reddening between freckles. “It’s for their own good.” Her voice starts to shake. “Besides, Northern European men enjoy being slaves.” Slaves?! “They are… fulfilling a fantasy, if you will.” I won’t. Within such a cacophony of international faces inside the Chamber, it strikes me as odd the men I saw were all indeed of Caucasian persuasion, as the old cops say. I question authority. Winnie tries to assure me, first by moving closer to me, stroking my

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arm. My muscles twitch. “Most men well versed in the history of human cargo aren’t going down that road again,” the girl’s placates me. Trying anyway. Out of my element. Slaves in my color with tanned hides… The activity in this room and that field is just too much information two months into this thing. My palms sweat as my mind rejects it. The hypothalamus is sending it right back out where it belongs and the energy is getting caught in my nerves. My fingers and feet involuntarily try to shake it out. Maybe it’s just the delirium tremens. Where the hell is Honey’s flask? “Eventually, Unnamed island was given to the BS in a series of battles in the year 1813 during the War of 1812. Well, that’s not the whole story.” Winnie nervously continues on. Much to my envy, Honey, her head still on the desktop between us, appears to be out cold. Her niece changes the subject as my panicked ears welcome it, the repetition of the alarming information already found at the ‘liberry’ comforts me. “But, in order to avoid a long, dreary detour as to why France had it for a while during the retched Quasi-War in 1800, I’ll jump to the end.” “Amerika got hold of most parts of Unnamed island and it seemed to be functioning solely under their power, more or less, until the stem cell lab started banging along.” A band of 20 children near the tiger pretend to be at war with the CEO of Amerika. One boy wears the distinctive red cravat of Ceos Bucks. They appear to be showing off for the Kimono Kid as she looks on standing firm and holding a concentrated grimace. “I can’t remember how Britain bonked it all up so bad just to lose it to France then to lose it again to the Borderline States. You’d have to look that up in what the States still call an ‘history’ text. They only have a few of those round here. One has to acquire a specialized university degree in the Herstory of the White European Male in Central North Amerika or an equivalent to check anything out on the subject at the central liberry...” Winnie’s droning comes in and out of my consciousness…as my mind sees playbacks of this crazy place; woman with a hole in her face, boots made of tree bark, a burrito served for medicinal purposes… “…The enormously long list of missing planes and boats south of Bermuda and north of Puerto Rico was the first clue something ground breaking could be happening here, on a physical plane at least.”

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No one in the Chamber of Fates seems to be in any hurry to start legislating including the New Park Slope team. Children and babies, crawling and crying all over the floors and desks of representatives, garner more attention than the law. Diapers change. Bottles shake. Tits expose. Damn, it’s loud in here! “…A fruitless search went on for weeks,” Winnie continues. “Finally, one day all the stars aligned in my favor and by chance I found a picture of the island… I could see characteristics unique to Unnamed island…” White dots, eye trickery, make it hard for me to follow the words of Winnie, “The prickly pear, for example, is only found on Unnamed island and Bermuda…As Miss Grable lies among prickly pears on pink sand in one photo, the ocean water cooling her off from the heat is too clear to be Bermuda blue.” The earth moves below us. Nobody else seems to notice. “…One week in particular, I couldn’t focus at all and the results were a bloody disaster. Everything that could go wrong did: a hurricane of events...” The six-year-old Kimono Queen, throwing her orange robe over her head, approaches us with a royal stance as a trail of children follow her lead. Winnie makes no notice of the child as she continues to educate. “I had a vague assumption UI must have some kind of parliamentary jobs available, a few positions to protect the top-secret aspects of the lab, at least. A job with a museum of any kind seemed unrealistic. Again, I didn’t care so much about finding proper employment at the time. I just wanted to see if the island was real.” In a commanding stance front and center of the King’s desk, Towel Head demands respect. “Hark! Who goes there?” I hear my my voice boom. “Why, it’s Queen Hero,” the kid regally calls back, “fearless leader of the fatherless children.” “Nice!” Somebody on my team. Maybe not. I’m still pissed at her fans for attacking me. “My people and myself fight for the right to find out who our biological father’s are in this manless land!” Manless? What about the gardeners? Do the slaves count as 2/3 of a man? “Really? How?” “My secrets will be revealed in due time, Damballa.”

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The redheaded senator ignores the child to carry on her bio. Will these women ever shut up? “The mammoth size of the lab was unknown to me before I actually hit shore. I had no idea the mystery machine was, in reality, an entire complex made up of multiple pods.” Hero directs her troops to surround me. “And, I definitely didn’t expect it to be so hard to reach, through all the bloody foliage and swampland. The ‘green womb’ as the ladies here like to call it. “It’s a womb alight.” Winnie’s dismissal of Hero is irritating. “Are you a real man? Or an im-ah-tation?” the child demands as she looks me up and down while a few of her minions raise worn, ugly dolls as defense. Before I can answer, Winnie shouts out, “Don’t be rude, child, asking my guest if he’s a real man. Of course he’s not!” Hey! Hero looks at me puzzled as I turn to Winnie bewildered. Is she protecting me? Do I need protecting? Hero lets her question go with an invitation, “To my private chambers, sir!” Turns out, Hero Little, the leader of children before me, has her own bureau at the Unnamed Palace. If that weren’t funny enough, Winnie also informs me the Kid is due to be appointed by the lady congress as MiStess of Poetry upon the eve of her twelfth birthday, depending on the “naughty” girl’s behavoir. In the meantime, her private study is located through a small opening off the north side of the Chamber of Fates.

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Exhibit L Kid Stuff Without further ado, I join the kiddie parade, following Hero to a tike-sized entrance resembling a hobbit hole off the main counsel floor. She removes her shoes on a bamboo floor mat by the entrance of the hidey-hole and I do the same. After shooing away her fans, she extends a battered and bruised left arm, leading me through a flaming red silk curtain. Behind the smooth, shiny fabric featuring gorgeous embroidery, the visuals in Hero’s playroom explode in my face. The Kimono Kid wastes no time lighting a joint with a redwood match before she assures me she’s “ready to play.” Her tiny hands close the curtain behind me creating an oasis separate from all the activity inside Chambers. The little runt walks across the colorful room after she slips on puffy pink slippers. Atop her scalp stands hair streaked blond and black like the swirled bulbs infamous during Dutch tulip mania, tamed by a headband featuring two ‘kangaroo ears’ made of cardboard tacked on with magic tape. The robe, operating as important regalia moments ago, has been relegated to the bamboo floor. She wears only stripped pajamas now. The structure of the room, seemingly an older structure than the newly designed Chambers, is wearing down from the forest holding it. Vines are rotting the brick. A tree crushes part of the roof, weighing down the construct. A crooked floor matches cracked walls. The windows are in danger of breaking open with kudzu. By the way, who’s the stupid shit who brought kudzu to this island? The cavernous room is 20 meters by 6. I think. I still can’t get the metric system straight. A Hawaiian Umbrella Bonsai tree grows a meter high out of a hole in the floor and under a sky light punctured from outside with fluorescent green branches allowing light to illuminate the room from various angles. Bookshelves stand in front of mosscovered walls. Hero informs me, after a cough-y exhale, the horizontal surfaces of the shelves, covered with all kinds of books and maps, are made of imploded garbage bags. The former trash bags hold everything from children’s books, university textbooks and classic literature. All is covered with a thin layer of verdigris-tinged dust. Thankfully, Hero starts explaining some of the other eye candy in her room. “You’re from Babylon, right?” Unable to answer, the gawk on my puss advertises I’m far from home, at the very least. Another moss-covered wall appears to grow behind various abaci tied together with ribbons of bamboo functioning as a shoe rack. The racks sport sandals from every color of the rainbow. A curious looking pile of dirt in the northwest corner goes unexplained. Before my eyes have enough time to adjust to the sensory overload, Hero tells me she’s in the market for a “part-time Pops” and willing to pay any price. “I’m nobody’s daddy,” my instincts instantly shout out. “We’ll see…” she calmly counters on an exhale.

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A mahogany lampshade carved into the form of a lizard’s head sits on a table resembling a raw tree stump. Antique paraphernalia from the classic television series Star Trek is scattered throughout the room. A life-sized bust of Data’s face sits atop what appears to be a filing cabinet made of tin cans. An antique Princess Lea poster introduces the room’s sci-fi theme to feature-length film. Framed, it bears a brass plate etched with the words, ‘Knock ‘em dead, kiddo,’ over the curvy signature of Honey Hives. It hangs near a fish tank filled with brightly colored schools of life. Plants try to crawl in through the windows but, with the exception of the skylight above, remain shielded by glass on the edge of disaster. The stuffy room breathes with molds, grasses and mosses. The core of my being feels trapped in a web of life. Hard to breathe… To the eye not accustom to so much raw nature, namely mine, the space is ultimately headache inducing. Once again, my pupils start to play another round of tricks on my mind. How much of my adult life has been spent in lifeless, colorless institutions; offices, banks, cafes, an endless number of spaces constructed of freshly painted white walls. The Superpower is so near yet so far away from life, growth. No Big Mother. On a low shelf, Hero’s published poetry sits along side works of Hughes, Plath and Bano with a horizontal line over the ‘o.’ Hero’s picture, from a few years back, appears on the paperbacks, confirming the child author sharpened her publishing chops only a few months into the terrible twos. The southeast part of the room resembles the Hillary Clinton study I once saw in Arkansas. Her large desk is of heavy build supplied with the tools of the elder stateswoman, minus family photos. “The growed-up ladies on my street tell me my name is out of some Greek story from a million, billion years ago. Or is it a hundred years ago? I can never keep my zeros straight.” Great. Another rambler. The Kid attempts to pass me the Dutchie on the left hand side causing me to instantly forgive her for any conversational tangents and, actually, beginning to look forward to psycho babble in small doses. However, though the temptation is ginormous, I choose not to accept North Amerika’s number one cash crop from a child. Besides, the room itself is enough stimulation for now. I don’t need another level of hallucinogenic imagery messing with my mind. “The first Hero swam from Europe to China for love. I think. The story is something about getting married and dying for getting married.” She coughs out an exhale of mythical smoke. The ‘story’ the adults make reference to is the myth of Hero and Leander. According to the opening scenes of the Greek tale, Leander and Hero share a forbidden love for each other. “Who cares why,” Hero comments. Every night of summer, Leander swims across the Hellespont, in modern-day Turkey, to be with his Hero. One night, caught in the whirlwind of true love and thunderstorm, he loses his way and breathes in a tidal wave of Mother Nature’s mystical liquid causing his big heart to drown.

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My mind starts to wonder why this kid has asked me here when out from the tangle of bonsai branches, a warty cane toad leaps across the bamboo floor and lands a few centimeters from my feet. My legs jump back. Lit with opposing beams of sunlight, the floor appears calico. The fat thing moves closer splashing a watery substance in between my toes. Hero laughs as she sets the half-smoked joint onto a hand-crafted ceramic ashtray reminding me of home. I flash back to the present as the frog jumps a hairs-length from my naked feet. The slimy sight sends a chill up my spine. The fucking thing is 15 centimeters long. Hero urges me to take care near the nocturnal creature, “When they get scared they spit toxins at people.” She exhales a final cloud of sweet smelling smoke adding still more florid humidity to the atmosphere. Instead of sympathizing with my panic stricken state, she shares rumors of a pet cane toad in Australia that’s 54 centimeters when fully extended. Turning away from me, the girl gives herself up to thought clouds, dreaming of the future, about her “Pops” in particular, the one who she will find someday, the one willing to work full-time for her “cause.” Looking for comfort and stability, I re-examine the Hawaiian Umbrella Bonsai tree. Those things cost over 10 grand in Mainhatin. Not only is one growing before me, but I’ve seen them numerous places around town, outside, part of residential gardens of the not at all rich and famous. Thankfully, the toad seemingly takes my momentary disinterest as an opportunity to hop back inside the tree’s tangled branches. “Allah, why can’t I have a rich daddy like Sarah has!” Who the hell’s Sarah? “Do you know Sarah?” she asks with a childish naiveté, uncharacteristic for her but age appropriate. Of course I don’t know Sarah. Regardless, Hero plugs away questioning the last person she should; “You wouldn’t believe the letters her father has sent to her…The Moms told me you used to be a reporter…Aren’t reporters like detectives? Can you find out who my biodad is? ” Shrugging shoulders and shifting eyes have kept me out of commitments, including this one, for years. This room just doesn’t quit surprising me. The function of the water-powered fan is a mystery at first as it is much larger than its standard sister and square in shape. A solar generated supervisor ‘bot modeled like a 2XL from the 1980s, but shaped more like a mushroom, zooms across the space reminding Hero to pick misplaced items off the bamboo floor.

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Maybe her father is “Greek or Turkish,” she wonders aloud, ignoring the talking toy’s commands, trying to pull me into her inquiry again… Distractions surrounding me deem focus impossible. Text books sit next to a silver lamé backpack near the door; two of Turk warfare, one about the Amerikan Civil War, a copy of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, a biography of Abby Rockefeller and A Christmas Carol by Dickens. Hero is very curious as to whether her hair is Indian or African, whether her eyes are Greek or Nordic, whether her muscles are Caribbean or Canadian, she groans on whether her mind moves to a Swiss or Japanese time along a Chinese or Jewish calendar. Her “caregivers” do not talk of her father. They insist the “identity” of either of her parents is “unimportant.” Her puzzled puss frowns and looks upon the face of Data. Maybe she is an “alien,” her voice brightens as she studies the pale, emotionless android face. Muscles shaking, the girl visibly tingles with excitement at the mention of the far-out possibility. Being from outer space, somewhere unknown to women but wellknown to “somebody” opens her eyes wide. Killifish circle around inside an aquarium the size of a love seat. Speaking of which…I’m a man who isn’t used to sitting on a bamboo floor. My lower back is killing me. Comfortable couches seem to be non-existent around here. I look around and attempt to find, at the very least, an adult-sized chair or facsimile thereof. A shark-shaped cot does the trick, my butt fitting nicely in the ‘jaws’ of foam teeth and rubber tongue. As I lie back and look up, I spot a classic board game with a familiar name sitting atop a copy of Beowulf: The Lost Tome. Proposing she and I play a round of one of my all-time favorite two dimensional play things, Scrabble, she agrees. The little, toastersized ‘bot springs to life, speeding over to Hero to remind her to thank her guest for the idea. Rolling her eyes, she follows the little toy’s command this time. The ‘bot is turning out to be quite an annoying little shit. As she pulls the game out from under two I don’t recognize, Sharing Shock and Global Land Grant, she asks if I would like to look over a local dictionary before we start. What a sweetheart. Quite certain of my opponents inferiority, I kindly decline. A reporter at a primary news source for 10 years ain’t got no reason to cheat a child. Besides, I’m getting sick of hearing about the Lady Memoir of Terms. Hero sets up the board on a nearby foot table made of recycled glass before handing me the tile letter bag, a beautiful purple silk satchel with the feel of magic. My nimble fingers choose an ‘A’ starter tile before she chooses an ‘M’ tile. According to the rules of the game, after picking my six remaining letters, yours truly gets to put the first word on the board. I proudly shake the bag to pick my remains before handing it over to Hero. Her face brightens as she selects her letters.

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The child is no stranger to “prison style” entrapment, she tells me. Being her staff of guardians want to protect one of the most valuable orphans in town from all dangers at all times under all circumstances, her chances of engaging in activities as natural as leaving a room or running free down the street are infrequent. When special occasion does warrant the wind in her hair, it is never without a closely tied down hat, she tells me. Any restraint of the pot-smoking rebel must be as physically unbearable for her as for her captures. The word ‘gist’ gets me 22 points including the first word double score bonus. I halfway expect my young opponent to challenge a word possibly unfamiliar to her. Hero doesn’t challenge. Instead, she considers a few seconds before playing the word ‘brighten’ on my letter ‘I’. Not only do the ‘B’ and ‘H’ land on triple letter score squares, but use of all seven letters grants the little player a ‘bingo’ bonus of 50 points. Damn! Seventy-eight points. On her first turn. She’s six. I have to admit, I thought Winnie was laying it on a little thick when she referred to this little squirt as a ‘word wiz’ and took the MiStress of Poetry to simply be another silly slice of the UI farce pie. This is going to be a long game. ‘Bitch’ comes to mind, a word one could play off her ‘B.’ My rack doesn’t have the letters to make the play of course. Besides, ‘bitch’ is probably a proper word in the Lady Dictionary. Curious and hoping to distract my opponent, I ask her about the pile of dirt, reverently protected under a purple pillow case across the room. Hero responds in English interspersed with sounds of gibberish she refers to as “the ant’s secret language.” The dirt and toothpicks create a “training ground” for “battle.” Sauntering over to lift the pillow case, she reveals her army of ants with pride, whilst she strokes a tiny flag flying atop the tallest mound. Legions of ants are lined up like McClellan’s troops: perfect, miraculous, unmoving, yet alive. The little buggers almost look fake, like prizes from a candy machine. The ant flag, bearing a fierce cobra, is brutal in its depiction of death and shocking in color; “I drawed it myself.” The sight is unsettling. Distracting myself, I play ‘queen’ on her ‘e.’ She moves towards the board to get a closer look. The scowl on her face indicates she’s not impressed. “Take that off the board,” she demands without hesitation. “Queen is a proper word.”

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“Since when?” “Are you sure you don’t want to look at the Unnamed dictionary? It’s different from the man version,” she asks again. Shit. My pride belittles the request with a rough negative nod as I realize not only am I not getting to play a 10-point ‘q’ on a double word score square, but now my opponent knows what four of my letters are. And, I have no idea what kind of other nonsense is in the dictionary-memoir of this surreal Wonderland. When a word is challenged and found to be incorrect, the player of the attempted word has to forfeit his or her turn. Hero graciously offers me the opportunity to try another word. I decline, not wanting to cheat a game of Scrabble with a child while simultaneously feeling like a C-H-U-M-P. “Do you have any dolls we can play with?” Hero offers as a non-sequitur. “You look like you play with dolls,” she innocently accuses me. Is my penchant for rubber love that obvious? Blushing in agreement my mind soars over past amorous activities in the dark until the realization occurs she more than likely means multiple gender action figures. “I’m not allowed to have pity dolls. All I have are these educat’nal dolls and games.” Her little index finger points out a Deanna Troi action figure, “The pitiest doll I have,” as the Betazoid empath straddles a hard copy of How to Succeed with Women. “They are so-o-o-o boring,” she complains looking to an ergonomic shelf filled with tiny dancers ready to play the roles of scientists, physicists and their accompanying laboratory technicians. Some of the figures wear sarongs as they hold beakers made of recycled control dials. Animals wear lab coats. All humans are women. “I like to pretend I’m in a whole other universe with lots of men in charge.” Believe me, Kid, it’s not what you think. Stripes and dots, intentionally scattered, decorate the curtains around the open windows framing the sounds of the men working the bushes on the open field to the east. More book titles include; Mothers Are Sacred, Boys: The Existential Question and Feline History of Cats. The blank expression on our Hero’s face hints she is not satisfied with what is here, let alone mystified by the state-of-the-art craftwork holding her world together. When asked to share the wonders of the island, neither the rain forest, (she was born to it), nor the marching army of trannies in Mothertown (she blankly remarks they are “pity,” a bad word here and not in their dictionary-memoir), nor the half-breed humans, (they are as natural to her as Latin’s neuter tense), strike her as anything worth much comment.

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The child makes it a challenge to question her regarding the latest discoveries at the Life Lab or the mood of the new cat-dogs children the world over are dying to pet. The large gem stones brought here from Sri Lanka are meaningless to her. Finally, I catch myself trying to report again and stop myself by turning back to my row of tiles; Q, U, E, N, E, and, finally, and most unfortunately, a third ‘E.’ “I wanna get one of those Slutz dolls for Christmas.” What. The. Fuck. “Have you seen those?” She scowls as she comes up with possible reasons the doll she wants so badly is not in her possession. Her grimy hands pick at the hole in her pants over her right knee. Attracted to her open wounds, she pokes and prods at them for a few moments, absent minded. Popping her head up in a voluntary spasm, she smiles with a solution; “If I had a fodder I could prolly get one.” Why’s that, assuming she means ‘father?’ My heart feels relief as she seems to be forgetting her Scrabble tiles. She walks to one of the windows. The sidewalk below is covered in leaves and multicolored reptiles though her eyes focus past the crawling scene. The trees lining the gravel paths provide a mass of shade, sap and fresh air as the roots reach under patches of wild flowers uselessly kept together with the help of elegantly designed metal fences standing as tall as our Hero. Mowing the lawn, gardening, or, simply walking down the sidewalk, is more than a chore around here: it’s a fierce battle with nature. The scissor brother slaves have their work cut out for them. “Do you have a dad? I want a dad for Christmas more than anything.” How many ways is the Kid going to say it? After a few moments, Hero turns away from the greencovered window, hamming up a serious face to announce with dramatic intent, “I want a dad more than a Slutz doll. More than anything in the world, I swear. None of the dads here are biological. I want a dad who used to be a little boy when he was my age. The dads on UI were all girls.” This place is stupid! Breathe. Pause. Self reminder; not wrong, just different. Breathe deep into the stomach. Breathe out through the nose… Looking out of the large oval window past the immaculately manicured lawns afar she asks, “Can you feel them marching on the other side of the field?” before haikuing aloud. Come play with me, Fatherless, motherless Sparrow.

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Within half a minute, the army becomes clearly audible from her educationally designed playroom, growing louder. Rumbling can be felt underfoot. The tiles shake on the Scrabble board. People are moving off the pathways as men slow work to watch. Carts, wagons and strollers disperse as the marching sounds grow closer towards the path below us. From what my newfound barfly friends have told me, the marching of the Kode Pinque army up and down the palace grounds is the beating heart of many aspects of island life for children. Hero’s schooling inspired by Maria Montessori, the organic food she eats and her counter-competitive philosophically challenged gymnastics team march to the beat of KP’s drummer. “School is open to all children in grades Tree through Olive,” Viva Vixxxen enjoyed educating me on the local school system at last Wèdoday’s happy hour. Carpenters and jewelers are currently working on a new school featuring front doors made of solid gold. Apparently, donations are pouring in as wealthy women form all over the planet are moving in with fat-cat carpetbags. Dykes from Rome are building a bell tower. Hero’s dilated pupils gaze past the approaching army, past the beaches, past the oceans, beyond the sky. She rhymes. The sisters,-Are they brothers? The same voice! “There are places far away where there are all kind of dads, a dad in every house even. This one girl on my street, who lives in a brownstone house by the frower shop, told me there are places right over in Puerto Rico with a dad in every house! I think she’s a liar, though. There’s no way. A dad in every house? That’s ridiculous.” We are young, It’s the army singing now. Heartache to heartache we stand, No promises, no demands… The collective Kode Pinque voice is high. Love is a battlefield. “In the books at the XX bookstore in town, in the adults only section, there’s dads in the books and they buy toys for people and are nice and there’s this one big, fat one called Sinister Claws at Christmas.” She spikes her fingers to illustrate. “The kids with daddies live in big houses and ride in big vehicles and get all the presents they want. The

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Moms here hate the men in the books. That’s why we can’t see them. My friends and I like them though and get in trouble for saying it. I like you and you’re a man.” Gee, thanks. Hero is incorrigible now that she has found open ears to her gripes regarding Father Christmas. And, hell, it might be I’m the only man she knows. Speaking to my XYs could be a rare opportunity she doesn’t want to waste on subjects unimportant to her. Suddenly, Hero returns to the glass table and puts on her game face to peel letters off her rack. Is she using all seven letters again? I breathe a sigh of relief when she doesn’t. Using six letters, she plays the word ‘amazing’ where I was going to lie down ‘queen.’ My heart starts beating again before my stomach drops. She has successfully used the letter ‘Z.’ Worth 10 points alone, sitting on a double-point square. One letter is worth 20. Altogether, ‘AMAZING’ is worth fifty-six points… We are strong, No one can tell us we’re wrong… I retreat to the kudzu-covered window and look down at the footpath below through an open sliver in the green mass. Silver lamé push-up bras. Pink wigs. Leather skirts. Multi-colored Mother Hubbards make up the freak patrol. Make-shift ergonomically-designed office chairs function as wheelchairs. Baby strollers carry curling irons, clothes irons and hot plates, for what purpose I have no idea. Spectators sing along as KP marches along the path, fists raised, spirits soaring. The energy is palpable. Searchin’ our hearts for so lo-oh-ong, All of us knowing, Love is a battlefield. Out of sight, the army disappears behind the foliage. “Do you have a dad?” The horrid accusation jolts me back to reality and away from the window. I don’t know about you, but I hated my father. The day he left us was the happiest day of all of our lives. My mother’s big break came months later. “My father’s dead.” I hear myself half-lie. “Dads have everything that matters,” she says. Cheap cigars? Empty promises? A fistful of dollars for nobody but the bartender? She cries out for “toys, flashlights, toys and toxic drawing markers,” and adds they are impossible to get around here unless one “pays off the rascals.”

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“They like to throw these Frisbees and go to saloons and wear cowboy hats.” She’s endless in relaying her delusions of dad-style grandeur like Winnie is about UI herstory. “…and drink something called ‘Bloody Mary’ and laugh and only yell at kids sometimes because they are not around much and go to sleep on couches a lot. Do you sleep on couches?” Finally. Somebody who understands my needs. I’ve been trying to locate a decent sectional for weeks. “I want my caretaker to go to sleep on the couch. Why doesn’t my adopt-a-mom sleep on a couch? She’s never sleeping while she’s doing laundry, meeting with clients, doing baby sitting patrol, picking up my stuff, wiping off fuck benches.” Fuck benches? “That’s fun, though; babysitting patrol. I like that. I get to yell at kids. There are lots of kids around for yelling at. And, we get to play on big toys.” “But, she’s always awake, watching me. I hate it.” I love it as I make a fruitless attempt to ask about Motherland’s loveliest caretaker, Viva Vixxxen, VV, Hero’s own caretaker adopt-a-mom and, more importantly, one of the most gorgeous creatures I’ve seen in my eight weeks here, and even more interestingly, host to weekly sex parties above the church and day care center. “Don’t tell her I used the word ‘hate.’ I’ll get in big, big trouble. One time I wrote this one haiku, Hate Vanishes into Thin Air. She tore it up into a zillion pieces, until it was dust.” “If you help me find a dad, I promise to be your best friend forever and ever.” So far, I’ve had offers to do paparazzi for the Windsors, work as a dad or work as a spy to find a dad. I never had this many job offers when I wanted a job. Creating a secret handshake on the spot seems to be proof enough I could be trusted not to reveal the child’s secrets. While mentally recounting horrendous job leads of the past, the guy who smelled like bananas, the office above the mine field, the tent in the desert, a tree branch comes crashing through the sun roof above. Seconds after a piercing scream escapes me, Hero calmly moves the Scrabble board away from the broken glass to continue the game. She lies down another fighting word. I’d rather not share the details of the bodily harm or how our little Hero creamed me. Let’s just say the kid taught me something about building a word arsenal and I’m not going anywhere without an umbrella. Eventually, I stumbled upon a lame excuse to escape, something about making sure Honey is still alive, and fly back to Chambers. She once again asks me to consider her offer of a parental position and I weakly promised to think it over.

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Exhibit M Matriarchy in Motion Chambers has changed dramatically since I had left it a few hours ago. The quiet of the architecture contrasts greatly with not only the eclectic office décor and the fancy dress of the madame senators, but the audio volume of the room. An auditorium full of female politicians is incredibly loud. It’s deafening, as a matter of fact. Like the streets of Naples or a glacial shelf breaking in the Arctic; cracks and screeches seem to come from all directions. The sound of women of every stripe whining, crying and pleading as well as screaming, nagging and hollering leaves the overall effect of a dull, high-pitched shrill, a symphony of sirens. Has anyone noticed how ugly female animals are as a whole? A flood of representatives entered the hall while I was in Hero’s room and now fill up multiple desks previously empty. Saris and sandals, wigs and bracelets, fishnets and boots, sights not normally seen in the ranks of state government policy makers take their places. Is the session finally starting? Official start time came and went hours ago. “You’re back!” Winnie hollers as if I’d disappeared down a rabbit hole. The child poet must have a dangerous reputation, which would be understandable considering what Nobody and I went through my first day here. Or, maybe that womb of a room is what Winnie fears? My mind and spirit did feel sucked in, victim to a vacuum pull. “My parents were totally against me coming ‘round here you know.” Without skipping a beat Windsor trudges on with her little fairy tale. Like Jesus freaks, I have a feeling everyone on this island has a conversion story to share. “For starters, they purposely never mentioned I had an aunt who was a senior senator! I certainly had no idea she had been here for years. They didn’t approve of her life in the Borderline States. Not only did they believe what she was doing was treacherous, they thought it ridiculously dangerous. The few people on the outside who know of the island have no idea what’s really happening here, including my makers. They are afraid of it. My parents are so fancy on spoiling my fun! “Oh, I suppose I should keep my voice down. “I don’t want to wake auntie’s beauty rest. She likes to take little catnaps now and again. That’s just like her, too: my great auntie, the one and only Honey Hives, both friend and arch-enemy of the royal family. Now that she’s planning a retirement, they might finally forgive her. Though I hope she doesn’t leave too soon. I need all the education one can acquire.” “No need to worry, dearie; I’m awake. I have to get up anyway; the parliamentary sessions are about to start.”

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At what feels like four hours past schedule, it occurs to me I haven’t spotted a clock all day and seem to be the only one concerned with hard numbers in this timeless space. When I asked Winnie for the time earlier, she answered with a quick, “The devil may care.” Apparently, Father Time himself is on the Unnamed evil man shit list as well. HH ruffles her wiry hair and shakes off her sleep with a stretch, rubbing drool off her diamond broach with the help of a lace hanky. “I need a drink.” She pulls what appears to be a century-old silver flask, tarnished and scratched, out of her jaded handbag. Eureka. “My grandfather gave this to me right before he died, when I was 10 years old.” Her mind drifts as her face turns, her glowing reflection on the face of the flask moving to refract the light piercing in from the garden outside. Her eyes drift off in the same way Hero’s did at the marching of KP until she snaps back with the help of a shot of scotch. My hands refrain from grabbing at the flask. “What Winnie has been telling you is true. For the first few years I lived here, Unnamed island was still under wraps, unmarked on general maps. “Those were beautiful times, let me hear you shout, as the kids like to exclaim. We were changing the world with science and making a lot of money and enjoying plenty of leisure time on top of it. Science was good for the first time in a long time. The lab was respected. No fetus or cell ever went uncared for, unappreciated, dying without gratitude. “But, our fantastic circle of life orgy started rolling off track about 18 months ago. Stories leaked in the German press with photos of our fabulous beaches, tales of our incredible health care system and the stellar educational programs of UI. “All at once, it seemed, women started moving here in droves. From all over the planet, the fairer sex started coming from all sorts of places and situations for all sorts of reasons: some to get away from men, some to change their careers, some to give children a safe place to live. Amerikan women who wanted to be part of the Borderline States but avoid the Pro Life Laws were attracted to the vital queensreich laws as well as the beaches and the temperate weather. It was jolly good fun at first because we all had a common vision; enjoying the fruits of a dickless environment. You never saw so many happy, unchained, women in one place. “Then, the men started showing up.” Her rubbery throat gobbles another drink as my butt squirms in the seat and my monkey moves up my spine. “They came for the dancing girls, the teachers, the nurses, the women with special needs. The concentration of women attracted the men; period,” she sighs, her face falling. “And, there was nothing stopping the men from getting here. In fact, they have their own community on the south side of the island. I heard they are calling it Machango. People have told me they even have their own boat dock.” Bingo.

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“Around that time some of the ‘lesser women,’” she whispers, “don’t tell anyone I called them that, but they are exactly that, started getting pregnant and selling more and more body parts, blood, plasma and DNA to our own Lab, among other discrete ways to make money from mere bodily functions, and living off the proceeds.” My imagination reels in wonder as to the circumstances surrounding local insemination. Loose women. Mason jars filled with virgin blood. Illegal baby arms for sale. “This place isn’t that far from other islands with beautiful men you know. Getting pregnant for Lab barter is a thoughtless, careless sick practice. And, the men seeking the women out only made it worse.” Fucking to make a living comes to mind for the first time in my life. Suddenly, Hives snaps back to the here and now as she shuffles work papers around. “Oh, well, cheers for them. I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, aren’t I?” She takes another hit off grand dad’s flask and finally offers me a taste. Between the slave sighting and that disastrous Scrabble game, this outsider deserves a drink. I gladly oblige before she returns the flask safely back to her coat pocket. “Oh…right…Winnie forgot to mention the details of the embarrassing part of the story. Well, Amerika didn’t even know this island was here until France took it in the Quasi-War of 1798…” The liquor hits my insides, warming me up and helping the history lesson go down easier. Women in burkas. Women in rubber suits. Women in shabby maternity wear from yesteryear surround me. “…England wasn’t too happy and neither were the Amerikans. England couldn’t understand how the colonies having just clearly declared their independence, completely missed an 2,500 square kilometer island. How could they have possibly thought to look after it, to protect it from French invasion if it was unknown? Well, I think the Rockefellers were sniffing around here. But, that’s just my theory; don’t quote me on it. From what we know, the island had been sitting, unguarded, with the exception of the British Museum interests, for 14 years. “But, as I said, it all worked out and the Brits and the Amerikans were chummy about it for a long time. “Well, until quite recently, I detest to admit. It seems all that had been forgiven and forgotten for well past a hundred years suddenly isn’t. Bringing Queen Diana back to life four years ago botched up public relations. And, she was my pet project, too.”

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Honey takes on quiet self-doubt before rallying for the day’s session: “Here we go for another day of making babies and paying for them. Passing health care bills and education laws and listening to another round of impossible proposals for plant safety over at the rainforest-covered lab. There’s no way security can stop chimps! The thought is absurd. I’m just hoping the milk madness disappears.” Winnie retorts with a naively upbeat: “I know! I’ve already made my signs!” In the midst of mid-afternoon chaos, the only refined lady appears to be Honey. The Lady Senior Senator made from organic dust as old as dirt takes pause, trying to recharge. During a rare break in the cacophony, she informs her niece of an important engagement: “Diamond, darling, Queen Diana and I are meeting next week to plan her birthday party.” Hives takes one last, long drink before calling the wild room to order not because she’s the elected, Winnie proudly relays, but because she is the eldest of them all and people respect their elders here, “not like that awful Babylon you come from.” I’ve got news for you, kiddo; this is Babylon too.

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