by Clark Zlotchew

Introduction

June 5, 2030:  As all Americans and citizens of the “Developed Nations” are vividly aware, it is of the utmost importance to be Politically Correct.  In today’s Western Civilization, political correctness on the part of an individual or commercial entity or group is considered a sacred duty, a quasi-religious obligation.  Any deviation in practice from this lofty principle, in word or deed, will result in the excommunication of the offending individual or commercial entity or group.  Decent society will shun, ostracize, blacklist and enthusiastically snub the offending party or parties.  The aforesaid describes merely the societal consequences of incorrect behavior or speech.

There are legal implications as well.  A statute recently enacted by the U.N., the U.S.A., the U.K., France, Sweden, (where the impetus for this statute originated) and all Western Europe as well as all the English-speaking nations of the world, delineates the parameters of the statute as well as the punishment required for violation of the statute.  However, there is leeway for individual countries with respect to the precise nature of the penalties imposed upon the perpetrator.   In all jurisdictions, the scofflaws will be required to bear the mark of shame on their garments, said mark consisting of a four-by-four-inch aluminum badge painted scarlet with the statement, in black upper-case print, that announces:  SHAME.

One example of the typical punishment meted out in New Zealand:  The guilty party pays a fine amounting to twenty percent of his former yearly salary (he, of course, no longer is employed), publicly-administered whipping of the bared buttocks with a cat-o’-nine-tails in the town square of either Christchurch, Wellington or Auckland, which ever district is closer to the perpetrator’s residence.  The number of lashes is left to the discretion of the judge, but cannot be less than ten or more than forty.  The first man convicted of this crime had been apprehended for having used the highly offensive term, “woman driver” after a fender bender with a member of the Gyno-New Zealand community.   In extreme cases, such as callously alluding to the Maori citizens as “natives,” or humorously referring to citizens of Asian extraction as being “disoriented, (Dis-Oriented)” the court has the option of castration or removal of the ovaries, depending on gender. Be it known, reads the statute, that in the case of a citizen who is anatomically male, but identifies as female, castration will be carried out, but referred to in legal documents as ovariectomy, while the anatomical woman who identifies as male will have ovaries removed but in legal documents the procedure will be recorded as a castration.

There were protest demonstrations against this aspect of the New Zealand rules as being overly severe, involving “cruel and unusual punishment.”  The Supreme Court of New Zealand ruled, on March 15, 2038, that the term “cruel and unusual punishment” smacks of what was labeled “Noxious American Influence,” and the protesters were severely beaten by mounted police wielding batons.  These same protesters were indicted with the charge of Politically Incorrect Activities.  The Chief Justice recommended sterilization of these “deviates” in order to prevent any offspring born with deviant thought patterns.

All cultures, we are informed by the Exalted Pundits of the United Nations, are equally valid and no adverse judgements are to be made of cultures that differ, however dramatically, from one’s own.  The table etiquette of head hunters and cannibals are equal in merit to that of Victorian tea party habitués.  Followers of the pre-Columbian Aztec creed, whose devotees faithfully adhere to the precepts of human sacrifice, are to be allowed complete religious freedom.  It would be un-American (un-British, un-Australian, un-Swedish, etc., etc., etc., mutatis mutandis) to restrict their sacred spiritual practices.  Actually, this rule has existed long before the recent Politically Correct Statutes.  In the U.S., freedom of religion was enshrined in the Constitution. (The United Nations makes an exception to the religious freedom laws to spare the sensibilities of Saudi Arabia and Iran.  It would be insensitive to insist on the application of these rules in those nations.  This, at first, was a thorny point of jurisprudence.  It was a case of the religious freedom of those nations in conflict with the religious freedom of visitors and foreign workers.  These cases were adjudicated in favor of the host countries.)

A Rescued (Incomplete) Document

All the above serves as a prologue for the manuscript I discovered in a somewhat damaged condition.  I dredged it out of the trashcan in the ground floor men’s room of the U.N. building in New York City.  I was amazed at the contents and the manner of disposal. It was a careless way to discard a document containing information possibly damaging to diplomatic relations between and among nations.

I’m afraid the document is incomplete; the first two pages are missing. In addition, there are coffee stains on many of the remaining pages, as well as smears of chocolate. At any rate, that is how I prefer to interpret the stains.  An odor emanates from it that I believe is that of alcohol, most likely a good Tennessee sour mash whiskey.  I hereby provide a faithful transcription of the remaining pages, starting with page three:

#     #     #

…when I started to feel somewhat uncomfortable.  I will relate the following curious events as I witnessed them without injecting even one smidgeon, one iota, one scintilla, of my personal prejudices into it.  I am, or rather, I am endeavoring to be completely without judgement.  No, that’s not correct. It could lead to misinterpretation. What I mean to say is I have valiantly struggled to be non-judgmental.  As a reporter on assignment by my prestigious news magazine, The Monthly Neutralist, I must maintain complete objectivity in reporting on the gala banquet given by the Royal Grand Kahuna of Twerkistan[1] at an international gathering of world leaders.  One problem:  I fear that my Editor-in-Chief, due to pressure regarding Political Correctness originating at the highest levels of the Federal Government, in obeisance to the Glorious Directorate of the United Nations Organization, will relegate my report to the dust bin (dust to dust).  We shall see.

As a reporter on assignment with the American Embassy in Twerkistan, I accompanied Ronald Miller, the American Ambassador, to the festive event described below. I was seated on a canvass floor mat (the seating arrangement for all journalists) against the wall behind and to the left of the Ambassador.  Mr. Miller, of course, was seated at the table in the Awesomely Great Hall of the Sublime Royal Palace.[2]  The Grand Kahuna of this remote mountain kingdom, or more accurately, Kahunate, was addressing a welcome to the assembled dignitaries, numbering one hundred odd guests. Some of them were quite odd indeed, I must admit.

Returning to the subject of the banquet:  many of the dignitaries devoured their meals in the accepted Western manner, with knife, fork and spoon.  Those from the Far East disdained the silverware set out at each place, preferring to use chopsticks, which they had extracted from jewel-encrusted, plush-lined carrying cases.  Others, however, were rather–shall we say– idiosyncratic in their table manners. Some simply used their well-manicured fingers, employing the daggers carried on their persons only when absolutely needed to cut up a large slab of not-easily-identifiable meat.  I think it was meat.  It probably was.  From what parts of what animals, I was not able to ascertain with any assurance.  Some spurned even the knife, preferring to tear the mysterious meat with their hands, or holding one end of the slab of flesh between their teeth while pulling the other end until it ripped apart, causing gravy and sauce to spray onto the sparkling white table cloth as well as neighboring guests.  I make no judgements here, I must insist; I merely relate the facts as I observed them.

The Westerners and the Far Easterners (the out-of-favor term “Orientals” is forbidden) diplomatically concealed their distaste for the table manners of the others.  A slight commotion broke out, however, when the ambassador of South Utopistan (formerly New Rotterdam) held up a large chunk of the mystery meat, its juices mixed with the greenish-yellow sauce he had brought with him, running from his hand to his wrist and forearm, dripping on to the white damask table cloth.  “Excuse me, O Grand Kahuna, Sir, Your Sublime Excellency, but can you tell me who this is?”

Please note:  He used the word who rather than the expected what!

Everyone stopped eating and, simultaneously both shocked and embarrassed, gave full attention to the South Utopistani ambassador and the Twerki Kahuna, to see what would transpire.  Eyebrows were raised, ostentatious throat-clearings were heard.

The French ambassador cried, “Mon Dieu, Est-ce qu’il a vraiment dit ça?” (My Lord, did he really say that?).

The ambassador of India, a former ultra-soprano in Bollywood films, shrieked in a tone so high that it shattered several wine glasses, staining the once pristine table cloth so that it resembled a surgeon’s scrubs.  The piercing scream sent the many hounds roaming the banquet hall dashing from the room.  It should be noted that these huge canines had previously been leaping into people’s laps to seize meat from the table.  The reader can imagine just how shrill the screams of Madame Patel were, if dogs left all that meat to scurry from the room to escape those high notes.  She then dropped her silver goblet (there was no uniformity of drinking vessels or dishes), spilling red wine over her flowered yellow and blue sari.

The German ambassador’s eyes opened wide in amazement.  He stared at the South Utopistani and muttered, “Was ist los mit dieser Schweinehund?” (What’s up with this pig-dog? Or perhaps I should translate it to “swinehound”).

The British Madam Ambassador emitted a pitiful “Oh, dear!” lost consciousness and fell forward, thereby burying her beautifully cosmeticized face in the purée of mango-and-tabasco.

The ambassador of New Zealand, having just gulped down a large portion of the greyish meat, dropped his knife and fork, and had the presence of mind to turn his head to the left, as one does when coughing for a hernia exam, rather than ruin the table cloth by regurgitating directly onto it.  Unfortunately, his Saudi Arabian neighbor’s white robes were not spared the eruption of partially digested mystery meat enhanced with mango-and-tabasco purée.  This dish was listed on the royal menu as Ambrosia Royale á la Sauce du Tropique.  I suppose French terminology for haute cuisine always adds a certain je ne sais quoi.   Or perhaps I should add that it can make basse cuisine appear to be…  [Sorry, Chief.  I seem to have lost my objectivity and am being judgmental.  Feel free to strike out the last few comments of mine.]

Returning to my strictly objective report:  The Saudi sprang to his feet, his hand flying to the jeweled handle of his curved dagger, and growled, “Kuss ukhtak sharmuta!” a popular, and rather offensive expletive which is best left untranslated.  I will say that it relates to the target of this insult’s female sibling, attributing to her a less than honorable profession and specifically mentioning a body part she would employ to advantage in said profession.

[Chief, you might want to delete the last part of this paragraph, the passage starting with “I will say…”.  It objectively relates the event, although I imagine it might possibly offend the sensibilities of some of the readers. And, of course, I, that is we, don’t want to be prosecuted for Political Incorrectness and who knows?  Maybe for Social Turpitude as well.]

Three of the Kahuna’s royal waiters rushed to the Saudi ambassador to lay hands on him.  They apparently were seeking to restrain him from any rash action which could have unfortunate international repercussions.  However, these muscular waiters-slash-bodyguards, seeing that their hands would be defiled by the less than appetizing, evil-smelling, multi-colored substance decorating the man’s shoulder and arm, they desisted.  Instead, they drew their Chinese-manufactured pistols from their faux leather shoulder holsters and, fingers already on the triggers, urged the Saudi to remain calm and take his seat.

The Saudi glared at the waiters, and at their weapons, and snarled, “You think I am afraid of guns, of bullets? Hah?  I am not.  But I do not want to cause a diplomatic incident and incur the wrath of my beloved King.” Still scowling and muttering curses and dire threats, he regained his seat.

The offending New Zealander, later known to us newspapermen as Barfer Boy and Puking Pete, wiped his mouth with the coarse paper towel, the kind employed for hand-drying in Western rest rooms, and here supplied by the Royal Kahunian Dining Service.  He then took a few sips of the Evian water and apologized to the Saudi, who returned the courtesy by glowering at him, displaying his middle finger two inches from the New Zealander’s pale face, and muttering something in Arabic.  He leaned close to the New Zealander and said, just loud enough for the man to hear, “Know this, O son of many, father of none:  I will have my revenge on you.  On you, your mother, your whoring sisters, your effeminate brothers and your supposed father. Do not doubt it.”  The Saudi then sat up, placed his hand on his heart, inclined his head and smiled at the other guests.

The Australian ambassador, seated to the right of the weak-stomached New Zealander, leaned back in his chair and attempted to cajole the Saudi.  He said, “Hey, Ahmed! That’s a bit of bad luck, that is, your worship.” He cheerfully added, “It’ll be awright, mate.  Just you wait and see.  All you need do, mate, is squirt a bit of the ol’ club soda on it, and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Bob is my uncle?  What are you suggesting, O infidel dog?”

Through all this commotion, the South Utopistani who had asked who, rather than what the meat was, seemed puzzled that his polite inquiry had caused this uproar.  Ronald Miller, our ambassador to the Kahunate of Twerkistan, narrowed his eyes and shrewdly noticed that the Kahuna himself, eyes widened, eyebrows raised, looked around at the various displays of shock and horror, and registered the same level of surprise as the South Utopistani.  Miller also recalled, as he told me later, that there had been evidence gathered that indicated that Michael C. Ambrosian, after crashing his plane in the steaming South Utopistan jungle in 1961, had been slain and devoured by cannibalistic headhunters who agreed, no doubt, with the saying, “Waste not, want not.”

Miller also remembered a friend of his who lived in Sinclairville, a small town in the wilds of Western New York State, who had read an article on Twerkistan in the local library.  The article mentioned that cannibalism had been practiced in that country up until the Revolution of 1792, when it was outlawed.  “Ironically,” Miller noted, “the victors of the Revolution immediately roasted the losers, whether dead or alive, on a spit over a barn fire.”  He chuckled, emitting an unmistakable aroma of Tennessee sour mash, and shrugged his shoulders when he told me this.  “Outlawed in theory only, perhaps,” he added.  He shrugged again and murmured, “Oh, well.  When in Rome, do as the Romans.”

Madame Ambassador of the United Kingdom had recovered from her fainting fit.  She overheard this statement, raised an eyebrow, looked through her lorgnette and down her nose at the Yank, and wryly commented, “And I suppose when in Sodom, do as the Sodomites?”  She then added under her breath, “Bleedin’ buggers!”  I would have to add that the next day, she was detained by the Twerki Political Correctness Police for suggesting that the values of Sodomites (ancient or modern) were inferior to British values.  This was not merely Politically Incorrect, but racist and highly insensitive.  I have not been able to ascertain her fate.

Finally, the Grand Kahuna recovered from his shock at the strange reactions of his guests to the South Utopistani’s simple question. But that look of puzzlement remained etched on his face.  He cleared his throat flamboyantly, banged his fist on the table three times, making the dishes dance, in order to bring some order back to the banquet.  As the tumult died down, His Majesty, the Royal Grand Kahuna of the Glorious Kingdom of Twerkistan frowned and answered the South Utopistani’s inquiry: “This is a sensitive subject, my dear friend, because of family connections.”  Then, with a roguish wink, he confided, “But I will say that you have the distinct pleasure and honor of partaking of, shall we say, noble cuisine.”

Ronald Miller later told me in confidence, that he thought he heard the word cousin employed, rather than cuisine.  Of course, English spoken with a Twerki accent makes it difficult to be accurate.  Mr. Miller added, “From now on if anyone says to me, ‘We’d love to have you for dinner this evening,’ I will have to do some fact checking before accepting the invitation.”  He guffawed at his own comment.  [Chief, you may want to strike some of the foregoing.]

The S.U. [Chief, I’ve decided to use this abbreviation for South Utopistani from here on in] ambassador’s face beamed with delight as he fell to with both hands on the aristocratic delicacy before him.  He lowered his face to the plate, and began stuffing the food into his mouth, his lips smacking with pleasure.  The ambassador of New Zealand, who had almost recovered from his bout with nausea, on hearing the Grand Kahuna’s answer, suddenly jumped to his feet, clapped his paper towel to his mouth and fled in the direction of the communal bathroom, a luxurious fifty-seater, or more accurately, fifty-holer.

The British Ambassador had been brought out of her second fainting spell of the evening through the swift action of waiters who seized glasses of lukewarm water from the table and splashed it in her face.  On hearing the information on the special meat, she once more passed out.  It was obvious that the Big Kahuna was becoming annoyed by her hysterical reactions to … What?  He had no idea why she had passed out. This time Madame Ambassador’s face landed in the recently-served third course: purée of: pommes de terre á la Kahuna, as it was listed in the gold-embossed menu provided to each of the diners.  (The Royal Kitchen seemed to have a decided preference for French terminology, if not French cuisine, with respect to gastronomy.)

Our ambassador wondered, he later told me, and I quote: “What the hell do potatoes a la Kahuna consist of?”  I looked down at my own plate and saw a thick greyish sauce on top of what was, or essentially seemed to be, badly mashed, lumpy potatoes.  Plus, the potato mess seemed studded with raisins.  Miller later told me that raisins were practically never seen in Twerkistan, since there were no grape vines in the country.  They would have to import grapes and raisins from as far afield as Iran, or at least western Afghanistan.  This would be an expensive undertaking, since they would have to build a road into those countries or use the Kahuna’s private one-plane airline.  Being aware of this, he said, made him take a closer look at the “raisins.”

He confessed to me that he thought, “Raisins, my sweet patooty.  These are big ol’ horse flies.”  Miller further volunteered that they looked like raisins (without his reading glasses) simply because they were motionless.  And they were motionless because once they landed on the gravy, they were stuck as though the gravy were fly paper. He further wondered, What kind of country did my enemies at State Department assign me to? [Again, Chief, I don’t know if you will want to include this information.]

He looked at his fellow diplomats around the groaning board, and felt like groaning himself, he confided, when he saw half the company enthusiastically, no, passionately, ingest the disgusting concoction with the mystery sauce and, to his way of thinking, not mysterious enough:  little insect corpses decorated it.  He confessed to me that he was concerned about why those insects, certainly accustomed to eating disgusting garbage, died on that river of chartreuse mud. [Chief, you might want to strike that last statement.  I’m afraid our ambassador was not being sufficiently diplomatic.]

Miller, as an American diplomat in a foreign country, understood his sacred duty never to offend the ruler of the nation in which he represented the U.S.  He was also aware that refusing to eat at least some portion of whatever was served him would be considered a grave insult in many countries, but that in Twerkistan, neglecting to devour the entire bowlful down to the last drop, was considered a serious offense to the host.  Since, in this case, the host happened to be the Grand Kahuna, it would represent the crime of high treason for a native of the country, for which the penalty was death.

It should be noted that the Twerkistani method of execution, euphemistically termed enhanced waterboarding, had only the most remote resemblance to what Americans think of in hearing that term, even allowing for the adjective enhanced.  A bathtub filled, not with water, but with a corrosive acid was employed. The executioners, one of the few voluntarily-chosen professions in this rigidly-ruled nation, were fiendish, died-in-the-wool sadists of the worse kind, in my opinion. They loved their jobs.  [Chief, you might want to delete the last couple of sentences.]  They suffered from extreme boredom when not actually engaged in their chosen profession.  But one of the Twerkis confided to me, over a couple of fermented yak butter schnapps at a bar the previous day, that when occupied at their duties, their eyes sparkled and they smiled, drank home-distilled 95-proof poopooni, laughed and sang bawdy songs as they worked.  They seemed, he said, the happiest beings on earth. Or, at least in Twerkistan.

A detailed description of the mechanics of this method of execution is as unnecessary as it would be painful to read.   Suffice it to say, they start by standing the victim in the tub with acid up to his ankles.  If the victim does not expire from shock and/or heart failure at this stage, the execution is halted for five whole minutes, the Warden’s daughters, all six of whom are fifteen years old at present, are brought in to the Royal House of Execution to sing a song to him.  He is given the option of having one of their inspiring martial ballads performed, such as “I Will Eviscerate You Because You Are Evil Beasts,” or one of Elvis Presley’s hits.

Those who choose an Elvis song traditionally elect “Blue Suede Shoes,” possibly in memory of the prisoner’s vaporized feet.   The prisoner reaps honor as a man of valor and is given the title Illustrious Strong Heart.  As soon as his feet, up to his ankles, have melted away, the man is given a sincere and full-throated hip hip hooray by his tormentors. They then proceed very gradually to lower the rest of him into the corrosive liquid.  The victim usually dies before the acid reaches his waist, mercifully.

If the man is still breathing, and is conscious, by the time his genitals are submerged, the man is spared any further torture, even if he screams like a little girl, and, rather than death, is given life.  That is, he is sentenced to life imprisonment in one of the finest dungeons of Twerkistan.  He is given the title of Mighty of the Mighties, Valiant of the Valiants. His fellow inmates accord him the highest forms of respect.  Whenever they see him, they bow deeply and place their hands on their heart.  Such a man, of course, does not turn up every day.  He is a rarity.  Of course, it matters not that he has no means of locomotion, since he never leaves his tiny cell.  He is also awarded the privilege of monthly cohabitation visits from his wife or girlfriend.  [Chief, I suspect this is an ironic and rather cruel privilege.  A joke, actually, since the man’s privates have been vaporized by the acid.  But this is opinion, and you won’t want to publish it.]

However, most of the Mighty of Mighties, who are still breathing, lose consciousness at the point at which his genitals are submerged and swiftly disappearing, if not much earlier.  However, when a man is strong enough at this point, and has enough self-discipline to refrain from indecorously screaming or weeping or befouling himself, as his genitals melt away, he is honored with the title of Most Mighty of the Mightiest, and is turned loose and provided a second-hand wheel chair.  He has a become a free man with transportation. Not many of the Twerki people, outside of the aristocracy, can boast such luxuries.

This provision, it was carefully explained to the journalists, would not count, naturally, if the reason for his silence was death.  This notice was superfluous, as it has already been explained that the heart must still be beating and the lungs functioning. Of course, this is merely theoretical; such a case has never occurred since the first recorded history of Twerkistan was committed to writing.  The earliest records, it should be noted, date from 1813, the year in which the country accepted the Twerkistani alphabet, developed by an Arabian scholar to suit the linguistic peculiarities of the Twerki language.   It might be added that the group of sadistic executioner-slash-torturers (there is only one single word in their language for this career) are issued earphones with which to enjoy classical Twerki music during the exhausting waterboard process in order to protect their hearing from the victim’s annoying screams.  Usually, they enjoy hearing the screams, and, as explained earlier, they sing while they work.  But, once in a while, they like a bit of music.

The prisoners are given one meal a day, provided by the magnanimous Kahuna, the ingredients of which are water primarily, with scraps of dog and cat flesh, slivers of carrots and diced tofu, with sawdust from the Royal Carpentry as thickener.  Of course, I’ve been told, no one eats the sawdust; that would produce bloody stools and great discomfort.  But I’m told it adds a certain tangy flavor to the entire mess. With respect to the Mighty of Mighties, the jailer does not simply ladle the thin stew carelessly on to the filthy cement floor, as he does for the ordinary prisoners.  He actually takes the trouble to ladle it into the lead bucket.  This is recognized by all as a great honor.  We Westerners would probably not consider it quite that much of an honor, since the same receptacle is also used for disposing of human waste.  The guards usually rinse it out before serving the food.

The above is the punishment for Twerkish citizens. This same offense to the Grand Kahuna’s royal kitchen, if caused by the ambassador of a foreign nation, of course, is not as severely punished. The offending diplomat would merely be stripped and given a thorough and conscientious beating, ordinarily carried out by the executioner/torturers in concert with the waiter/bodyguards, then kept in the Royal Hospital for from three weeks to a month to have any surgery occasioned by the treatment, and to recuperate.  He must pay for this treatment before being permitted to leave the country.  When released from the hospital, he would be shipped ignominiously by TwerkAir, the national airline, to Washington, in the case of an American, with a note pinned to his shirt reading:

 The Magnificent and Totally Awesome Kingdom of Twerkistan hereby breaks off total diplomatic and trade relations with the United States. Totally.  If we ever deign to re-establish those relations, your Department of State is urged to send an ambassador or envoy of any other diplomatic rank, who has been thoroughly schooled in courtesy, diplomacy and Twerkistan culture..

Signed, His Lovely and Magnificent and Totally Awesome and Divine Majesty, the Celestial Grand Royal Kahuna of Twerkistan.   Totally, Dude.

At this point, the Kahuna himself places his signature on the note, twice: once in Twerkistani Noble Script, and again in the Roman alphabet used in all Western European languages.  The Russians did not pressure the Twerks to use Cyrillic because the Russians love the cheap and plentiful halvah produced in this idyllic mountain retreat.  In addition, Russian industrialists and oil magnates enjoy vacationing in the clear mountain air of the Celestial Highlands, where the air is delightfully clear and unencumbered with pollution, and, according to the Royal Ministry of Information, the scenery is “to die for.” Actually, there have been quite a few cases in which this was literally true. There are no handrails at the edge of cliffs, and native joggers pause for no one. In addition, there are frequent landslides in the high country. This region is also known for its masseurs and masseuses who, it is rumored, provide happy endings if the tip, given in advance of the massage, is over 32,000,000 Twerks or five Euros.

Glancing at the other guests around the table, Miller saw some, mostly those who ate without the aid of implements, devour their repast with genuine gusto, to the sound of smacking lips, grandiose belching toward the Kahuna as a sign of delight, and murmurs of Umm, umm, yum, yum, accompanied by ceremonious rubbing of bellies and humble nods to his Royal Majesty.  I heard someone shout to the Kahuna, “This food is to die for, Your Majesty.” I myself  wondered if the declaration might be prophetic. I noticed Mr. Miller looked down once more and gazed at the plateful of off-white, grey and black.  He looked at the ambassadors from Western and Far Eastern nations and registered the looks of scarcely-concealed horror and even terror on their faces, as they valiantly forced themselves to eat this dainty dish.  He noticed, as did I, that the New Zealand ambassador’s chair was still vacant, and remembered having last seen him flee to the communal bathroom, hand clapped over his mouth.

Miller very rapidly downed the entire second glass of imported Iranian wine and followed this with a couple of good slugs from a silvery flask of Dewar’s Scotch Whisky that he always carried on his person since being assigned to Twerkistan.  He later told me, “Oh, after having had a couple of bites of the no-longer mystery meat, downing these potatoes was a piece of cake.” (I thought that was quite a daring mixed metaphor.)  He added, “Yeah, a piece of cake studded with big, fat, nasty ol’ horseflies.”  He sighed, took a deep breath, dipped his soup spoon deeply into the off-white, grey and black plate from Hell, which had already grown cold, and began his descent into the Abyss.

END

1 Readers would be interested in knowing that this small, remote country in the mountains of Central Asia, bordering on Afghanistan, the People’s Republic of China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, has given its name to the dance movement now known as “twerking.”  This has come about because the movements of twerking are taken directly from the national dance of Twerkistan, said dance religiously practiced not only by assiduously-trained professionals, but also by the average Twerk at festivities.  The dance is said to stimulate copulation for the government’s purpose of increasing the Twerki population.

[2] The terms Awesomely Great Hall and Sublime Royal Palace are the official translations of the Twerkish terms for those structures, as handed to the participants at this feast.

Clark M. Zlotchew, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish and Literature in Spanish Language (Emeritus) at SUNY Fredonia, has had 17 books published, 14 of which are in his academic fields (literary criticism; translations from Spanish of fiction and poetry; interviews with Latin-American writers, linguistics, Spanish-language instruction at various levels), while 3 of them consist of his fiction (two espionage/thriller novels and an award-winning short-story collection). His newer short fiction, non-fiction and poetry, have appeared in literary journals in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Ireland, Germany and South Africa from 2016 through 2020.