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Satire
I, your intrepid eyewitness, usually have no problem with dreams during the night hours. My normal practice is for my head to hit the pillow, a few vague thoughts of improvements to my fly spy device to flit through my mind, and then to be swallowed up in the bliss of eight hours of the sweet and dreamless refreshment of sleep. Then I usually bound out of bed on waking, much in the manner of the Tasmanian Frolicking Wallaby, and commence my day’s activities.
A couple of nights ago, however, my sleep was disturbed by a dream, or more accurately a nightmare, as it featured the PM, Justinda Ardeau; she of the flashing fangs and predisposition to impreciseness of factuality.
The scene seemed to be a courtroom, or possibly a legislative chamber of some sort. A wizened figure sat in the judge’s seat, smelling strongly of sulphur and brimstone, and somehow I knew that this was Ruthless Ginsburg, by some means temporarily removed from her fiery but mainly peaceful afterlife.
She rapped shakily on her sound block with her gavel, and croaked, “Impeachment proceedings by members of the team of five million, versus Justinda Ardeau. The team asserts that the accused has made, and I quote, ‘a pig’s-ear’ of her handling of the Chinese Wuflu,” she frowned at this term, “and requests that she be immediately impeached, and precluded from further public office.”
She glared with her red eyes around the room and continued. “Firstly I will call her defence attorney to present witnesses. Mr Winshton Petersh, please call your first witness.”
Mr Petersh stood shakily and barked, “The defence calls former-President Joe Hiden.”
After a short pause, a bent figure shuffled in and made its way to the witness’s podium. After it took its place, Mr Petersh asked, “Are you acquainted with the impeachee, Mr Hiden?”
Joe Hiden peered at Justinda and requested that he be permitted to move closer as his eyes weren’t what they used to be. Given permission, he approached the nervous-looking Justinda but moved behind her, grabbed her shoulders and sniffed her hair deeply. He screwed up his face and stepped back hurriedly. “I don’t recognise the smell,” he said, “rather horsey,” and moved to the front of Justinda and peered at her. “Have we met before?” he asked. “You look rather like a lying dog-faced pony soldier to me. And a one horse pony,” he added sharply.
“I was President of the Young Communists,” Justinda replied.
“Ah, one of us,” said Joe relaxing a bit. He then stepped back and rolled up his trouser leg. “Look at this,” he said. “The hairs on my leg are flat. Not standing at all. A very bad sign. Now President Xi, he can make the hairs stand anytime. A bit of cash and they stand like pine trees.” He stood slowly up and looked at Justinda again. “Nope, sorry,” he said. “Not up to standard. Impeach her before I take her outside and give her a thrashing.”
“Mr Petersh,” quavered Judge Ruthless, “why do you bring witnesses who don’t know the accused?”
“It was hard to get defence witnesses,” said Petersh. “But the next one knows her.”
“Very well,” said the Judge, “Next witness.”
Winshton next called Covid O’Lyin, the Hugetub muckraker, who frowned at Justinda and reminded her that her next instalment of cash was overdue.
Next came Flusher Collins, who told the court that she didn’t want to be confrontational and that she would have taken the exact same course of action, but done it better.
A number of other witnesses came and went, the last being Fancy Pelosi who came in seemingly inebriated and eating a large ice-cream. She grabbed Winshton’s papers and tore them up before hobbling away with a whisky bottle she’d found under the papers.
The Defence then declared its case concluded, and the Prosecution called its witnesses. The prosecution attorney was a chap I didn’t recognise, looking a bit like Rumpole of the Bailey.
Witness after witness came from the “Team of Five Million” and described how their lives, livelihoods and businesses had been destroyed by Justinda’s ‘kindness’. Then came others who described how they had been denied the opportunity to be with dying loved-ones or to visit families during the harsh lockdowns. Others told of the loss of family members due to lockdown induced depression or loss of livelihood.
Epidemiologists (and strangely, none of them had pink hair), described how lockdowns were totally ineffective, and how states and countries with less harsh rules had no more cases than areas with oppressive Justinda-style lockdowns.
Eventually the witnesses were all heard, and the Judge called for a vote. By some means or other, (this was a dream, after all), the team of five million was able to vote.
Judge Ruthless called out the results after the tallies were made. “Against impeachment, 1,995,695. In favour of impeachment 3,004,305.” She frowned looking very unhappy. “The court will adjourn for two hours, for reasons which you won’t be informed of.”
The team of five million and other assorted officials trooped out. When they returned after the two hour break, there was a machine sitting beside the podium.
Judge Ruthless cleared her throat and remarked, “This fine machine, known as a catalystic dominioniser will just be used to collate the results. It is not connected to the internet…” Under her breath, she muttered something inaudible, wrote something on a sheet of paper, and handed it to a clerk who fed it into the machine. The Judge then looked at the screen in front of her and said. “The machine says that the final revised result is: For impeachment 1,995,696 and against impeachment 3,004,304. The court declares Justinda Ardeau to be unimpeached, even if somewhat impaired.”
Justinda jumped up and neighed in excitement. The cheated three million members of the team were not happy.
…I awoke at this point, swearing never to eat cheese and pickles before bed again, and lay there for a few minutes before climbing sombrely out of bed. It was only a dream, but still…
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