it was one of those weeks

Already far north of Amarillo, John Q Kanelis, an explorer and natural scientist of some renown, felt a cold and icy breeze upon his cheeks, which braced his nerves and filled him with delight. Few understood this feeling. This breeze, which had traveled from the regions towards which Kanelis was advancing, gave him a foretaste of those icy climes as it played thus upon his cheeks, and caused him to realize that he had forgotten to wear his trousers. As the intrepid Kanelis pushed forward toward unexplored regions, his ship was nearly surrounded by mist and ice. He had to force back his cowardly crew, who, hating snow, mutinously desired to return home. Particularly bad were the treasonous Dudley and Henry; the Ghost, on the other hand, remained steadfast. After the mist cleared, however, Kanelis perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by pit bulls. On it was a wretched man. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering.

As time passed and the man was restored to health, Kanelis became strangely attracted to this divine wanderer. Kanelis was the only one fit to appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful man. Sometimes Kanelis endeavored to discover what quality it is which the man possessed that elevated him so immeasurably above any other person he ever knew. He believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things.

At length, the man introduced himself as Thomas Beaver, and began to describe his upbringing and education. “Once,” he told Kanelis, “I chanced to find a volume of the works of one Dr. Ralph R. Erdmann. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. I communicated my discovery to my father, who looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, 'Ah! Erdmann! My dear Thomas, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.'”

But Beaver would not be deterred. One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted his attention was the structure of the human frame. Whence, he often asked himself, did the principle of life proceed? To examine the causes of life, he believed, he must first have recourse to death. He must observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. Darkness had no effect upon his fancy, and a churchyard was to him merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which had become food for the worm. Now he was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses.

Finally, on a dreary night, Beaver beheld the accomplishment of his toils. The candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, he saw the opening of the dull yellow eye of the creature he had assembled; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. “It's alive!” Beaver exulted. And the creature lurched to his feet, took two steps, and introduced itself as the Texas Democratic caucus system. “It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct,” the creature murmured. “No one can remember that horror,” Kanelis interjected, interrupting Beaver’s story, and leaping to his feet in the arctic wasteland. “The creature must be destroyed!”

Beaver sighed, and closed his eyes, his energy nearly spent. “Oh! If I die, swear to me, Kanelis, that the demon shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance. Swear that the caucus shall not live -- swear that he shall not survive to add to the list of his dark crimes. He is eloquent and persuasive, but trust him not. The soul of the caucus is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and malice. Hear him not; call on the names of all of those that been been nominated by our fiendlike system and yet lived to be destroyed by even greater evil; think of Dukakis, Mondale, Gore, and of the wretched Kerry, and thrust your sword into his heart.

It was one of those weeks.

spacedark