Autograph Press Presents:

Kandide, or Ismism

Digital version beta1.0

by Don Equis

Autograph Press, Reno Nevada. Kopyrot 1991. All rites reversed.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or incidents is real or imagined.

From the notes of farmer John Smith with the additions found in his

pockets when he died of self-inflicted hammer wounds at his home

in Cribdeath, Iowa in March, 1981.

There lived in the charming gated community known as "Withering Dugs" in the modest home of the president of the local league of women voters a youth whose philosophy was so completely non-explicit that he had virtually no ambition. You could read his total lack of character in his face.

He made token commitments to radical fashion and was socially ept but was not equipped with the cognitive tools necessary to make accurate judgements- so he waffled and wavered and when he wasn't indifferent he was undecided. I imagine that is why he was called Kandide.

Though his birth was less than auspicious (he was suffered to remain in this world only because his mother felt he might become an adequate replacement for her Pekinese which was run over, leaving a vacuum in her life) he grew to be an obedient lad and showed great promise for the future. A sensitive boy with an uncanny ability to enter into meaningful relationships, Kandide was quite popular for he had a ready smile and could discuss the most relevant topics easily without hurting anyone's feelings.

When he went to school his parents quite naturally hoped he would study to become a therapist and write socially relevant books on 'How To Be Comfortable With Your Neuroses' or something equally scholarly but when Kandide reached the age of nineteen years a long atrophied sense of purpose began to emerge for as the climactic turning point of two decades approached, after which one's life

must inevitably run downhill and there is nothing which one may pleasurably anticipate except writing one's memoirs, he realized he would have no memoirs to recount and began to yearn for self­discovery and in a big hurry .

At this time he was an honor student with a major in sociology and a minor in government grants at a fine university and studied his lessons with all the credulity of his age and character. He was

most fortunate to be able to study under the renowned Dr. Flayer who had done so much to elevate mob rule to a science through his experiments in human motivation and psychology for which the ideal

test subject is a Canadian white rat.

Kandide was even permitted to assist in Dr. Flayer's experiments since he could be relied upon not to steal any of the Doctor's ideas. So great was the good Doctor's trust in Kandide that even when he found an idea missing he would accuse everyone else first.

The Doctor achieved renown initially when he published a paper establishing that criminality was hereditary. This hypothesis was supported by researchers who subsequently discovered the criminal

gene and many mysteries of human behaviour were thereby illuminated: from the snake of Genesis, which could now be interpreted as an allegorical virus, to the disappearance of the dinosaurs unable to compete with small, sneaky creatures with criminal tendencies. It was proposed that random mutation had produced the first single-celled creature with a criminal gene sometime during the Cretinous Period of the Archaeozoic Era.

A consumer group had endowed the sociology department in support of Dr. Flayer's work in the field of market psychology. He used humans in this aspect of his work. Through rigorous selection

and training he was able to produce the most reliable candidates for the ever popular game show 'Land of the Free Gift'. Contestants were conditioned by Pavlovian techniques to shriek gleefully, jump

up and down and wave their arms at the sound of bells and buzzers. They also had to be proficient at host-kissing. It was a patriotic endeavor for only through the proper development of game shows can

a nation's economy be kept healthy and vigorous, it being necessary to consume heavily before anything can be produced.

Kandide Falls In with a Drug Ring, Is Arrested and Takes the Cure.

Kandide became friendly with many of the contestant trainees who came from all over the country. He decided that the first thing he must do to discover himself was to travel- so one day he hopped aboard the bus with a number of contestants who were being returned to the asylum. The trip was to take several days and the passengers spent much of their time smoking medicinal herbs. They would pass around a medicated cigarette and inhale deeply of the fumes. A mere accidental whiff left Kandide with an almost overpowering desire to rape and kill, not necessarily in that precise order, so he prudently abstained when the cigarette was offered to him.

Suddenly one of the passengers collapsed in the aisle and went into convulsions. It was obvious that he was dying of a 'flashback'. Before many minutes had elapsed others noticed the dying man jerking uncontrollably on the floor, the cigarette still pinched between his fingers.

"Wow!" said one of the passengers, "I wish I could get off like that- gimme that!" and pried the roach from the man's cold dead fingers .

People gathered around and began to make moaning sounds to signify that they were suitably impressed. Though the drama was true-to-life and they were clearly not faking it, Kandide was never

able to abide moaners so he decided to get off the bus at the next traffic light.

Since the only thing Kandide had eaten in the past couple of days had been Oreos and malted milk balls, he felt weariness and hunger. There was no doubt in his mind that he was suffering from granola deficiency and needed some good solid salad or something to sustain him. But instead of his need miraculously producing a Caesar salad or even a bran muffin as he has been taught to expect, a fact which left him feeling considerably betrayed and not a little hostile toward nature in general, his hunger and fatigue continued unabated. Indeed, he suspected his condition was causing him to hallucinate for

presently he imagined seeing several dozen heavily armed men in uniform arrive and take him and the whole busload of contestants into custody.

The captain of the local peace force marched everyone toward the jail while the drill sergeant kept cadence with his chant: "Breathe in! Right step! Breathe out! Left step!"

The captain, formerly a seamstress, had recently been decorated for his contributions to the art of modern warfare which consisted largely of time motion studies that resulted in more highly motivated performance of the Sartorial Corps- which is to say he got a lot of sequins and gold brocade sewn onto the lapels, pocket flaps and sleeves of uniforms- and cut quite a striking figure as he led them.

Eventually everybody arrived at the courthouse and the police were ordered to stand at parade rest, meaning they were allowed to breathe at their own discretion and initiative, while Kandide and

the contestants were escorted by bailiffs into the courtroom.

In the courtroom amidst the richly sculptured furnishings and the aroma of books and institutional antiseptic a sense of awesome authority pervaded. The contestants were allowed to sit and the heavy handcuffs, leg irons and belly chains were removed. The iron collars and neck chains were left on as a concession to decorum.

Justice was speedily administered. As soon as the judge, in the traditional occult robes, entered from a door at the back of the room the bailiff gave the command for everyone to fall to their knees. Some who were not sufficiently supple or athletic to comply were assisted by clerks scattered throughout the courtroom for this purpose. When the judge was seated everyone able to do so was allowed to resume sitting. As the thunderclap of the mysterious Hammer of Authority reverberated through the room the prosecutor entered and, selecting one of several hideous masks from a table, put it on and began to indict the defendants.

This was one of those enlightened communities where self-medication is recognized as a species of witchcraft and the defendants were accused of smoking medicinal herbs in order to commune with the Devil. Kandide, who had not even partaken of the herbs, looked as bedraggled as the rest due to his dietary deficiency and this was taken as proof of his being an addict too.

The other defendants maintained, through counsel, that they had not been smoking for personal pleasure nor for profit but, on the contrary, had been smoking the herbs in order to see God. Their

charges were raised to first degree blasphemy- a treasonous offense, so Kandide wisely avoided the same plea. However, since he could not prove his innocence, the judge said some thoughtful

deliberation was in order to determine an appropriate sentence. The prosecutor pointed out that this would establish a dangerous precedent so the judge opted to portray a zero-tolerance posture

and decreed that Kandide should join his companions at the guillotine provided that psychological evaluation determined that he was sane enough to be executed.

The analyst finds Kandide inscrutable, and so pronounces him paranoid. Thus Kandide can not be permitted to participate in the festivities with his codefendants.

A medical doctor is called in to examine Kandide and discerns his problem to be organic in nature, diagnosing atrophy of the God gland, the microscopic structure which governs all tribal and

religious functions. It is therefore prescribed that Kandide should be administered large quantities of medicinal herbs, and upon completion of a thousand word essay consisting of one hundred repetitions of the mantra: "Though shalt not take the Law into thine own hands," be given a new set of underwear and released.

Kandide's Brief Encounter with a Clergyman and the Beginning of His Association with a Man of the World Who Teaches Him a Little about Governments and Quite Enough about Waste Reclamation and How Kandide Discovers the Meaning of Sophistication.

On his release Kandide, now fully recovered from his granola deficiency but suffering from a slight overdose of potatoes, decides to travel on to the next town and try to recover from his treatment. He soon gets a ride with a man wearing a tall peaked cap with astrological symbols on it and fur dice around his neck, possibly a lawyer.

To pass the time and also to organize his own feelings, Kandide relates his adventures to the driver. As he completed his story, the strangely dressed driver began to nod knowingly as if Kandide had just proven some point or other. Kandide awaited the driver's comments.

At last the driver said: "So you see!"

"What do you mean?" asked Kandide.

"Perhaps it is," Kandide agreed, "Nevertheless, I'd like to hear what you have to say about it."

"What needs said? Life is a lamb chop. Now do you see what I mean?"

"I'm afraid..." Kandide began.

"Of course you are!" said the driver. "Only a complete idiot wouldn't be- if you know what I'm talking about."

"I'm not sure..." Kandide began again.

"Only a fool would be!" said the driver. "That is, if you catch my drift."

"Perhaps you had better explain it to me kindergarten ABC," Kandide abruptly asserted.

"Well!" said the driver, "If you don't know, I couldn't possibly explain it to you!"

The rest of the journey was completed in stony silence and the driver let Kandide out on the main street and drove away.

Kandide, accustomed to regular meals, was getting hungry but could find no food co-ops or restaurants nor anything edible in any of the shops in this new town. A friendly record shop clerk

explained it to him: "You see, in this town it is the law that nobody should go without food. Therefore it is forbidden to buy groceries or cook and everyone must eat together in the public cafeteria."

Kandide asked directions and got them and walked off looking forward to having a good meal and perhaps engaging someone in conversation about the vital issues of weather and family health.

On the way he asked directions of a man and was pleased to note that the man was obviously well fed. The man offered to escort Kandide to the public cafeteria and the two of them fell into step.

It turned out that the man was also a traveler and an explorer and Kandide had just finished relating a synopsis of his own adventures when they entered the cafeteria. They passed through the line and

Kandide was given a large bowl of thick greenish soup- the only item on the menu- and a beverage with a vague yellow tint.

They sat down at the end of a long table in the non-farting section and while Kandide began to eat the heavily spiced soup the explorer, who was not eating, related one of his adventures:

Kandide had finished his meal and looked up as the explorer was finishing his story to notice several people casting hostile glances in their direction. At first he thought it was due to the fact that neither he nor his companion were wearing catalytic converters but then he also noticed that quite a number of people had removed the brownish dumplings from their soup and pushed them conspicuously to one side of their trays. A strange thought suddenly entered his head but he immediately dismissed it as being completely ridiculous.

"But you haven't eaten your soup!" Kandide pointed out to the explorer.

"Oh, I can't eat here," said the explorer, "I'll have dinner in the next town where I can buy something a bit less institutional. "

As they approached the exit an armed guard forced them both into a restroom where they were required to exert themselves.

Kandide had still failed to locate the cashier by the time they were out on the sidewalk and mentioned this to the explorer.

"Don't worry about it," said the explorer, "You paid."

Suddenly, Kandide began to feel queasy as a certain understanding came to him and he felt he was going to be sick. "Why didn't you tell me what the government here feeds it's citizens! Why did you let me eat that?"

"You seemed quite content to eat it, not complaining about it being overspiced or improperly prepared."

"But how was I to know what it was?"

"There are some things," said the explorer, "that one must learn

for oneself."

In spite of the dirty trick just played upon him by the explorer, whose name was M. Cacanbúl, Kandide enjoyed the man's conversation and they decided to travel together to the next town.

M. Cacanbúl had traveled widely and seen many atrocities and other fascinating things which gave him a very sophisticated outlook on life. M. Cacanbúl assures Kandide that he is sorry if Kandide was offended at supper, but that the prevailing social consciousness regards recycled food as the politically correct alternative to efficient production and Kandide realizes his own outlook was incredibly self-centered and naive and is satisfied not to bring up the subject again and resolves to listen and learn so that he too might become wise like M. Cacanbúl.

Cacanbúl had served some time in the Swiss Foreign Legion. It had been his duty to observe bloody wars, often referred to as conflicts, and to report any improprieties such as the use of nerve

gas. Murder, torture, mutilation and rapine are properly practiced only by internationally approved means such as bullets, bayonets and atomic bombs. This is a well established canon of international

law and any peace force which resorts to the use of improper means is severely scolded by the United Nations and chastised by the public press.

In one country M. Cacanbúl observed it was customary to raid the neighboring country, murder and otherwise intimidate a few civilians and steal some cheese before withdrawing whereupon it

became the neighboring country's turn to make a raid and avenge its honor by doing the same thing or a little bit worse. The hostilities between these two countries had continued for centuries and neither side was quite sure of the original cause of the conflict but it was a part of their heritage and in recent years

it had become fashionable to regard it as a struggle to determine which country contained God's Chosen People. Nerve gasses were rarely used and generally everything was quite proper, the soldiers of either side using only the ancient serrated broadswords of their forefathers with which the victors of a skirmish dismembered the blasphemers and overall the entire affair was conducted with impeccable taste and great respect for tradition.

The monarch of one of these countries had been secretly training a hard core cadre of extremely devoted soldiers. With these men, trained so thoroughly that they would salute even when

dead, the monarch hoped to turn the balance of the engagements in his country's favor. Indeed, he had so much faith in his special militia that he was convinced that a mere demonstration of their

remarkable obedience would suffice to so demoralize the opposition that the sacrilegious barbarians would throw down their arms and give up their cheese without further ado; then they would be taken

prisoner, tried according to military justice and, shortly thereafter, executed as the heathens deserved in a great public celebration. To this end the monarch invited the rival ruler to tea and biscuits on a certain day when the demonstration was planned.

The rival ruler accepted the invitation, arrived, had tea and after the customary niceties were exchanged the host introduced his demonstration by announcing that his men were so loyal and fearless

that they would instantly obey any order given them even if it meant certain death. To demonstrate, he ordered two of his specially trained troops to climb to the top of a tall ladder set up in the courtyard and to slide down a fifty meter razor blade, also set up there for their convenience, while singing the national

anthem.

The two soldiers immediately obeyed but the visiting ruler was not impressed by a soprano duet and even scoffed at the display, calling it trickery, fraud, poor choreography and saying that even if the two soldiers actually were subdivided for the glory of the state that there was simply no reason to believe that such loyalty was a genuine characteristic of the monarch's entire army. To squelch such slander the monarch ordered fifty of his special troops to slide down the blade this time singing the national anthem as a fugue and making graceful motions reminiscent of ballet- which they did without the slightest hesitation, making up for their minor deficiency of terpsichorean talent with a wholehearted enthusiasm that brought a glorious sense of life to the act and was wonderful to behold. But the visiting ruler maintained his skepticism and the demonstration had to be repeated several more times until the pile of halved corpses in the courtyard forced him to admit that the host did indeed have a loyal army. Of course, by this time the host had used up all of his special militiamen on the demonstrations. Nevertheless it was a moral victory for the monarch had made his point and throughout the country all the citizens rejoiced and celebrated after which everybody resumed the fighting where they had left off.

M. Cacanbúl eventually resigned his commission in the Swiss Foreign Legion in vexation arising from wounded vanity because he had been passed over for promotion, not having demonstrated

sufficient capacity for mindless obedience to be considered worthy of a more responsible position.

Arriving at the next town, Kandide and Cacanbúl were attracted to a church by the loud humming issuing from within. They entered and sat in a pew at the back, watching as the faithful passed a wet dog from one worshipper to the next which each licked once or twice as a symbol of humility before the grace of God before passing it on.

Suddenly they heard someone making noises as if he were drowning in a pop bottle and Kandide was surprised to discover that person was the man of the miter and fur dice who had given him a ride the day before. The man was speaking in tongues which is accomplished by placing an index finger horizontally between the lips and against the front teeth and moving it vigorously up and down while simultaneously emitting enthusiastic moans. Regardless of one's native language, everyone understands the same thing when it is spoken in this manner. Kandide, recently sensitized to perceive his own faults, nonetheless fails to overcome his prejudice against moaners and displays his immaturity and intolerance by walking out and after a few moments Cacanbúl follows him.

Just outside the church, Kandide and Cacanbúl meet a shabbily dressed man who is begging for a few dollars so he can buy a crust of day old bread to eat. Our two travelers ask him how it is that he finds himself in such desperate circumstances and the man draws out from beneath his rags a thick grimy manuscript and tells them that he has forgone all worldly pleasures and instead has devoted his life to writing the perfect novel in which there are no villains, only heroes, no conflicts, only achievements and no sorrow, only joy. He tells them further that he is satisfied with his wretched condition and abject poverty because the more he suffers the better equipped he is to write the perfect novel.

Kandide, suddenly seized with a sort of urgency he can not explain, snatches the soiled manuscript from the old beggar's hands and tears it up into a thousand tiny pieces. Kandide, Cacanbúl and the old beggar are promptly arrested by a policeman who has been awakened by the disturbance and they are taken away and thrown in a dungeon.

After a week without food all three were brought before the court to receive judgement. The judge, in his wisdom, determined that for his public spirited effort to persuade a worthless beggar to return to productive life, Kandide should receive a commendation. Because he was only good at writing, a profession of little or no redeeming social value, the beggar was convicted of vagrancy and barred from employment anywhere in the city. For his pretensions to innocence, Cacanbúl was extremely suspect. Cacanbúl denied having done anything, which the judge knew to be a lie because there are a sufficient number of laws to ensure that a person is always doing something, so the judge had him detained for observation to determine if he could be rehabilitated.

Kandide and the beggar were released and as they left the courthouse the beggar thanked Kandide sincerely. He said he found Kandide's demonstration of the transitory nature of all labors of love to have been inspiring and transcendentally eloquent. The beggar declared, in fact, that he had become convinced, thanks to Kandide's impulsive gesture, of the error of his ways and intended to give up writing altogether and start his own business and would Kandide like to be his partner? Kandide had never worked before so the notion of beginning as a partner in a firm seemed perfectly natural and he promptly agreed to become the business partner of the ragged ex-author whose name was Galahad Goodman.

As any three year old child of two can tell you, the hardest part of starting a business is choosing a catchy name, for if the name creates the proper image in the consumers' collective mind you

can sell anything, whereas if it fails to make the proper impression the consumers will not patronize you regardless of what you may sell, but will take no notice of you whatsoever. Only when

you have chosen a good name do you even need to consider such trivialities as what goods or services to sell. Through a devious logic understood only by Galahad, it was decided to name the business New Order of the Ages Ltd. in 24 point bold with square serifs to suggest substance and conservatism. Kandide had underestimated the old man, for once Galahad was freed of the ridiculous compulsion to write a book about such foolish and pass) notions as heroism, success, joy etc., his creative intellect was

liberated to pursue the honorable and profitable occupation of never giving a sucker an even break. Yes, Galahad had a plan.

N.O.A. Ltd. put a small advertisement in the newspapers which stated merely:

PREDICTIONS. SEND SASE TO NEW ORDER OF THE AGES, LTD.

and gave the number of a post office box. Needless to say, the strange little advertisement aroused a great deal of curiosity and response to it was most encouraging. Over six thousand self-addressed, stamped envelopes were received by week's end. Galahad divided the letters into two equal piles and gave one to Kandide.

There was a presidential election approaching and this was the event Galahad had chosen as the subject of N.O.A.'s first prediction. No one knew which of the candidates would succeed in

buying off the electoral college, so nobody knew who would be elected. Therefore Galahad answered his three thousand letters with the notice:

"Mr. K. will be elected president. For another prophecy, send $1.00 and SASE."

Meanwhile, Kandide answered his three thousand letters with the notice:

"Mr. L. will be elected president..."

and so forth.

The day after the election, three thousand people were remarking on the accuracy of N.O.A.'s predictions and wondering about Galahad's sources of information. They spoke of it among

their friends and soon Kandide and Galahad had four thousand new requests, four thousand dollars and the beginning of a good reputation. The three thousand individuals who had received the

wrong prediction chose not to draw attention to themselves, being embarrassed over the implied gullibility.

The next event divined by N.O.A. was the World Championship Boxing Tournament. As before, Galahad sent out half the letters saying:

"Arnie the Patriot will demolish, destroy and decimate Wolfgang the Child Molester.

For another prophecy..."

and so forth.

Kandide sent the other two thousand letters saying that Wolfgang would trounce, trample and tromp, etc. The next prophecy cost $10.00.

Betting was heavy on the day of the fight, and afterwards, two thousand Goodman Ltd. customers were a good deal richer and the firm's reputation among them firmly established. Detractors of the firm were regarded as either envious, devious or just plain foolish, and any controversy served merely to publicize the name of the company, and over eight thousand people sent in their money for the ten dollar prediction.

Galahad and Kandide continued thus, raising the fee for each subsequent prediction, never disappointing a customer more than once, and amassing an ever larger group of clients by their

flawless accuracy in scrutinizing the inscrutable. They were already quite wealthy and possessed a marvelous reputation among those for whom the prophecies always came true, but answering letters was becoming quite tedious for them so Galahad decided that the time was ripe for the pièce de resistance. The $100.00 prophecy said:

THE WORLD WILL BE DELUGED BY GREAT FLOOD. RAINS WILL LAST FOR FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS AND WILL BEGIN WITHIN TWO WEEKS.

N.O.A. Ltd. Is offering a limited number of seats on the N.O.A. Ark, just completed, for the modest sum of $1000.00.

They got very little immediate response and Galahad began to suspect that he'd overdone it a bit but the day after the first rain they were themselves suddenly inundated with money orders and checks and cash. Galahad cashed everything and promptly disappeared. Kandide was not left penniless, however- the bulk of the cash was simply too great for the old man to make off with all of it.

Kandide had learned much from the old man and prudently decided to follow his example by leaving town post haste, a great deal wiser and a good bit richer.

At the next town Kandide spends all his money on an expensive suit of clothes, high top tennis shoes with childproof laces, a diamond pinky ring and a big black Christler Coelacanth. Now assured of an impressive appearance he can command the respect and envy of his fellow man. Satisfied that he has taken care of what was of primary importance he can now afford to turn his attention to secondary problems such as how to get something to eat without so much as a penny left to his name. He feels the need for some grapenuts or dried apricots but once again his need, though powerful, fails to miraculously produce a meal, just another cruel betrayal by the malignant forces of nature, when suddenly a familiar figure catches his eye- it is his old friend M. Cacanbúl! Kandide calls out to him.

Kandide was very glad to see the explorer again and as they cruised the loop in the shiny new Coelacanth he told Cacanbúl all of what had transpired since they parted company. Then he leaned back in his seat to hear about what had happened to Cacanbúl.

M. Cacanbúl said that the observation part of his detention wasn't too bad (though he thought of escape often enough) as they only poked him with sticks thrust between the bars of his cage in order to test his reflexes and probe for signs of hostility but it was very difficult to get rehabilitated because, they told him, he had to first recognize his problems and want to be helped before any progress could be made. To this end a squad of therapists was assigned to his case and they took it upon themselves to helpfully create a wide variety of problems just for him which were easy to recognize. Once he understood what was expected of him, Cacanbúl selected some for them to cure. Far be it from him to deprive the therapists of their raison d'être- they were hard working and concerned people with a job to do- and when he began to cooperate he found them to be most considerate. They became quite pleased

with his progress under their ministrations and just before releasing him they showed their satisfaction by breaking one of his legs which qualified him for special benefits including privileged

parking places at shopping centers.

When he got out he invested his benefits wisely, as expected of him, and made a good deal of money betting according to the predictions of New Order of the Ages Ltd. and though he lost a thousand dollars at the end he made more than enough to compensate. Unfortunately his leg had healed so he was no longer entitled to weekly rewards from the state for his inability to earn a living (the state has no interest in the welfare of healthy people) so he was on the road again and since it was three in the morning, why didn't they go to California?

After a brief stop for a meal, our intrepid travelers began their journey to the Golden State but they had not gone very far when they had to stop for someone in a white gown who was standing

in the middle of the road waving frantically. They made room in the front seat for the terrified woman and, when they noticed an angry mob brandishing pitchforks and torches approaching with loud cries

across the field, the three drove away without further encouragement or delay.

The woman in the seat between them was astonishingly beautiful and she introduced herself as La Señorita Amante de la Verga. She said she was fleeing for her life and was inexpressibly grateful

for her deliverance. Kandide and Cacanbúl bade her tell them her story and the reasons for her flight which she proceeded to do without further prompting as would any female in the company of two

strange men.

Srta. de la Verga was raised, the only child of a wealthy plantation owner, in Mexico and when her father died she inherited his vast estate.

She fell in love with an American turista in spite of the fact that he could never hope to be as macho as her countrymen. This created a mountain of ill will among her local suitors who loved

her so dearly that they could not bear to let her live, were she to marry a foreigner, and the Srta. was forced to abandon the hacienda and fled with only the clothes on her back and the earrings she had

worn since the age of two weeks and barely escaped to North America with her life.

When she arrived in this country she sought out her American lover whom she intended to marry after a short engagement of five years or so. Her husband to be set her up in some apartments and gave her an engagement ring and an allowance and acceded to her request that he visit her only once a week and in broad daylight so as not to compromise her reputation by giving others to believe

that she was a kept woman carrying on a sordid affair.

Soon after her arrival she began to receive visits from the local women and it was then that she began to be instructed in the true nature of the relationship between man and woman. The women

who visited her explained to her that she was a sex object and, although she had formerly considered this to be quite complimentary, she was educated by her enlightened visitors who selflessly undertook to elevate her consciousness from the profound ignorance which prevails in those backward countries where English is seldom spoken that the opposite was true and that even to be noticed for her sex was an insult of abysmal crudity. In fact, they told her, it was a curse to have been born female and therefore,

since it was a complete accident, she should claim it as her chief virtue and be proud of it.

Srta. Amante, whose English was poor, could not understand much of what they said at first but since they smiled once in a while as they told her these things she agreed with them. As her command of the English language improved, however, she began to take issue, though for the sake of politeness she never openly disputed them. She realized that her American friends were very intelligent because they told her so and besides that they were difficult to understand. Furthermore, they made it plain that they

only had her best interests at heart. Indeed, several of them expressed a deep and abiding love for her. They even called her 'sister'.

They tried to persuade the Srta. to sever her relationship with her betrothed and to cast aside her old fashioned paternalistic notions about love which they said had never been known to exist between a man and a woman except as a grotesque mockery since men have absolutely none of the finer sensibilities with which womankind is so copiously endowed. They also helped her remove sexist idiom from her speech. For instance, they explained to them why she should never use the sexist word 'woman'. They said that 'woman' has 'man' in it and is therefore sexist. But she couldn't say 'woperson' because that has 'son' in it and is also sexist so that the proper term for distinguishing an adult 'female' (also a sexist word, incidentally) is the word 'woperoffspring' because it is free of any allusion to maleness and therefore non-sexist. This was a little confusing for the Srta. because in her native language everything had gender.

But Srta. Amante continued to allow her future husband to visit her and was unable to find the strength of character to renounce her depravity in spite of all the emotional support her friends gave her. She still felt herself to be in love with her betrothed.

Her friends always knew when she'd had a visit from her lover and always showed up the next day, en masse, to make sure she wouldn't forget that she was being exploited, occasionally beating her in their sisterly zeal as they tried to make her realize the grievous error she was committing and the disaster she was courting. When, in their passionate concern they punished her physically, they always said it was more painful for them than it was for her so the Srta. knew they meant well. Nevertheless, Srta.

Amante persisted in her affair with her betrothed and when the day of the marriage finally arrived she quietly snuck out of her apartment to the church where the wedding preparations were being made.

Through some mishap one of the woperoffspring must have spotted her and reported to the others for as the groom and the Srta. approached the altar to say their vows a mob of woperoffspring burst in, seized the groom and castrated him on the spot with a pair of rusty pruning shears. They announced that Srta. Amante would be burned at the stake as a traitor to woperoffspringkind whereupon the Srta. fled from the altar in her wedding gown with the furious woperoffspring in hot pursuit.

"Ah, well," said the Srta., "Perhaps it is all for the best, for my friends told me that sisters who ndure penetration are in constant danger of contracting cervical cancer or even pregnancy. I knew the dangers I risked tonight when we began our honeymoon though, strange to say, I was rather looking forward to it." She sniffled.

At the first town through which they passed the citizens cast hostile glances at the trio and made threatening gestures at them so they decided not to stop there although they wanted to get some

tissues for the Srta. who had come down with a cold from running barefoot through the damp fields when she escaped the woperoffsprings' vengeance. She had to wipe her reddened nose on the hem of her wedding gown.

On the way out of town Kandide spots a hitch-hiker and, remembering all the times he'd been passed by while hitch-hiking by snobbish, self-centered motorists, accelerates and honks his horn. But this hitch-hiker is dressed in a business suit which is a curiosity because anyone who can afford a good suit obviously doesn't need to beg a ride so Kandide changes his mind and stops to pick him up. The hitch-hiker seems suspicious of something as he seems to deliberate whether or not to accept the ride but after a moment he decides to get into the Christler with our travelers.

Kandide asked the man how come he was begging a ride and the man told them he was a fugitive from federal agents and a mountain of unfinished paperwork not to mention a prison term. Kandide, Cacanbúl and the Srta., sensing an intriguing story, urge the hitchhiker to explain himself more fully. Up until yesterday, the hitchhiker, Mr. T., had been a prosperous automobile manufacturer. Mr. T.'s company, Sonibishi Motors, manufactured a superior automobile at a lower price largely due to the fact that he considered machinery a running expense and reinvested what another might consider profit. In spite of the fact that Sonibishis lacked the status of Christler Coelacanths, Sonibishi Motors had been in grave danger of outselling Christler Motors. In the next town, home of Christler Motors, this was the

cause of huge dissatisfaction and it was regarded as a treasonous offense to purchase a Sonibishi because to do so undermined the sales of the Christler Coelacanths which constituted a vicious attack on the great American institution of planned obsolescence and deprived the workers of the right to sell each family a stylish new car every year which was throwing them out of work. Several unpatriotic owners of Sonibishis had been lynched over this, in fact, though of course democratically, by popular sentiment.

Because of his increased sales, Mr. T. feared an antitrust suit would be filed against his company for unfair competition and intent to monopolize for the Supreme Court had frequently ruled that competence is unfair to those unable to produce efficiently and who must be protected and the fact was that Mr. T. could easily undersell his rival. So Mr. T. got together with Mr. S., of Christler Motors, and the two of them agreed to raise the prices of Sonibishis in order to decrease sales so there would be no

danger of infringing on the right of the Christler employees to get paid for what little they did. For a while all went according to plan and Mr. T. thought his problem was solved but somehow the

government found out about the agreement and brought an antitrust suit against both companies for price fixing. Mr. T. was sentenced to a prison term for his crime and the government, in its wisdom,

solved the dilemma by fixing the prices of all automobiles and nationalizing the two companies. Mr. T. had escaped and that was how he came to be hitch-hiking as our travelers found him.

In the next town the Christler Coelacanth carrying Kandide, Cacanbúl, Srta. Amante de la Verga and Mr. T. was welcomed by a cheering crowd, a brass band and colorful confetti as befits all true patriots who love mom, eat apple strudel and buy obsolescent automobiles for status. Mr. T. asked to be let out and slunk off to find Mr. S., who was also in hiding, and Kandide began looking for a hospital as Srta. Amante's cold had gotten considerably worse.

They find a hospital and the doctor, a former economist, examines the Srta. and after numerous tests it is determined that she does indeed have a cold whereupon the doctor orders a nurse to fetch a large bucket of ice water with which he douses Srta. Amante and has the Srta. stand in front of an electric fan. The doctor explains to her that this is the best form of treatment because, while medical science can really do nothing for the common cold, it is possible to cure pneumonia.

Kandide and Cacanbúl leave the Srta. with their best wishes for recovery and after she thanks them once more from her oxygen tent they continue on their journey.

The next town where they arrived had no houses in it but was instead a city of monuments and statues erected in honor of great generals who had helped many a young man to his higher reward in

the service of his countrymen in whose best interest it was to slaughter the inhabitants of distant lands before anyone else could grasp the opportunity to secure a place in history as great statesmen whose autobiographies would be skillfully embroidered into the collective consciousness in the form of parables of little practical value but great symbolic significance. They knew that man did not live by bread alone and, indeed, is more likely to achieve spiritual perfection if he does without it entirely.

The citizens of this city lived in the monuments modeled after classical architecture but greatly improved by hybridizing parthenons and basilicas with the addition of modern concrete copies of Roman marble copies of ancient Greek fluted wooden columns that don't support anything but are very decorative.

Thanks to the benevolence of the omnipotent bureaucracy this city had completely escaped the problem of unemployment so prevalent in neighboring communities. Here everyone was employed.

Most people worked as hygienists. It was the duty of a hygienist to blot the anus of his clients each time they defecated. Their slogan was "Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness". Those not gainfully employed in this service either provided employment for the hygienists or were constructing more monuments

and statues and those unfit for productive labor were paid to pose for the statues. Thus was the high self esteem of the citizens maintained for there is no greater joy than knowing one's place in the scheme of the bureaucracy and dedicating one's life to providing a necessary service to one's fellow man.

A fringe benefit of this society, so admirably suited to the development of human virtue and potential, was the virtual absence of crime. Antisocial individuals too retarded to comprehend the

wisdom of the bureaucracy, especially if they indecorously insisted on flaunting ideas of their own, were drawn and quartered in the public square or left town of their own accord. Thus the city functioned very smoothly indeed and could be expected to continue indefinitely as long as the national government succeeded in its heroic efforts to shift the burden of wealth from the shoulders of those who merely created it and give it to those whose noble calling it was to dispose of it.

Kandide and Cacanbúl were getting very hungry but since they could only find a public cafeteria they decided to snack on what provisions they had brought with them until they could find a crass commercial food joint and they continued on their way.

As they drive, our two travelers sate their appetites with bean sprouts and barley crackers washed down with Perrier and are discussing the marvelous diversity of human culture and the beauty

of the landscape when they come to the end of a line of cars stopped at a police roadblock. After a few short hours, they find themselves second in line and are speculating on the reason for the

roadblock when they see the driver of the car ahead leap from her car and flee down the embankment. A fusillade from the policemen's sawed-off shotguns blows the fugitive into tiny bits and as soon

as her fate is fairly obvious a second fusillade is fired into the air and the police yell at her to halt. The scraps are collected into a black plastic garbage sack while the woman's car is moved off to the side of the road along with several others and Kandide and Cacanbúl. are now first in line, staring down the gaping double barrels of twenty or more twelve gauge shotguns. They are ordered out of the Coelacanth with their hands high above their heads and are spread-eagled over the hood of the car. They are thoroughly frisked, forced to strip off all their clothing and frisked again. Next, an even more minute inspection is performed on them by an officer holding a penlight in his mouth so his hands are free for

probing. As soon as the police are satisfied that neither Cacanbúl nor Kandide have any weapons concealed on or within their persons they are allowed to put their clothes back on and are shackled.

While the two waited for their car to be searched, Kandide asked one of the officers what had occurred. He received an enthusiastically delivered jab in the groin with a rifle butt for his insolence. When at last the search of the car had been completed, a procedure involving slashing open the leather seats and ceiling and unbolting most of what was not welded, the police satisfied themselves that Kandide and Cacanbúl were no longer suspects and apologized for any inconvenience. An officer explained that they had received an anonymous tip that a vicious smuggler was spotted fifty miles East of them, headed East. Kandide had learned his lesson about insolence, so he said nothing, but Cacanbúl made so bold as to point out that possibly a person could imagine that perhaps the roadblock might be slightly better placed somewhat rather more Easterly (he was a master of diplomacy when properly motivated). Cacanbúl was not punished for the content of his question because it was so politely phrased with so many qualifiers and in such a subjunctive tense. Besides, he and Kandide were no longer under suspicion- for smuggling, at least, so the officer patiently explained that the criminal mind is so devious that it requires a policeman to understand it and that this should be left to a professional and that Cacanbúl and Kandide ought to concentrate on their own jobs, namely giving up half their incomes

to support the police so they could expect to be protected from criminals who were lurking behind nearly every shrub waiting to rob them of roughly the same amount should there be any left over after

taxes.

"What about the woman ahead of us?" asked Cacanbúl.

She was, the policeman explained, a smuggler of deadly weapons who was shot while trying to escape.

"What sort of weapons?" asked Cacanbúl.

He was told: hair brushes.

The puzzled expression that crossed our heroes' faces when they heard this bit of news was observed by the astute officer who hastened to explain that fewer than five years ago a notorious murderess had been executed for the bludgeoning death of her hairdresser. The weapon she had used had been a hair brush. The citizens, being shocked and dismayed and fearful of the ever increasing number of unregistered hair brushes in the hands of the public, prevailed on the city council to ensure their safety by outlawing the sale or possession of hair brushes. Since hair brushes had been included in the statutes governing dangerous weapons, there had not been a single instance of a coiffure-style slaying- proof of the wisdom of banning them. Now, of course, only outlaws had hairbrushes and they were easier to spot because they looked so much neater than honest citizens. Our travelers simply nodded understandingly and were permitted to continue on their journey.

When they got to the next town, they searched through the rubble of the car and discovered that all Cacanbúl's money was missing. Kandide suddenly suffered a twinge of sentimentality and, realizing that it had been overlong since he had written to his beloved parents, decided it was time he paid more attention to his filial duty to them and write them a letter asking for a little money. He wrote a brief account of his adventures and sent the letter off to his mother who would have to read it to his father

who had only graduated from highschool before settling down to married life and was illiterate.

Soon after, Kandide received a reply to his letter containing some family news and some money. The news was that his father had grown weary of dishes, diapers and the duties of a househusband and

had run off with a traveling saleswoman. The money was a money order for one hundred red dollars. The National Economic Recovery Act had resolved the problem of inflation by announcing that on a

certain date all green dollars would become delegitimated and that until that time people would be allowed to redeem their greenies at a rate of ten green to one red. Thus, in three short days, did the administration cause inflation to drop one thousand percent- almost to levels which existed nearly thirty years earlier- and now people could once again buy five loaves of bread for a dollar.

The changeover to reddies was hailed as a brilliant economic solution--even more brilliant than having a war- because it did not destroy the tax base, it reduced the national debt to a point so low that there was actually enough paper in the world to print money to cover it and it improved the balance of trade because, in fact, most trade had ceased altogether though this would be no problem if only some bread could be found.

Kandide and Cacanbúl spent some time repairing the Christler, replacing the torn leather of the seats with some purple velvet and gold brocade once used as curtains in a mortuary and which they got

cheaply from the Salvation Army and sold the car to a gentleman with a diamond stud in his ear who ran an employment agency for young girls and who wanted the car to show his friends that to which an enterprising and industrious individual can aspire. The gentleman was unaware that he was buying a used car because Kandide had steam-cleaned the engine and turned back the odometer and even demanded a higher price than the original cost of the car for the custom upholstery.

Kandide and Cacanbúl threw away all the engine parts removed in the police search for which they could not find a place when they reassembled the Coelacanth and bought a small Sonibishi Wasp.

They were rather pleased about having tricked the gentleman to whom they sold the Christler- especially the part about the custom upholstery- for it helped make up a little bit for having had their money stolen from them.

"If you want to avoid problems," said Cacanbúl, "you should always find a way to pass them on to someone else."

And Kandide, who was becoming wise in the ways of men in this, the best of all possible worlds, nodded assent as the two resumed their journey.

Kandide and Cacanbúl drive past a lake where they notice a gathering and some kind of celebration so they decide to turn around and see if they can join in the festivities. There are fifty or sixty people there, gathered on and around a wharf, cheering as a man splashes and splutters in the lake. They begin to sing the popular gospel tune 'Row Your Boat' and the man goes under for the third time. As the last bubbles break the surface the leader of the group shouts "Death to the Anabaptist!". The crowd cheers and the leader approaches the new arrivals, Kandide and Cacanbúl.

"No better way to bind the faithful to the faith than by executing a heretic!" he says with a wide grin.

Cacanbúl asks the guru to tell them something about the faith he represents.

"We're Ovists," says the guru, "And our faith maintains that God is a large Chicken Egg. We have historical roots all the way back to Czar Nicholas!"

Kandide and Cacanbúl were forced by logic to accept the fact that God is a large Chicken Egg because they found it impossible to prove otherwise but wanted to know the factual basis for the belief. They were told that the divine revelation could be experienced by drinking a fifth of Scotch and urinating into a light socket.

Cacanbúl said something to the guru that Kandide could not hear and the guru drew our travelers off to one side out of earshot of the others. He then shook hands, first with Cacanbúl and then with Kandide, expressing his delight in meeting them for he said that gurus should always help one another and could he be of service? Cacanbúl said that he and Kandide would be delighted to swap stories with him and would he tell them how he got into the guru business? The guru was much flattered by their interest and told them:

"I've been a guru for many years, having first begun as an apprentice selling used cars then advancing to study of the more esoteric aspects of pure and applied mystery. When I first became aware of the colossal stupidity of the human race I was only in it for the money. Later on I became an idealist and wanted to save the world. I realized that the only antidote to colossal stupidity was creative insanity so I started my first cult. But I found out that I couldn't change the world- never enough diapers- and, anyway, people don't want to be happy, you see, they merely want someone to reassure them that it's perfectly normal to be miserable. So now I guru out of compassion. Oh, there are some rewards. Once in a while I actually succeed in illuminating someone. I don't think anything compares with the thrill of molding a young, tender mind, twisting and shaping it into a thing of awe and mystery."

He went on to describe various cults he had originated and then began a dissertation on the various techniques he'd tried and seen. He ended up with a few words on the subject of illumination:

"Such instruction should be tailored to the needs of the individual- it's more intimate that way. If a man seeking illumination has a particularly restive temperament I will tell him that to become illuminated he must sit cross-legged and stare at his navel. If a seeker has a very urgent desire to know then I will advise him that the more he wants illumination the less likely he is to receive it and that the only way he can be sure he's ready is when he doesn't care about it one way or the other. Only in

stubborn cases such as true believers do I fall back on the traditional mystic formulae of inverted values. If you can make someone feel guilty about anything good you have a foot in the door. Then even the strongest mind will become ductile and malleable. And once you've hooked a true believer he will either

become illuminated or die trying, which is the more usual case, but even in that event at least he had something to live for."

Cacanbúl then told a couple of stories and Kandide told his story about selling pseudodiluvian cruise tickets and the guru was much amused but had to take his leave and attend to his disciples who had split into opposing factions and were waging a pitched battle over a point of profound theological significance, one side defending the orthodox view that God is a large Egg, and the other side the protestant contention that the primary cause must have been a Chicken of fairly specific dimensions. The guru broke up the fight and reunited his disciples by announcing that an army of irredeemable Gibbonist monks, led by the Primate himself, were approaching over the hill and that all Ovists, orthodox or reformed, had better flee at once or be set upon and exterminated except those interested in martyrdom who could remain behind. Most of the Ovists fled with the guru; only a few desired to submit to

slaughter at the hands of the merciless Gibbonists. One of these latter was not on his knees preparing himself psychologically for the ordeal he was about to undergo but was walking toward Kandide

and Cacanbúl.

"Father!" exclaimed Kandide who, with tears streaming down his face, ran to embrace the old man.

"Kandide! My number one son!" cried the old man who was overcome with joy and sobbed on Kandide's shoulder. "I'm so happy to see you again! But we must flee before we are massacred by those

murderous Gibbonists!"

Kandide knew there were no Gibbonists coming but decided that, once they found out they would be deprived of their shortcut to heaven, the remaining Ovists might very well become dangerous so the three, Cacanbúl, Kandide and Kandide's father got into the car and left.

Kandide introduces his father to Cacanbúl and then tells his father about the letter he received from his mother and asks to hear the story from his father's point of view.

"Alas," said the father, "It was the inevitable result of years of frustration. I must tell you that you are not the only child born to our family. I gave your mother several children, all male, and this was a cause of great disappointment to her for she never had a girl to carry on the family name. She always blamed me for failing to produce X chromosomes and after I'd cared for an infant unit his first birthday she would always apply for a postnatal abortion and have the child put to sleep. Your mother always had a strong social conscience so whenever she wanted to try again for a girl child she had to dispose of the previous child in order to remain consistent with the noble goal of zero population growth. She believes, you see, that people are evil by nature. It follows, therefore, that babies are the root of all evil and the

sex act the very core of it. Besides, she didn't think she could maintain the family in the style to which she was accustomed with babies and children running around underfoot like little vampires sucking up her money and attention and interfering with her Activists Anonymous meetings.

"It was heartbreaking to me to have invested so much care and time in raising a new infant only to have it put to sleep and it made me feel ashamed and useless.

"Then one day Wanda, a travelling saleswoman, started coming by on her route selling brushes. Kandide, I was weak and my body betrayed me. I don't regret it, though. She was so different from your mother. She loved sex and this made me feel vital and potent. After I started meeting with Wanda I was a changed person. Once your mother found out about us I could hardly face her any more for my shame and so I decided to run away with Wanda.

"Wanda and I had two beautiful months of travelling and trysting before I finally made my big mistake: I told her I loved her. Now nothing so dampens passionate involvement as the threat of some commitment and I should have known better but my big failing is having a lot of stupid romantic notions and after I told her of my love our lovemaking was no good. She was first to see we had become incompatible and she threw me out of the car, leaving me to resolve my hang-ups by myself."

Kandide considers what he has heard and asks how many of his little brothers have been retroactively aborted. His father tells him: seven, but assures him that everything was done with the safest, most modern medical techniques and was completely painless so he should not concern himself. But Kandide is concerned and says that it somehow seems wrong to conceive children only to destroy them later but his father tells him that that is only a matter of opinion and so he should respect the opinions of others, that no one can say what is good or bad- there being absolutely no absolutes- and the best a mere mortal can ever hope to achieve is the golden mean, the middle road and that when someone does something he imagines is good he should deny it for the sake of modesty and when one does something he imagines is bad he should advertise it lest he be accused of hypocrisy and, anyhow, who is he to judge? People are too stupid to know what's good for them which is why we can't get along without other people to tell us what to do.

Kandide is truly abashed at his own presumptuousness and vows to mend his attitude and to try to achieve wisdom which consists of making no judgements whatsoever and tells his father so.

His father points out that the notion that wisdom is a good thing is a matter of opinion also. Kandide realizes how much he has to learn before he has a truly mature outlook and sees that getting in touch with oneself is a daunting travail.

When Kandide's father was kicked out by the travelling saleswoman he was taken in by a kindly old man whose television set had broken and who could no longer watch his favorite soap operas and was therefore delighted to have someone around with problems to share. While staying at the old man's home, a burglar broke in one night and the old man caught him burglarizing and hit him over the head with the only weapon available which was the old man's pacemaker. The burglar was knocked unconscious and, as it turned out, became paralyzed on the right side of his body. The burglar was locked up for attempted burglary, the old man for attempted murder (which he hoped to bargain down to assault with intent to do bodily injury), the pacemaker was impounded as evidence and the burglar filed a civil suit, which he won, and was awarded the old man's entire estate, the courts having ruled many

times that a burglar has a right to expect not to be victimized during the course of pursuing his career for it is a serious crime to discriminate against someone on the basis of his occupational preference.

Kandide's father wanted to borrow some money to spring the old man who had helped him when he needed help, which Kandide lent to him, and the three, Kandide, Cacanbúl and Kandide's father drove

off to the local reformatory to bail out the old man.

When the old man was told he was about to be released he was so overjoyed that he collapsed straight away and a guard trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation tried to revive him by crushing

some ribs with his boot but the effort was in vain and the old man died and Kandide's father was immediately detained on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

Kandide could not recover the bail money since, by dying, the old man had fled prosecution. Kandide was allowed to visit his father after the preliminary investigation but his father was so badly beaten that everything he mumbled was incoherent. After many times promising to write, even though he knew it would be a waste of time since his father couldn't read, Kandide said goodbye.

Kandide wanted to leave him some money with which to buy soap and cigarettes and other small items that make life in prison so enjoyable but there were so many forms to fill out and the penalties for misspelling on them so terribly severe that Kandide finally hired a fat woman to smuggle these items into the prison on a visit and he and Cacanbúl resumed their journey to the Golden State.

Kandide wrote a letter to his mother telling her all that had befallen his father and reassured her by observing that in the best of all possible worlds everything works out for the best and therefore the wisest decision is always to do nothing at all and not worry about it.

Although Kandide offered his mother consolation he was unable to console himself. Cacanbúl was affected by his friend's despondency and told Kandide to turn around and drive back to the reformatory and they would devise a plan to rescue his father. Having something new over which to worry, Kandide became jubilant and promptly forgot his previous concerns, thinking only of the joyful reunion and imagining the various daring ploys to effect the rescue of his father.

Cacanbúl s plan consisted of discovering the packing plant that provided meat to the reformatory and hijacking the delivery truck. This would get them inside the walls and possibly in touch with Kandide's father. After this they would have to play it by ear.

They implement the first part of the plan with no difficulty and when they get inside the reformatory they are directed to a loading dock behind the prison kitchen. They are surprised to discover that there is no meat on the truck to unload and, thinking their plan has gone awry, begin to worry until they see on their security pass that they are expected to pick up a load of meat which is to be taken back to the packing plant to be made into fish-sticks. To their surprise and good fortune they find that the prisoner sent to help them load the truck is Kandide's father- a stroke of unbelievable good fortune!

They loaded the truck, hanging the corpses of the dead prisoners by the heels on large hooks. Throughout the loading procedure the only sign of recognition exchanged between Kandide and his father was a covert wink. When they were fully loaded, Cacanbúl bonked the guard who was supervising them. They took off the officer's uniform and put it on one of the corpses, the unconscious officer was dressed in the prison clothes of Kandide's father, and Kandide's father was instructed to play dead as they hung him nude, upside down from a hook in the back of the truck. Then they pulled away from the loading dock and went to the wagon gate where the bodies were counted and the manifests signed. This being done, Cacanbúl notified the security officer that he had seen a prisoner attack a guard behind the kitchen. Kandide and Cacanbúl drove away amidst the clanging of bells and shrieking of sirens as the riot alarm was sounded.

When they had put a safe distance between them and the reformatory they pulled off on a side road and opened the back of the truck only to find that Kandide's father was frozen solid. Still, the old man's face was clearly smiling, no doubt due to the fact that he'd died a free man, and Kandide decided he would be pleased to remember his father this way. He could never have borne the thought of his father being made into fish-sticks.

They buried him under some leaves, got in their own car and left the truck to be looted by passersby and resumed their trip westward to California. Nothing could diminish the jubilance of Kandide and Cacanbúl, for they were optimists inclined to concentrate on the positive aspects of the rescue; half a success would have been better than not trying and even though there had been the slight oversight of freezing Kandide's father they had otherwise performed the perfect rescue with the purest of intentions and congratulated one another with great enthusiasm, though out of respect for the deceased, they restrained their outcries to small chuckles.

The scenery had changed, for now Kandide and Cacanbúl were driving through the grain belt. The land was flat for as far as the eye could see and sometimes they had to drive for a hundred miles between towns. It was during one of these uneventful stretches of driving that Kandide confided in Cacanbúl that he had begun travelling for the purpose of self-discovery and asked Cacanbúl what the reason was for his travelling. Cacanbúl laughs and says that they are using the same means to achieve opposite goals because he, Cacanbúl, is travelling in order to avoid self-discovery. Kandide tells Cacanbúl he wants to become wise like him and Cacanbúl laughs some more and says: "Good God, me wise?".

Kandide says: "Well, if you're not wise, don't you wish to become so?"

"Lord no! I make every effort to avoid it! Wisdom is abnormal- and worse than that, it's boring for once you understand something it becomes trivial. If you ever grow up you'll realize that if you were to become wise nobody would like you- unless, of course, you compensated by developing some endearing infirmity such as forgetfulness or clumsiness."

At this, Kandide begins to have second thoughts about growing up but decides to compromise for the moment by growing a mustache so at least he will have the opportunity to experiment with the appearance of maturity although he simultaneously worried that it might merely betray his aspirations to a mustachioed appearance.

They stopped once to watch the huge machines going through the fields of grain. They asked a farmer what he did with such gigantic harvests and the farmer told them that it would be plowed under in order to raise prices because the farmers were so broke that some were actually starving.

Cacanbúl began to drink heavily and Kandide had to stop at every bar along the way. Kandide was the only one who had any money and he was forced to make loans to Cacanbúl to support his dipsomaniacal extravaganzas. Many times Kandide had slept in the car while Cacanbúl caroused to awaken when the stinking, staggering Cacanbúl returned complaining of how badly his head hurt, how he had no money left, and how he couldn't remember a thing and boasting, therefore, of what a wonderful time he must have had.

Kandide was concerned about the dwindling supply of cash. Cacanbúl was such a good friend that Kandide couldn't refuse him a loan as long as any money remained and Kandide was at a loss for a way to deal with the situation when the obvious solution suddenly popped into his mind. Thereafter, Kandide secretly followed Cacanbúl to the bars and waited for him to emerge, drunk, en route to the next watering hole. Kandide would affect a drunken stagger, for camouflage, and sneak up behind him and sap him with a sock full of sand, drag him into an alley, empty his wallet of the remaining currency and go back to the car to sleep. In this way Kandide saved a great deal of money while Cacanbúl continued to be certain of having had a wonderful time.

Sometimes Kandide would go into the bars with Cacanbúl just to see what was going on. He was able to glean from the drunken conversations that there were almost infinite permutations on the themes of sex and football, not necessarily in that order, and made about thirty-seven additions to his basic vocabulary.

Once he was approached by a monstrously fat woman in Spandex tights who suggested he sleep with her, meaning they wouldn't sleep but instead make love, which of course had nothing whatsoever to do with love, but Kandide was not interested as he was saving himself for Ms. Right so Cacanbúl, who was cheerfully prepared to expend himself on Ms. Wrong or even Ms. Indifferent, took up the woman's offer.

Cacanbúl never reappeared and Kandide never knew if he had fallen in love, died of exhaustion or smothered when the woman rolled over in bed.

Kandide struck off on his own for the Golden State with nothing to distract him but the radio for which he was very grateful as he required some distraction but did not have much attention to invest in it. Soon he was singing along with all the old classics: "Lay Down Sally", "Let's Spend the Night Together", "Let's Get Physical", "Torn Between Two Lovers" and all the jingles about malodorous human secretions and what to do about them.

Between that and staring at that white stripe reeling in under the car he had slipped into that state of mental oblivion he had come to recognize as happiness.

Arriving at the next town, he was stopped by a group of picketers who had lined up in opposing groups on either side of the street and had set about making news by means of hurling epithets at one another along with rocks, bottles and other weighty objects.

Kandide got out of his car and was promptly surrounded by camera crews and roving reporters who demanded to know if Kandide was a Mixist or a Subtraction-Precedentist. Kandide asked them to explain the issue, thereby revealing his abysmal ignorance of the current events of national importance.

The reporters explained in words of no more than two syllables that a Mixist allows subtraction within a Roman numeral only in the special cases of a single I, a single X, a single C, or a single D. Thus, they write 9 as IX, 40 as XL, 90 as XC, and 900 as CM, while the ordinary cases were additive, such that 38 would be written as XXXVIII, and 1982 would be MCMLXXXII.

The Mixists held that traditional numerology, should be taught in public schools because it was less of a strain on the intellect, and preserved the classic purity of the Romans. They accused the Subtraction--Precedentists of Iconoclasticism and Overintellectualisation, or Eggheadism.

The S.P.'s maintained that the Mixists were culture-bound Nostalgists who threw tantrums over any new math. They extolled the virtues of subtraction-precedent numerology's economy of space, admirably consistent formulation and mental discipline. This was why, they said, S.P. numerology should replace traditional instruction in public schools.

The reporters, having fulfilled their mandate to inform the ignorant, in this case, Kandide, of what to think without biasing the judgement by telling him how to think, asked Kandide to describe how he felt.

He said he felt fine.

They tried to get him to express a strong opinion either way so the viewers would know what an informed person felt. Kandide didn't know what to say and with the lack of social skills, which showed him to be an ordinary citizen, he said nothing.

As a last resort, the reporters brought in Wally Michaels, of FORTY-EIGHT AND ONE HALF MINUTES, whose talent as a hypnotic listener has drawn revealing comments from subjects as recalcitrant as the cantaloupe he once interviewed in an expose of truck garden pornography.

Kandide confessed that he really felt the issue to be foolish. Wally Michaels asks Kandide if he's ever heard of Folly Magnus, a.k.a. Galahad Goodman.

Kandide says no, but Wally detects that there may be more that Kandide knows than what he admits. Wally primes the pump by giving Kandide a rundown on Mr. Magnus/Goodman:

"Folly Magnus is a con-artist. Recently he has written a couple of books. Investigators from Forty-eight and One Half Minutes have discovered that one book is presently the 'bible' of the Mixists; of traditional numerology. The other book, say undisclosed sources, is about the new subtraction-precedent

numerology and how it can improve one's self esteem. Folly Magnus, then, has published two books on the same subject, taking opposing views, and using pseudonyms to hide his authorship of the material.

Both books have become best sellers.

"A confidential informant revealed to Forty-eight and One Half Minutes that Folly Magnus had used his book on subtraction-precedent numerology to convince a large number of people that traditional values were threatened in the public schools and that their children were in imminent danger of moral subversion because the new math would render them ill-equipped to deal with the real world. Magnus sold these people his second book on traditional numerology so they could teach their children basic skills at home.

"Once Magnus had a group agitated against the subtraction precedent numerology it was an easy task to incite another large group of people to oppose the first.

"Anonymous information from reliable sources indicates that once Magnus had stirred up a hornets' nest of dissent he called in the media to cover the events as a human interest story and used the resultant publicity to advertise his books. Millions of people from across the country bought his books to study the issues so they could form their own opinions.

"Magnus has raked in enormous sums of filthy lucre from this scam, according to people close to the source, and his extraordinarily successful book burning campaign has caught on like a prairie fire and has further boosted revenues from his publications. At last word he has retired to Argentina."

Now, some of Galahad's crooked logic had rubbed off on Kandide. With an illuminated flash of inspiration Kandide suddenly asked Wally Michaels how much Forty-eight and One Half Minutes had

paid Magnus for an exclusive on the story.

Wally is suddenly stricken by the notion that an expose on corruption in publishing is not all that interesting compared to the opportunity to wear black boots and a camo uniform while doing the harsh duty of an investigative reporter hot on the trail of sexy copy that is filled with references to tropical jungles, piles of filthy lucre, byzantine treachery, women with multiple personalities, secret surgical techniques that make men multiorgasmic and so forth.

While Michaels and his crew move off to set up secret cameras to find out how unsuspecting people feel about Argentina, Kandide gets back in his car and drives back the way he came.

Kandide continued on his journey alone until the flat fields turned into scrub desert and hills. He stopped to help a lady whose car had a flat tire and was set upon by a band of outlaws and knocked unconscious.

When he awoke he found himself slung over the back of a horse. There were five other members of the train, besides himself, who rode in the more usual manner, i.e., upright and unbound. These two men and three women were undoubtedly kidnapping him although he couldn't understand why. One of the women was the one who had the flat tire so he knew she had been deceitfully feigning highway distress and was really in cahoots with the gang and he resolved not to trust her.

As soon as his captors noticed he was awake and alert, they stopped the horses and set Kandide on the ground. One of the two men, who appeared to be a hyperthyroid giant, set upon him and beat him severely with his fists until Kandide lost consciousness again.

Awakening later in the afternoon, very sore from riding on his belly, a mass of bruises from the morning beating, Kandide was taken off the horse again. This time, however, the giant did not approach him- instead, one of the women gave him to drink, rubbed balm into his bruises and the sores where his bindings chafed, fed him and sang soft melodies until he fell asleep.

For three days this continued- the morning beating by the man monster, the setting up of camp in the afternoon, and the gentle treatment by the woman named Ursula, who, Kandide noticed through swollen eyes, was quite beautiful. She was as kind to him as the giant was mean, and Kandide felt sure he had her sympathy, and even began to consider asking her to help him escape.

On the fourth day, the group had entered genuine mountains with an abundance of tall conifers. For some reason, the morning beating was skipped. "Serves him right if his hands are too sore!" thought Kandide- an idea which struck him as mirth provoking for an instant, until he began to wonder if the giant had merely forgotten and might remember to do it later.

That afternoon they stopped only briefly to water the horses and continued until dusk when they reached a large cluster of tipis and a few log shacks. Kandide was unbound and thrust- too roughly-

into one of these shacks. There was a slit in the door which he could see out of and through which a tray of food and a pan of water were passed to him, but it was too narrow for Kandide to squeeze through, and the shack itself was constructed of logs no less then a foot in diameter, so there was no hope of breaking out of it.

Night came with its animal sounds but, though Kandide was tired and beat, he was too worried about what would come next to be able to find sleep. Sometime in the night he was startled by a hissing sound which at first he feared might be a snake but the hissing was repeated and he realized it was somebody trying to attract his attention at the slit in the door. When he looked out he saw the face of the giant.

Now, Kandide had no desire either to see or speak to his tormentor but he does let the giant know he is listening which is all the giant wants.

The giant says: "You think I'm the mean one, I know, but really I'm not- Ursula is! What we were doing- that was just a game."

Some game, Kandide thinks.

"It's a trick we do. I play the bad guy, and she plays the good guy, but it's really the other way around. I didn't beat you this morning, you notice- and I was supposed to, but I pretended I hurt my hands. But tomorrow or the next day you'll see! Ursula's the high priestess here, and one day soon she'll rip your heart out at the altar!"

Kandide suddenly decided that it was potentially self-defeating to refuse to talk to the giant, so he began asking questions.

"Why should she want to rip my heart out at the altar?" asked Kandide.

The giant answered "It's to keep the sun from burning out. It's our solar energy program. We who are the Children of the Sun strive for energy sufficiency. If we don't sacrifice a living heart on cloudy days the sun might decide not to come up again! So it's not a sacrifice, really, it's an investment."

What a crock, thought Kandide who had begun to permit himself the occasional rational perception more frequently of late.

"What's the point of the good guy/bad guy game, then?" Kandide asks.

"That's to gain your confidence and find out if you could pay a ransom. Sometimes we let people go if they can pay a ransom but times are hard. The price of energy has been rather high this year. You're earmarked part of the program budget."

"So why are you telling me all this?" asked Kandide. "Since my fate is assured, what possible difference could it make if you tell me? I'd really rather not have known!"

The giant offers to make a bargain. He says he is attracted to Kandide and that if Kandide agrees to perform certain acts, which Kandide had never before imagined, he would help Kandide to escape. But Kandide is filled with personal revulsion at the thought of the things the giant mentions and rejects the proposition- in such a way as not to offend the giant, of course, and the giant, once convinced that Kandide is not to be persuaded, leaves- but not before expressing boundless sympathy for Kandide's

fate.

Kandide counts five days and his bruises have diminished. He is fed regularly and, though dirty, is much recovered since his arrival.

On the sixth day, he sees through the door that it is overcast outside for the shadows are not sharp and distinct nor is the light as bright. Presently a group assembles outside the door of his shack, the crossbar on the door is removed and the door swings open.

The day was indeed overcast. Kandide saw that a feast was in preparation for there were several large fires and spits with what looked like deer turning slowly above the coals and occasional flames from the dripping grease. Men and women wandered about in robes among the flower strewn paths with baskets of bread and fruits or musical instruments. The scents of pine, flowers, wood smoke and cooking food filled the air.

Four men (the giant was not among them) seized Kandide by the arms and french-marched him to one of the tipis where they said he was to receive the final blessing from the high priest.

Upon entering the tent, Kandide hears a familiar voice cry out: "Why if it isn't Noah of the Ark!"

Kandide doesn't have a chance to answer before the same voice orders the four guards to fall on their knees before him because, the voice says, "This man is six thousand years old! This is the man who built the ark in order to save mankind from the great flood that we might be here today as brothers worshipping the one true religion as Children of the Sun, and this is the man who has come to save us all from the next deluge which could come any day to scourge the wicked unbelievers and purify the world once more! Now, rise and begone; we have important matters to discuss!"

The four men who had escorted Kandide to the tent left hurriedly with furtive glances toward Kandide and as soon as Kandide's eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light inside the tipi, he recognized the old Ovist guru from the lake. The old guru smiled and shook Kandide's hand and welcomed him: "Welcome!" he said.

Kandide is very much surprised to meet the old guru again, and asks him how it happened that the old man is now leading the Children of the Sun, and what happened to the Ovists.

"Well," explained the old guru, "these people here are mostly from among the Ovists." He cackled gleefully. "And I had a narrow escape, I can assure you, for, with the imaginary Gibbonists hot on our heels and thirsting for blood, we marched for days until we arrived here and set up camp. I was very hungry- let me confess my unwisdom- I had a craving for an omelet. I went off by myself to cook it so my disciples wouldn't catch me eating eggs, but a couple of my most devoted followed me and I was caught in the act. I was saved by my quick wits and my gift for extemporaneous bullshit- to make the story short: I convinced them that the Ovist cult was merely a disguise for the much persecuted Children of the Sun, and that all the gobbledegook about eggs was simply a test for disciples to pass before they could prove their worthiness to learn the great mysteries of the Solar Secrets. When I told them this,

of course- they quickly convinced themselves that they had suspected it all along. Sun worship turns out to be much better than egg worship anyway because there is less room for dissension, such as that chicken or the egg thing, and yet it still can be made vague enough to satisfy one's yearning for mysticism."

Kandide asked about the business of sacrificing living human hearts. The old guru asked Kandide where he'd heard about it, and Kandide promised to relate the whole story as soon as he'd heard the old man's explanation. The old guru explained that without heretics to execute occasionally it was difficult to keep the disciples interested until he discovered that, while the blood of heretics served well to bind the faithful to the faith, the blood of a believer worked even better. He set up a system whereby the truly devout could demonstrate their devotion in a ceremony viewed by all the others and how popular this became and what a worksaver it was for him to have only to interpret the weather rather than having to invent his own signs and rituals. Besides, sun worship had many thousands of years of culture behind it, and therefore had a more respectable aroma, as it were; a heritage an historical perspective.

Kandide objected to this facile glossing over of the issue, and pointed out that it wasn't only the faithful seeking heaven and the envy of their peers who were executed on the altar, for wasn't he, Kandide, to have been sacrificed today against his will?

The old man admitted that yes, unfortunately, this was so- but there are zealots among any religious group, and they meant well, so they should be allowed a fling once in a while too, but he

hastened to assure Kandide that no harm would befall him now for he had just been introduced as the new savior and, if he chose, could have the cult for himself and do whatever he wanted to with it as he (the guru) was ready to retire anyhow, and bid Kandide tell what had passed since their last meeting, a story he was eager to hear.

So Kandide recounted the happenings of the past several weeks, which greatly amused the old guru, up until his arrival at the tent. He had just finished his story, when Ursula, the High Priestess, entered the tent. The old guru instructed her to tell John boy to volunteer for the sacrifice and dismissed her.

"Remember," the old man said to Kandide, "you're the savior now, Noah."

Kandide asked the old man's name and was told to call him Ra.

Ursula returned directly and informed Ra that John Boy, the giant, was nowhere to be found. The old guru said that John Boy must have heard about Noah and, realizing his treachery had been discovered,

prudently slipped away into the woods to escape Ra's wrath.

"Noah," whispered the guru, "you'll have to help me with this."

"What did you have in mind?" asked Kandide.

The old guru gave a sly wink and ordered Ursula to go out and lay herself on the altar.

"Noah, you shall have the honor of performing this sacrifice!"

The three, Ursula followed by Noah and a, solemnly exited the tipi, and walked slowly to the altar.

Amid chants of Ra! Ra! Ra! the three of them ascended the platform. Ra raised his hands to silence the crowd and made a brief but moving speech announcing the imminent end of the world, and

proclaimed the arrival of the new savior. When he finished speaking, he nodded to Ursula who shed her robe and stretched herself out nude on the slab awaiting her ascension into the afterlife. Ra gives Kandide the gilt dagger and goes down the steps to watch with the others. Kandide studies the lovely figure of Ursula as she awaits death, and becomes aroused. Dropping the dagger to the floor, he leans over to press his lips to Ursula's breast. Suddenly, gripped in the ineluctable vortex of a whirlpool of adolescent hormones, he ravishes Ursula before the cheering multitude. Ursula is surprised at finding heaven so painlessly and powerfully, and swears eternal allegiance to Noah before the feverish eyes of the crowd. Kandide, clutching up his trousers, descends from the altar with Ursula a respectful three paces behind.

Later, alone with Ra, Kandide is congratulated on his unqualified success for the splendid and unexpected new twist on the ancient ceremony, and Ra says that Kandide is a natural guru and repeats his offer to turn over the cult to him, for Kandide has truly established himself as the leader, and Ra is obliged to retire since he can't top Noah's act.

Kandide is intoxicated with his first taste of power, but decides to continue his journey to California.

"In that case, let us go together." Said Ra. "I'm definitely ready to retire, and I can't stay here. I've accumulated an ungodly amount of wealth from my disciples, whom I've persuaded to believe that money is the root of all evil, and if you accompany me get to California, I'll share it with you."

"But what will you do when you retire?" asked Kandide.

"What all retired gurus do," said Ra, "run for public office, hire half a dozen lovely secretaries, do nothing but drink and fuck all day, and make sure I'm seen at church on Sundays."

"And what about the Children of the Sun? asked Kandide.

"Leave them to Ursula." said Ra. "If she can't handle them, someone else will come along. Don't worry about the disciples. If they don't have a guru they will invent one."

Ra and Kandide slip away on horseback in the dead of night, and arrive at a spot near a road where they find a truck belonging to Ra which is loaded with ransom money and other assorted loot.

They turn the horses loose and drive away. As they are crossing the mountains into Utah, Ra wants to show Kandide a magic trick. He sets a pack of cigarettes on the seat, and tells Kandide to concentrate and, using the power of his mind, the only power he possesses, to cause the pack of cigarettes to rise up into the air. Kandide picks up the pack, takes a cigarette out and lights it.

"Oh." says Ra. "You've seen the levitation trick before!"

Kandide hadn't, but merely smiles. Ra says "Noah, thou art truly wise!"

Kandide wonders, "What makes you say that?"

"Because you know that there is no such thing as wisdom!"

Kandide begins to feel that he may be getting in touch with himself at last.

Kandide and the guru select new names. Kandide will call himself Kandide, which the guru thinks is a clever alias, having forgotten the name if indeed he ever heard it, and guru Ra chooses the name Jones to help him get elected to office but right away decides that Smith is a better choice, having used Jones once before and gotten some bad press. So Kandide and Smith they were who descended the mountain into Salt Lake City, where a parade was in progress promoting the Obese Pride Movement.

Automobiles trying to pass through Salt Lake City were being stopped by demonstrators. Some of the drivers were forced to flee their autos and run the gauntlet of picket signs while their cars were overturned into a ditch and burned. Other drivers were cheered mightily, and allowed to pass right on through the crowd. A group of armed fat men dressed in fatigues and crossed cartridge belts rode toward Kandide and Smith on tiny donkeys.

"They want something." warned Smith, and he cautioned Kandide not to agree too readily lest they think he's trying to patronize them.

Smith and Kandide rolled down their windows and tried to look jolly as the leader of the group demanded to know their opinions on the issue of a constitutional amendment to guarantee the rights

of endomorphs. Kandide pointed out that the constitution already stated that all men were created with equal legal rights. The leader agrees that that is true, but argues that the constitution makes no mention whatsoever of non-slender individuals, and that even if it is said that plump people are equal, it can't be true unless words to that effect are actually written down in a legal document. Kandide asks if this issue doesn't come into conflict with the divine right of states to deny rights to individuals as provided for by all democratic systems. The leader agrees but points out that if enough people vote favorably on the issue the government, whose duty it is to dispose of individual's rights, will be obliged to concede said rights to the chubby or at least deprive others equally. Kandide and Smith pretend to consider the matter carefully for a moment, then agree to sign the petition presented to them by the demonstrators. They are cheered and allowed to pass though the crowd of smiling waving demonstrators unmolested. Smith and Kandide congratulated each other on the way they handled a ticklish situation and led the demonstrators to believe that they had succeeded in converting two more fence straddlers to their cause.

"Always tell them what they want to hear," said Smith, "even if it's true. Then go do exactly as you please."

To which Kandide replied "Spoken like a true diplomat!"

"That's what makes me better than they are." said Smith.

They cross to the next state where they stop to eat and refuel at the Double Bar S Casino Brothel Saloon and Desert Curio Shoppe. While they dine on garden vegetables and fresh goat cheese from one of the numerous local ranches, they are watching the children playing the bubble gum machines and the serious bettors at the life insurance counter, when a young man interrupts them and asks them if they are the owners of the camper parked outside. Smith says he is, and the young man asks if they are headed west and have room for a rider. Smith says they are and certainly do. The man thanks them and sits down at their table. He is an artist who is bound for California where eccentricity is appreciated. They ask him what sort of art he produces and he tells them he does both painting and literature but has yet to prove his genius by developing an original -ism. Smith tells the man that they are going to San Francisco to visit his friend the mayor, Caspar Morose, who is a great patron of the arts and that San Francisco is the ideal place for an artist to struggle because people there are more sensitive than ordinary human beings and have extremely refined feelings cultivated by years of carefully avoiding brutal logic, cold efficiency, and premeditated cogitation.

The trio leaves and, all three in the front seat the artist on the passenger side, Kandide in the middle, and Smith driving- drive off deeply involved in a discussion of the philosophy of art. Kandide learns that truly profound artistic expression can only be achieved through sublime ambiguity, because if there is a clear message it will be interpreted as moralizing and, as everyone knows, morality is anathema to art. Ambiguity allows the public to see whatever they want to see, and thus communicates with the largest possible group, which is the essence of popularity. On the other hand, to show true genius, being ambiguous is not sufficient- you must achieve inscrutability! Also, if people think the artist knows what he's doing, they will consider him a phony. So it is wise to affect insanity so they know he's genuine and has something worthwhile to say.

Soon Smith, Kandide and the artist have crossed into California, the Golden State, center of style and culture and fountainhead of all that's fashionable in this, the best of all possible worlds.

Suddenly, the artist produces a large caliber handgun. Kandide and Smith watch helplessly as he removes from his head the black frizzled wig to reveal the face of a young woman framed in golden curls.

"Allow me to introduce myself, Mr. Smith, I am Ana Graems, secret agent for the Atheist Heterosexual Anarchist Humorist Alliance- A.H.A.H.A! We've been watching you for some time."

"Oh my goodness!" Smith says. "I don't know anything about A.H.A.H.A., or anything else for that matter. What do you want with us?"

"Don't try your lies on me!" snapped Ana. "We know you're one of the biggest nationwide recruiters for the forces of T.H.E.M. You are my prisoner now, and we're going to A.H.A.H.A. secret headquarters where you will be interrogated."

Kandide, nervous, asked "What is T.H.E.M?"

Ana informed him: "T.H.E.M., the Total Human Equality Movement, is a worldwide conspiracy. They plan to unite the human race under a single government using the bond of human misery. They have been in existence for nearly two thousand years. They have thousands of subgroups under their control, including the Conspiracy of Bavarian Seers, the John Maple Society, the Homintern, Femintern, Masons, various totemic lodges, Y.M.C.A., the Campfire Girls, every single political party...."

Ana didn't finish listing the organizations of T.H.E.M., because the window behind them slid open suddenly to reveal John Boy, the hyperthyroid giant, pointing the muzzle of a sawed off double barrel shotgun directly at Ana's head, his face twisted into a hideous grin. "Give the pistol over to Mr. Smith." he cooed.

Ana passed the gun across in front of Kandide, and Smith snatched it away from her.

"What's going on?" asked Kandide, innocently.

Smith smiled at him and said "Things are never what they seem, my boy." Then to Ana, Smith said: "And now, who's whose prisoner? The interrogation you were looking forward to - we'll be sure to have it. Only now you'll be the interrogatee. Turn about's fair play, no?"

Kandide looked at the gleeful expression on the face of Smith, the terrified expression of Ana, the sinister leer and dimpled cheeks of John Boy, and began to suspect something was not right. He asked Smith "Where do I fit in?"

Smith turned and winked at John Boy, and the giant giggled. Smith said "You're just an innocent bystander, Kandide. So we'll merely subject you to an abomination or two, and let you go... unless..."

Kandide waited a moment to see if Smith was going to continue, but he didn't, so if Kandide asked "Unless what?"

"Well," said Smith, "I was thinking about offering you a job once we got to San Francisco."

"What kind of job?" asked Kandide. And John Boy giggled some more.

"I'm not sure, exactly," said Smith, "but you could be quite an asset to our organization."

John Boy moaned softly and Kandide began to suspect treachery for he could sense that Smith was dissembling.

"I'm sure," continued Smith, "that we could find you a very important position."

Kandide has had enough of Smith's mendacity and the giant's moaning. He senses that there is some unpleasant surprise in store for him if he stays with them, and for the first time in his life knows fear. He seizes the steering wheel and jerks it to the right. The pickup swerves off the road and down an embankment. The camper flies off as the truck rolls over and over and the stacks of loot in the back are scattered over the side of the embankment. The truck comes to rest at the bottom of the hill in an upright position.

The passengers have been badly rattled about but Kandide quickly recovers his senses and, seeing Ana's gun on the floor, tries to grab it but Ana gets it first and hops out of the truck and runs around to the driver's side.

Cars are stopping along the highway, people hoping to catch a glimpse of mangled bodies and perhaps take a snapshot for their loved ones. But when they see all the cash littering the embankment they rush from their cars and begin scooping it up and stuffing it in their pockets and purses.

Ana points the gun at Smith and tells him to get out of the truck. Smith gets out but immediately collapses to the ground. Kandide gets out while Ana is examining the fallen body and asks her what happened.

"Suicide." she says, "He must have had a hollow tooth filled with sodium saccharine. The cancer killed him instantly."

Ana puts the gun down her shirt and takes Kandide's hand, leading him up the embankment to the road, past the people who are still scooping up cash and are oblivious to them and past the corpse of John Boy the giant. The headless remains of the giant have been broken open to reveal an abundance of wires and gears.

Ana selects one of the empty cars parked on the shoulder of the road; Kandide and she have driven some distance away and have begun to relax before Ana speaks.

"Thanks for the help back there." she says.

"Oh, it was nothing." says Kandide with all the false modesty he can manage.

Ana pulls the car in at the first rest stop, parks it, reclines the seat, unleashes her size 59 EE breasts, and thanks Kandide properly. Both thoroughly aroused, for nothing so inflames the passions as death and destruction such as they have recently escaped, they consummate quickly and repeatedly, bodily fluids being discharged copiously, and thus formally introduced resume the drive now able to converse on a first name basis.

"Ana," said Kandide, "did you see the body of John Boy? He was completely mechanical!"

"Yes." said Ana. "He was a Libertarian."

"What's a Libertarian?" asked Kandide.

"The Libertarians," said Ana, "are a relatively new faction of T.H.E.M. The Libertarian Party is designed as a mechanism to neutralize any individualists with objectivist tendencies. They preach that government is the source of all problems, and if elected they will solve all the problems. They run on the campaign promise of dismantling government. They'll tell you that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain, and since everyone cherishes his right to complain, they really get out the votes. But the truth of the matter is that the only people who can rightfully complain about government are the ones who refuse to participate in it by either running for office or voting. Everyone else gets what he deserves."

"The way you tell it, Ana," said Kandide, "you make the Libertarians sound ridiculous"!

"Why, thank you, Kandide!" said Ana.

"A while back," said Kandide, "you were talking about all the organizations under the control of T.H.E.M."

"Yes, Kandide," said Ana, "but it would have been easier if I had simply listed all the organizations that do NOT belong to T.H.E.M."

"What are they?" asked Kandide.

"A.H.A.H.A." said Ana.

"That's all?" asked Kandide incredulously.

"That's all." Ana stated firmly.

"This T.H.E.M. must be a pretty large organization!" exclaimed Kandide.

"The largest." said Ana. "and it's so secret that the subgroups don't even know they belong to it!"

"Amazing!" remarked Kandide, amazed. "But tell me about your organization, A.H.A.H.A."

"The Atheist Heterosexual Anarchist Humorist Alliance is a group of individuals dedicated to opposing the evil goals of T.H.E.M. by explaining them in plain English. Once you explain their motives and goals, they are self-evidently ridiculous, and once exposed to ridicule, all their propaganda and sloganeering becomes ineffective. Without A.H.A.H.A. the world would have fallen apart years ago and we'd be living in the dark ages now."

"That wouldn't be very funny, would it?" remarked Kandide.

"Not at all." said Ana.

"Can I join A.H.A.H.A.?" asked Kandide.

"Kandide, my love," said Ana, "I'm sure we'd be pleased to have you. We're on our way to our secret headquarters in San Francisco now. Everyone in A.H.A.H.A is getting together to celebrate the completion of our greatest project. After the celebration I'll introduce you around and see if you can't find something you'd like to do."

"I know something I'd like to do." said Kandide. "Let's find a motel."

Kandide and Ana find a motel, eat, and then go to their room where, for the next eight hours, they break all endurance records for sexual calisthenics, performing indescribable gymnastic feats in tandem, drenching the furniture, floor, walls, and ceiling with the juices of their passion, and finally they fall asleep, exhausted, in each other's arms.

The next day, suffering from abrasions, contusions, sore muscles, and dehydration, Ana and Kandide awoke to find the afternoon sun sending stripes through the venetian blinds.

"Oh golly!" exclaimed Ana. "We'll be late for the celebration- our greatest project is due to be completed this evening!"

They showered and dressed quickly, bought food and drink to take with them, and drove off. Within four hours they had arrived in San Francisco overlooking the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and beautiful Alcatraz Island. Ana cautioned Kandide that they would have to be very careful, as the city was controlled by the evil forces of the Homintern led by the wicked mayor, Caspar Morose. She coaches Kandide in lisping and metacarpal flaccidity so he will not give them away.

They had to stop to refuel the car, which was almost empty, and the gas station attendant eyed Ana suspiciously. Thinking quickly, she said "Sex change." and the attendant raised his eyebrows approvingly, and they escaped trouble there. Then Ana drove down near Fisherman's Wharf, and she and Kandide go out of the car and proceeded on foot to the only men's restroom in the city, which was the secret entrance to the secret headquarters of A.H.A.H.A. hidden deep in the San Francisco City Sewer system. Ana and Kandide went into the men's room and, together, got into one of the stalls, which was a disguised elevator, and descended quickly and silently. They got out and sent the elevator back up and proceeded though the tunnels until they came to a subterranean amphitheater where there gathered all the members of A.H.A.H.A..

Kandide was overjoyed, after all his strange adventures, to find himself at last surrounded by truly sane people in the sewer. The seventeen of them, counting Ana and Kandide, were standing before

a large television monitor awaiting a special broadcast of the dedication of the first completely self-supporting moon base.

Ana explained to Kandide that A.H.A.H.A. had infiltrated astronauts onto the space team that was about to land on the moon and take over operation of the base. She said that once there, agents would claim the moon in the name of A.H.A.H.A., and would threaten to drop giant asteroids on major cities of Earth unless the other members of A.H.A.H.A., gathered here, were also evacuated to the lunar colony where they would begin to establish true humanity, indulge utopian fantasies and leave the factions of T.H.E.M. to squabble over the planet Earth. A renaissance would begin on Luna; a new dawn for mankind, while the planet Earth would wallow in its decadence and degenerate quickly into the dark ages. The gathering was waiting for the lunar shuttle to touch down and to hear the dedication of the base, which was to be read upon touchdown by the shuttle commander who was an agent of A.H.A.H.A.

The great moment arrived. The shuttle touched down. There was an expectant hush as the historic dedication was broadcast live from the lunar surface. The shuttle commander appeared on the TV screen. His grin could be easily discerned behind the fishbowl helmet of his space suit, and a brief exclamation of joy went up as the members recognized their comrade. The new commander of the

first self-supporting lunar colony began to speak:

"Roses are red, violets are blue, the moon is mine- to hell with you!"

A stunned silence gripped the seventeen earthbound members of A.H.A.H.A. Kandide looked at Ana and she said "He wasn't supposed to say that!"

"Betrayed!" shouted one of the men. "We've been betrayed!"

"That godfearing, taxpaying faggot!" shouted another. "He's keeping it all for himself!"

"Traitor! The goddamned traitor!" shouted another, shaking his fist at the TV screen.

The others contributed various epithets and vilification until suddenly an unexpected sound came from behind the group.

"AHAHA!" said the voice.

The men and women of A.H.A.H.A. turned around to face a group of hairdressers, interior decorators, florists, social workers and fashion designers dressed in puce jumpsuits. They were armed with large black truncheons. One of the group stepped forward. It was the mayor of San Francisco, Caspar Morose. In a voice that was high pitched and nasal, that sounded like pain, Casper spoke:

"Betrayed! Oh me, oh my! You motht certainly have been betrayed. It's deprething, I know. You thee, we've been betrayed too! Your charming shuttle commander wathn't thuppothed to thay that! On my! To hell with you, oh my goodneth! How terribly gauche. How perfectly vulgar, oh my!

"But you people are tho thilly! You never even thuthpected that your little clique wath a T.H.E.M. thpecial project! Don't you know? We couldn't have gotten along without you, really! If it weren't for you clever people, we'd have had rebellion after rebellion. You kept the people alive by laughter! Yeth! You taught them to laugh in the fathe of mithery, no pun intended. Why, the motht dethpicable thingth we can think of, you clever people turn into mirth! Humor maketh the wortht abominationth enjoyable oh, no, we couldn't have gotten along without you people.

"What'th the matter? You aren't laughing? Don't you think it'th funny that all along you've been working for the people you thought you were fighting? Where'th your thenthe of humor? We thtill have ourth! Let'th do thome funny thingth, boyth, maybe we can cheer the poor people up!"

The members of A.H.A.H.A. bolted as the T.H.E.M. Homintern approached, wielding their truncheons. Everyone split up in different directions. Kandide ran behind Ana as they headed for one

of the sewer pipes that led directly to the bay. Ahead of them, six Homintern soldiers appeared, blocking their path, tapping their truncheons on the palms of their hands or stroking them meaningfully.

Ana dropped to one knee, withdrew her pistol from her blouse, and let fly six large caliber slugs. The reports were deafening as they reverberated in the sewer pipes. Kandide's ears were ringing but he couldn't hear another sound as he followed Ana. They got to a pipe that sloped down through filthy water up to their knees and Kandide could see that, at the end of the tunnel, the water more than halfway filled it. They ran until the sewage was nearly waist high, and then found that it was easier to swim than to try to wade. Kandide looked behind him and could see no soldiers in pursuit. They swam on through the floating prophylactics.

Ana was now less than twenty feet from the end of the tunnel with Kandide close behind. Kandide looked up toward the end of the tunnel and saw, silhouetted against the light, a dark dagger shape sticking out of the water. He stopped and watched as the shape began to move into the tunnel, throwing a cascade of water to either side of it as it picked up speed. He shouted "Ana!"

Ana looked up and saw the fin approaching- but too late! She barely had time to turn around when the shark's snout broke the surface, and she was suddenly jerked beneath the water. Kandide could do nothing but watch helplessly as the fin continued to approach him, slowly, lazily. He knew he could never get away. He screamed.

And he screamed.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting up in bed, wide awake. It had all been nothing but a crazy dream. Relief swept through him as he realized that none of it had been real and that he was safe and sound in this the best of all possible worlds.

But his terror had caused him to hallucinate it was no dream at all. No ruby slippers for poor Kandide. A very real shark had just lunched on his lover and was about to take him as an aperitif. Kandide heard a clank of iron and a shaft of bright sunlight suddenly shone down on him.

"I thought I heard the lust tortured screams of an old lady!" said a voice from above.

Kandide looked up and saw someone peering over the edge of a manhole at him.

"For God's sake pick me up!" he shrieked.

"I've met some aggressive females before," said the person on the street above, "but this one takes the cake!"

"Hurry!" screeched Kandide in a voice shrill with terror. "Grab my hand!"

"God," murmured the person, "this is so intense!"

"C'mon, c'mon!" shrieked Kandide "Help me.!"

"Oh, well," said the man as he reached down and grabbed hold of Kandide's outstretched hand, lifting him up in the nick of time as the cavernous serrated maw of the hungry shark rose from the water to snap, missing his foot by the merest fraction of an inch.

On the street, out of danger, Kandide regained his composure.

"Thank you very much," he said.

"Why! You're not a little mutilated old lady in the throes of orgasm!"

said his rescuer.

"No, I'm not." Kandide frankly admitted.

"But you'll do. I have very catholic tastes."

"How can I ever repay you for saving my life?" asked Kandide.

"Well, to begin with, you can help me get this child out of my car and drop it into the sewer."

Kandide helped the man remove a small bundled body from the back seat and drop it into the open manhole. The shark was not disappointed after all.

"Whose body is it, er, was it?" asked Kandide.

"One of my students." said the man.

"Are you a guru or something?" asked Kandide.

"Of course not!" exclaimed the man. "I'm just an ordinary schoolteacher."

"You are?"

"Naturally! Of course, some people would label me a murder crazed sex fiend or a sex crazed murder fiend, or something, but in this enlightened age things once believed by the superstitious masses to be psychoses are now recognized as merely personal preferences. Orientations is what we call them."

"Well, thank you for saving me." said Kandide.

"Oh, it was nothing. I used to be a boy scout, you know."

"I did too." said Kandide.

"Why, what a coincidence!"

"Now I just search for meaningful relationships and the hidden meaning of life." Kandide continued.

"I used to know someone who was into that. Well, we all have our orientations." said the man. "The one I'm thinking of, who was into hidden meanings, looked an awful lot like you, you know. His name was Kandide."

"My name's Kandide!"

"Why, what a coincidence!"

"And you! You're Galahad Goodman!"

"By god you are Kandide!"

"How good to see you again, Galahad!"

"How good to see you! You must come out to my mansion and we can talk over old times! What are you doing at the moment?"

"Getting in your car for a ride out to your mansion to talk over old times?"

"Wonderful! Wonderful!" exclaimed Galahad as the two began to ride through the crowded streets.

"You must tell me how you are doing, Galahad," said Kandide. "Don't you work today?"

"I would, normally, but all the schools are closed, what with this sex killer on the loose... as if it were a holiday or something"

"And you're the sex killer?" asked Kandide.

"Now don't you think I'm doing it just to get out of a day's work." cautioned Galahad, "Sex killing is much more strenuous than you may have been led to believe."

"Why are you doing it, then?" asked Kandide.

"Why, I'm gathering material for my new bestseller; entertaining, but with a macabre sense of authenticity that compels the reader, gripped by suspense, to hasten to the next page lest the vividly horrifying skein of events overtake him!"

"But on a daily basis you teach literature in a public school?"

"I've discovered I have a natural talent for viciousness and brutality." explained Galahad. "The public school system is my natural home."

"But you're murdering little children!" sputtered Kandide with an undeniable note of disapproval.

Galahad turned the corner somewhat sharply.

"You don't have a mansion in the middle of a gravel pit, do you?" asked Kandide.

"Of course not, idiot!" snapped Galahad.

"Well, then," asked Kandide, "why are we driving into a gravel pit "

"Because sex killers, even if they say 'no' to drugs, need privacy in order to concentrate on the mass of details and preparation for their chosen form of expression. I like to rape and kill people here."

Galahad stopped the car abruptly and ordered Kandide out. Galahad emerged with a large caliber handgun he had taken from the glove compartment. It was a Masada 38, weapon of choice among

religious fanatics because it shoots backwards which is a pretty good guarantee of achieving martyrdom.

"Give me that gun." Kandide said.

"I'm going to shoot you with it." said Galahad, "Unexpected twist, eh?"

"I don't know." said Kandide, skeptically, "It seems a bit convenient to have a villain who's not rational you don't have to bother with a plot that way, do you?"

"I'm after characterization!" snarled Galahad. "I have to kill you or I sacrifice consistency and I won't be believable!"

"But since I've allowed myself to get into such a situation," asks Kandide, "doesn't the ultimate responsibility really devolve upon me?"

"You have a point there," admitted Galahad, "Plus, if you didn't do it, someone else would."

"I suppose we've all gotta go sometime." muttered Kandide, pensively.

"Someone's got to do it," Galahad concluded with a nod. He handed the gun to Kandide.

"I wish you wouldn't force me to do this." complained Kandide.

Kandide pointed the gun at his temple and pulled the trigger.

. . . c 1 i c k .

He tried again.

. . . c 1 i c k .

"Galahad, you damned incompetent! You forgot to load the gun!"

"I'm only human." whined Galahad. "But that's O.K. I've got a some tools in the trunk." He opened the trunk of the car and began rummaging. "I've got a tire iron, an ask, and a sledgehammer." shouted Galahad over his shoulder. "Which do you thing would be most graphic?"

"What's an 'ask'?" asked Kandide.

"For chopping wood." explained Galahad.

"Sledgehammer, probably." said Kandide.

Galahad got the sledgehammer out of the trunk and presented it to Kandide.

"It occurs to me that this is a pretty convenient way to resolve this conflict. What a cheap ending this is going to be." snapped Kandide testily.

"It doesn't matter how you end it," said Galahad, "as long as the scene is full of vivid imagery and violence. I agree on the sledgehammer."

"It will wrench the reader's guts, of course," said Kandide. "I can see your years as an author were not wasted."

Galahad smiled at the compliment. He stopped smiling as the sledge hammer slipped from Kandide's uncalloused hands and crashed down on his head.

"Oops!" thought Kandide. But accidents do happen…

For the next few minutes, Kandide busied himself dusting off his fingerprints from everything he had touched. He placed the handle of the sledge hammer carefully into the limp hands of the deceased so all the clues would point to suicide. Kandide walked away concerned about Galahad's childhood, which he thought must have been unhappy.

Kandide hopes to find Ana's car and tries hitchhiking in a likely direction and is picked up by an old man whose face is lined and creased by decades of fear and guilt and shame. His voice sounds almost apologetic as he asks Kandide his destination. Kandide explains, as best he can, where he thinks he left his car. The man, who looks hauntingly familiar, puts himself completely at Kandide's disposal in the mission of locating the car but suggests they get a city map and stop of at a fast food joint to eat and form a plan of action.

They stop at a gas station for a map and as the man gets it Kandide realizes why he looks familiar. It's because the man was once a president of the country and his likeness appeared on the front of a postage stamp. In fact, Kandide had licked the back of that face last time he wrote his dear mother.

"Clown Burgers!" exclaimed the former president as he returned with the map. "Just goes to show you can feed an American anything if you start 'em young enough and don't tell 'em what's really in it!"

They whipped in to the Clown Burger restaurant across the street and went inside. They stood in line and the former president ordered a 'Ham Bozo'.

"It's not really ham, you know." he said, "They call it 'turkey-ham' on the grounds that it is made from turkey but they don't tell you what the turkey's made from. The proper name is worm-rat-turkey-ham. You can extend the account of its origins a bit but that's not proper dinner table conversation."

Kandide ordered a chocolate shake.

"Want me to tell you what's in it?" asked the former president.

Kandide politely declined to be so informed.

They sat at a table. Suddenly Kandide could no longer contain his curiosity. He had recalled that this president was supposed to have been assassinated! He asked how this could be.

The man told him it was really less complicated than anyone would guess. "A president functions as a political diaper, really. He comes in and every citizen appreciates the change. The powers that be do their business as usual. After four years, the president has taken all the blame and goes away and you never hear from him again. Then the cycle starts over: political pro-wrestling where the winner gets to be the goat. It's the best system going in the world today because it maintains confidence in the government. We have vision if nothing else."

Kandide was disappointed. "Didn't you do anything else while you were in office besides soak up the blame for everything?"

"As a matter of fact," said the former president, "I made a great contribution to the space effort! It was a mechanism for linking two orbital space stations!"

"You're and engineer?" asked Kandide

"More important than that!" said the man. "I instructed the engineers! I directed NASA to make the device so it was free of sexual connotations. It was called the 'androgynous docking mechanism' and, thanks to my invention, international cooperation in space was make possible without any diplomatic scandal and the way was paved for the march of human progress!"

"What do you do nowadays?" asked Kandide, whose relativistic moral code gave him a profound intuitive sense of diplomacy.

"And then there was the time the CBW division in Ft. Dietrich released a virus designed to attack homosexuals and Haitian boat people. I directed that cover-up. A lot went on behind the scenes to which I, by virtue of my position, was privy."

"Are you unemployed?" asked Kandide, somewhat tactlessly.

"Yes," admitted the ex-president, "I'm an author. But I have written anemic prose that has been published in the New Yorker and some advertising copy for a successful toilet tissue marketing campaign."

Kandide was moved to pity for the ex-president, knowing where pursuit of a literary career must inevitably lead. He was about to form some sympathetic yet cautionary words when suddenly a man in a camouflage uniform, armed with a rifle, burst in the door and announced: "I'm Mass McMurder and you're all Dead McMeat!" He then began to systematically spray the occupants of the restaurant with a hail of bullets. The ex-president, keeping his wits about him, dove for cover behind a nearby family but Kandide didn't have the presence of mind to do anything but gawk like a rube in the city.

It seemed that time slowed as he watched the rifle finally swing towards him and point directly at his head. He heard a loud click and saw the man in camouflage frown in disgust at an empty clip. A shot rang out and Mass McMurder fled in sudden panic.

Most conveniently for our main character, the sound of a backfiring delivery truck had frightened away Mass McMurder before he could reload yet, even as the threat evaporated, chaos reigned as the camera crew of a satellite news network who had been broadcasting interviews with community residents concerned about drive-thru shootings being committed with increasing frequency by rival gangs: the Underprivileged Blips and the Disadvantaged Cruds, engaged in a life and death struggle over turf in imitation of their parents.

Kandide continued to gape like a rube as the cameraman and soundman pushed aside debris and casualties to make room for their equipment. With practiced speed and efficiency they were prepared for a live broadcast within less than one minute.

The reporter began speaking to the camera:

"Clownburger killings shocked San Francisco today! I'm Kim Mutagen, on the scene at one of the most brutal tragedies ever perpetrated in our fair city. Mere moments ago, a deranged gunman entered this local Clownburger Restaurant with an automatic weapon blazing!"

The network anchor, Lu Laguna, interrupted: "Can you see the bodies, Kim?"

"I can see the bodies, Lu. Ruthlessly butchered and strewn about the restaurant. Our producer is making a body count even as we speak and we'll update you as that information becomes available but men, women and children have been slaughtered indiscriminately as they enjoyed their lunch."

"Kim, can you tell if you think these slayings were more gangland style than terrorist style or execution style and can you tell if any of the bodies have been mutilated?"

"Lu, it appears that the bodies have indeed been mutilated but not, repeat not sexually molested. It appears that we have one survivor... I'm stepping over to have a word with him right now...

"Sir, you were a witness to this gruesome carnage; how do you feel, having experienced such a ghastly atrocity and what would you have felt if you had become a hostage and had to wait for congress to pass an arms deal before you had any hope of release?"

Kandide remained inert, gaping.

"As you can see, Lu, the survivor is in shock and is unable to answer our questions at the present time, however, our producer now has a body count: Four alleged men, thirteen apparent women and twenty seven suspected children. Our producer informs me that rigor mortis is in fact beginning to set in, Lu."

The cameraman panned over the corpses while the network anchor of Disaster News Network summarized with global perspective and commented: "This leads to the ineluctable conclusion that there

will be a sequel..."

To be continued...