Underground
Irony [Today's News Fiction by Jenean McBrearty, September 28, 2012]
Wise Hootie Owl—
at WWW.ASKWHO.COM—was more than a website for the chronically
confused. Directives such as, “Dump the SOB already”, issued with
painful regularity to young people with hopeless attachments to
abusive significant others, were also encoded messages to
Wellwishers.
Editor-in-Chief
Marston Michaels, 'ol M&M who loved chocolate unrepentantly,
notified his submitting followers they'd be meeting, where and when,
through arcane artistic allusions and advice to hormone dominated
adolescents and wily whiny children.
Dear WHO: I live at
home and my mother refuses to give me an allowance. Is this fair? I'm
8 years old. Signed, Oppressed.
Dear Oppressed:
Suck it up and write me when you're 20 and on your own.
Meaning: WHO
headquarters. Eight o'clock. Women's turn to bring the cupcakes.
Yearly dues due.
The Censors had
little trouble deciphering the message, except for the true
ingredients of the refreshments and where, exactly, headquarters was.
Wellwishers were suspected of using narcotics to induce creativity,
and Wellwishers suspects were never seen leaving their homes.
**********
“The Allies
planted false information about the D-Day invasion on a corpse, threw
it into the sea, and made sure the Germans recovered it. Hitler
concentrated his defenses in Calais. Maybe this is a Wellwisher decoy
message meant to throw us off track,” FBI Director J. Meager said
to the Writer's Task Force when they'd assembled at the Quantico,
Virginia office.
“Or a feeble
attempt at humor,” lead WTF Agent Turnbull said, “are we supposed
to believe these subversives eat cupcakes?”
J. Meager shot
agent Turnbull a glare, suspecting Turnbull was a turncoat. “We
found a Wendy's receipt in Tim McVeigh's glove box. Don't think for a
moment evil people only eat raw meat. Maybe it's time we reviewed why
we're hunting down this crew.” The lights went off and a screen
lowered for the PowerPoint slideshow. It reminded Turnbull of the
noise a stage curtain made as it opened for the first act. J. Meager
delivered his lines perfectly.
“No fictional or
nonfictional creation, communication, or depiction shall display any
of the following:
·Sexism
·Racism
·Lookism
·Violence
·Vulgarity
·Profanity
·Religious
preference
No fictional or
nonfictional creation, communication, or depiction shall use any of
the above directed toward, used to describe, or created in scenes,
that contain, in any form, explicit or implicit negative and/or
stereotypical representations of conflicts between or among:
·Women
·Children
·Disabled people
·Lesbians, gays,
bisexual, or transgendered people
·Animals
·Ethnic groups,
·Organizations
political parties or entities
·Professions
·Environmental
protection
These Wellwishers
are purveyors of hate speech. A sneaky bunch that doesn't wish anyone
well,” J. Meager said. “Remember that.”
Turnbull raised a
hesitant hand. “They're fiction writers with First Amendment
rights, right?”
“Yes, but like
journalists they have to write within the rules about the right
things. Clean. Harmonious. Peace promoting things. I think that'd be
self evident from the laws, Turnbull. You defending these freaks?”
J. Meager was still speaking in the dark.
“No, sir! I'm
feeling anxious about the conflict between mother and child in the
WHO letter.”
J. Meager turn off
the computer, turned on the lights, and went to Turnbull's side. “I
apologize. Didn't mean to imply disloyalty on your part. Not at all.
And we're looking into shutting down advice columns that glorify
parental economic deprivation. “
Turnbull wiped a
tear off his cheek with his sleeve. “I hate child abuse,” he
said.
“And that,
People, is why Charles Dickens' books were put to the flames,” J.
Meager told the Task Force patting Turnbull on the shoulder. “Base
words give rise to base emotions that fuel base behavior. I want this
task force to hit a home run.”
**********
Agent Turnbull
opened his bedroom closet door and accessed a secret stairwell that
led to a tunnel, that led to a great round room with 20 doors. A
Wellwishers cell, Turnbull's was called Underground Irony, that
connected 10—20 secret writers who'd moved into adjacent properties
and immediately constructed basements and tunnels through their
concrete slab foundations. Here, throughout America's cities, writers
met to read and share and conjure their fictions in high-tech writers
webs, air-conditioned, subterranean prison cells where everyone was
free.
“Topside we live
as worms and moles in glass and iron,” M&M said to Turnbull as
they drank a six-pack of white wine coolers and waited for the
others. “In catacombs we live in class irony, wrapped in cocoons of
controversy and characters and cowardice. Treacherous. Traitors to
both government-ordered order and individual liberty, because we're
afraid to confront the Leviathan of Political Correctness. “
Turnbull couldn't
accuse his Editor-in-chief of purple prose anymore than he could
accuse J. Meager of 1st Amendment violations. Everyman writes his own
version of a story. Instead he shook his head back and forth and up
and down in balanced agreement and said, “How like our fiction is
our nation. Subtexted. Fucked.”
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