This tale begins… as all such tales do… in a dark and lonely corner of Transylvania… I mean… Pennsylvania Avenue.  Dashing, debonair Dr. Frist-enstein has just returned from the laboratory.  The medical genius has been conducting some rather risqué experiments with radioactive isotopes.  The creature lying on yond slab – a brainless, heartless lump of flesh – will soon become a part of scientific history.  Into that empty shell of blood and bone, the Good Doctor will insert a small, synthetic brain (you don’t want to start off too big), and in a few short hours, a creature the likes of which has never before walked the face of this Earth will come forth from that chamber of discovery and enterprise, of political dreams and skill, of press-manipulating know-how and sinister skullduggery.

 Luckily we were there, and Dr. Frist-enstein was kind enough to share with me, -- and with you the concerned public – a few of his more diabolical insights:

REPORTER:  Why radioactive?  Seems dangerous… is there a reason?

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Well, we found the formula among some nuclear weapons related programs materials plans possibilities day dreamy proposals that were recently brought back from an unnamed Eastern country.

REPORTER:  Can you give us the name of the country?

FRISTEN-STEIN:  No… too secret (the Doctor shakes his head).  I don’t even remember it myself… though… I… rack my brain for the answer to your question.

REPORTER:  Oh… oh… I see.  But what does this all this nuclear material do?  How do you use it?  When do you use it?

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Sooner than you think.  The material has some remarkable properties.  In the batting of an eye, the nuclear – we call it an “option;” a nuclear option … sounds stock-related that way – has the power to permanently transform a two hundred year old deliberative body into a useless rubberstamp… though it is not really… uh… useless. 

REPORTER:  Not useless?  What do you mean?

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Useless to you, but a colleague of mine, Count Cheney-ula, believes he can use it to control the minds of hundreds of millions of people.  You see, the “nuclear option” makes the mind amenable to suggestion… but only if you’re not using it.

REPORTER:  Not using what… the mind? 

FRIST-ENSTEIN: Of course.  You see, as soon as I re-animate that… that… thing (he gestures toward the body on the slab), it will cross from here into the Oval Office.  Next, Count Cheney-ula will immediately summon to life two unfeeling sado-political monsters.  Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown will take their places on the Court of Appeals, and corporations all over this globalized world will begin celebrating.    

REPORTER:  Sounds frightening.  But nuclear stuff… isn’t that really dangerous?  I mean… the fallout.  Couldn’t Washington be contaminated for years?

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Depends on what you mean by contaminated.  I for one think it is going to be just great.  Think of what we can do!  Think of a more perfect world… a world without crime, without hardship and complaint.

REPORTER: I don’t think I follow you.  I’ve heard of Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown, and they don’t sound too good to me.  That Priscilla Owen favors corporations over people.  She thinks companies are the ones who should be getting welfare.  And that Janice Rogers Brown – the sharecropper’s daughter – she believes today’s seniors are cannibalizing their children and grandchildren…. There will be an outcry!

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Tut, tut.  You are not paying attention.  The American People, and others like them around the world, will be too busy to do any complaining! 

REPORTER:  Yes, I see!  If you are working one hundred sixty-eight hours a week… you don’t have time to do anything else… and by the time you are old enough to retire …

FRIST-ENSTEIN: (out of the side of his mouth)…If you live that long…

REPORTER: …You’ll be lucky if you can still go to the bathroom under your own power… and remember why you’re there when you get there.

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  Exactly. 

REPORTER:  But… but… still, something doesn’t seem right about it.  It seems so un-American, don’t you think?

FRISTEN-STEIN: (he shakes his head) I don’t think you know much history.  Don’t you know who founded this country?

REPORTER:  I don’t know… um… Thomas Jefferson... Ben Franklin… George Washington….

FRISTEN-STEIN:  Cotton Mather!  The unremembered judge who presided at the Salem Witch Trials!  The bigoted religious fanatics who whipped peace-loving Quakers out of town at the tail of cart!  The Yankee entrepreneurs that skinned the Redskins! The Good Ol’ Boys who encouraged African Immigration! Those are the people who founded this great country of hours.

REPORTER:  Pardon me, if I am wrong, but I thought you said something funny back there… it sounded like… hours instead of ours.

FRISTEN-STEIN:  (he claps his hands in glee) You have a great ear, Mr. Reporter!  I did say hours with an “h.”  That is exactly what our ancestors fought and died for… the right to work till you drop… the freedom to enslave your fellow man… the liberty to have your way with every other country on the planet!  That is what this great country is about!  Ingenuity.  Success.  Education.  The three R’s: Royalties, Rapacities, and… good ol’ fashioned ‘rithmatic!

REPORTER:  Oh… yes… to add up all the profits.  I understand. 

FRIST-ENSTEIN:  When I get done with this experiment…. (he shakes his fist in the air) It’s just like King Midas.  Once we go nuclear, everything we touch will be radioactive!

There was at this very point, a mighty crack of thunder, fit to split the Heavens.  It was the kind of storm during which all good people are down on their knees… praying for some kind of miracle… for some silver lining to appear in the dark cloud…. some last ray of hope to break through….

A jagged fiery streak slashed the lowering sky.

The Reporter fell back.  His knees were giving way.  He crumpled to the floor, thrusting out his arm toward the thing on the table.  His voice could  scarcely hide the horror,

REPORTER:  The creature on the table… it’s… it’s… it’s moving. It’s alive!

FRIST-ENSTEIN: (His evil laughter broke like thunder) No more beating around the Bush!  No more beating around the Bush!  No more beating around the Bush!

And then that vile creature… that brainless, heartless reanimated… thing… rose slowly up from the slab.  Its look was vacant. Its shoulders slouched; jiggled up and down; and a stupid “aw shucks” grin cracked its hideous maw,

“Duh… uh… um… somebody say… NUKE-U-LAR??”

 

Brian Adler is a freelance writer and an avid history buff. He writes/researches for a company that produces factual essays and reports on a wide range of subjects. He also writes screenplays and short stories.