Tom DeLay, Majority Whip in the United States House of Representatives, staggers down the sidewalk toward Hermectoral College, buzzing and clicking and surging ominously with the boiling of the liberal cockroaches that have taken over his body.

At an intersection someone bumps up against him.

"Excuse me, mister. Could you possibly help me across the street?"

DeLay looks down at a horribly deformed blind man, about four feet tall, both arms and both legs twisted into pretzels by God knows what childhood disease or birth defect.

"Uh, sure," he says. The man takes DeLay's blattodeified arm. The Walk light comes on and they start across. DeLay thinks: what the fuck am I doing, here?

They haven't taken three exruciatingly slow steps when Tom Daschle comes up alongside DeLay.

"Well, damn," he says, "now I've seen everything! Tom DeLay helping a blind disabled Kerry voter across the street!"

DeLay starts. Kerry voter? He looks down, and sure enough, on the cripple's lapel, big as day, shines a red-white-and-blue Kerry-Edwards button. Oh shit. What has become of him?

"Buzz off, Daschle," he growls.

"What is this," Daschle jokes, "a What Would Jesus Do moment? You got a camera crew following you or something?" He twists around, pretending to look for the camera. "Oh, no, I know: he must be rich. You're trolling for contributions to your PAC. You've already got him on the hook, and--"

Just then the cripple opens his mouth wide and a huge sturgeon slithers out. Daschle and DeLay watch in horrified fascination as the giant fish flops through the air and slaps Daschle hard across the face with its tail, then flops right back into the cripple's mouth and disappears down his gullet.

"The man said 'buzz off, Daschle,'" the fish-man says. "Now buzz off."

Daschle, his left cheek glowing red from the slap, a few scales still clinging wetly to his skin, gulps, glances fearfully at DeLay, and buzzes off.

"Who the fuck are you?" DeLay asks the fish-man.

"You're wasting your time going to Hermectoral College," the fish-man replies. "Hermes ain't there. He's been called to the White House to repair the Chimp Clone."

"Oh," DeLay blinks, "uh, thanks. But you still haven't answered my question."

"Never mind that," the fish-man says. "November 2, vote Abraham Lincoln. He's alive."

At that moment, out of the clear blue sky, a bolt of lightning flashes down just ahead of them and incinerates an elderly woman out walking her Weimaraner. The dog sniffs puzzledly at the ashes, then trots off, dragging its leash behind it.

And then the rain comes down. Instantly everyone on the street is drenched. They will later try to describe it as a cloudburst, but someone will invariably correct them: there were no clouds to burst! It is a thick wall of water falling from the same clear blue sky the lightning bolt dropped out of.

"Sorry to bait and switch," the fish-man shouts over the pounding of the rain, "but--"

And with that he collapses to the street. Out of his clothing flop two dozen sturgeons, steelheads, and pikes. DeLay watches as they swim across the torrent on the street and dive down a nearby rain grate, and thinks: Abraham Lincoln?

# posted by Doug Robinson @ 8:04 AM