Alice: That was a very sad story.
Tweedle Dee: Aye, but there's a moral to it.
In the
first episode, poor Alice suffered the indignity of being swallowed by The Tube, sullied with disgusting infotainment scripts, assaulted by cable clowns, and more. To make matters worse, she found herself in the hands of a frenzied crowd.
This resolved itself in a surprising way, but the second episode left Alice with few choices. Alone, armed only with her wits and an outdated Press Pass, we last saw her walking in to the Lion's Den itself, the center of madness, The White House.
What will become of our poor Alice? Will she ever make it out of this Disney Fun House? Will they send her to Gitmo -- or worse? For the answers to these and other questions, follow our heroine as she heads over the fold in the conclusion of Through The Looking Glass...
Alice knocked on the door of the White House. No one answered, so she turned the knob. To her surprise, it was not locked. She opened the door and looked around. Off to her right was a man wearing a dunce cap. He was busy writing on a blackboard.
"Pardon me," said Alice.
"There's a lot of that going around today," he said. He stopped writing and turned around to look at Alice. He looked very familiar, but for some reason Alice could not recall his name.
"Can I help you?" he asked Alice. "Do you work here?" asked Alice. "I don't remember," he replied with a shrug. "You don't know if you work here?" Alice asked with an edge of irritation creeping in to her voice. "Oh, I know where I work," he said. "I just can't remember where that is."
"That is nonsense!" cried Alice.
"What?" He asked indulgently.
"What you just said," Alice replied in exasperation.
"My offer to help?" He asked, looking genuinely puzzled. "No! What you said after that!" Alice exclaimed.
"All I said after 'that' was 'is," he answered. "I can see how that might confuse you." He winked knowingly and continued, "after all, it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is, doesn't it?"
"What are you talking about?" Alice asked as her blood started to boil. "I thought I was talking about what you were talking about," replied the man in the dunce cap. He looked at her in a confused way and asked her, "What are you talking about?" Restraining her impulse to throttle the gnome, she stalked off towards the main hall.
Halfway down the hall, Alice passed a conference room. Inside she could hear the sounds of battle. Actually, it sounded more like the sound of boys playing at battle. She peeked inside. The room was a complete shambles. Chairs and desks were all thrown around the room. The carpet and drapes were soaked in what looked like blood. The men were running around the room throwing water balloons at each other. Every time someone got hit with one he would shriek and fall down. Alice quickly realized the water balloons were filled with red paint. One player seemed to have the job of running over and planting numbered flags on the casualties.
Alice watched in amazement for some time as the men ran around the room, hid behind chairs and desks, and bombarded each other with water balloons all the while shouting "kaboom!", "blam blam blam" and "gotcha!" As the casualties mounted, the room grew quieter and quieter until it was silent. The flagman surveyed the room and counted the flags. When he was done, he pulled out his last remaining flag and declared "General Kagan...Winner!" Upon hearing this Kagan, who had spent the whole time cowering behind an overturned chair trying to look inconspicuous, leapt to his feet yelling "I won! I won! I knew my plan would work!" He and the flagman did some sort of victory dance while the losers sulked out of the room.
Kagan saw Alice standing by the door holding her Press Pass. "Here to cover the war games?" he asked. "Is this really how generals plan for war?" Alice replied, more than a little horrified. "Oh... no," said Kagan. "This is how we plan for war." This answer confused Alice. "Aren't you generals?" she asked, pointing to the back of Kagans costume. "Oh ....goodness gracious no!" he laughed. "War is too important to leave to the generals," he scoffed. "Besides, we are better than mere generals. We are armchair generals. We outrank them," he said with obvious pride. Realizing Alice had no idea what he was talking about, Kagan explained it to her as if she were a dim child. "Since we are not armchairs, we are not bound by the rules of furniture. Since we are not generals, we are not bound by the rules of military conduct. Since we are not bound by the rules that apply to either armchairs or generals, we get to create our own reality. Therefore, we outrank everyone." He bowed deeply anticipating her applause.
Instead of being greeted with applause, Kagan was greeted with the loud blast of a shotgun from the next room. Alice instinctively dropped to the floor. Her heart was pounding wildly as she looked up to see what would happen next. Kagan stood frozen in fear. His jeep looked like it was leaking oil. A puddle was forming around his shoes.
Suddenly, the door to the adjoining office was flung open and two lawyers came rushing out. They were both clutching their bloody faces and howling. The one in front ran over Alice and tumbled to the floor in a heap. "Pardon me," Alice said as she struggled to help the man to his feet. "Oh stop saying that!" he yelled. "It's not funny!" The second lawyer jumped over them both and ran for the front door. "Those are real bullets!" He screamed. The lawyer who had tripped over Alice scrambled to his feet and chased after his wounded comrade. They struggled briefly with each other as they both tried to be the first out the door.
Alice heard a chuckle behind her and turned around towards the open door. Through the smoke, she saw a man lighting a cigar off the barrel of his shotgun. "You a lawyer too?" he asked as he ejected the spent shells from the chamber and pumped the fore-end to reload. "No! No!" cried Alice. She held up her Press Pass. "Not a lawyer! Not a lawyer!" Cheney squinted at the Press Pass. "Hmmm.... journalist,eh? I think you guys are out of season." He lowered the gun barrel. "You didn't see anything did you?" Alice shook her head. "Good girl," he said.
"It was self-defense. Pre-emptive self-defense. Who knows. Someday someone somewhere might want to sue me and they might hire those guys to do it." Holding up a finger to emphasize the point he continued, "Even if there is only a 1% chance these might be the guys, I say it's better to be safe than sorry. You can quote me on that." Alice nodded and desperately searching for a graceful exit line said, "I ...uhhh...I need to go write that down before I forget it." Cheney pointed upstairs. "File your story from the press center. Now get out!" Alice didn't need to be told twice. She headed upstairs, two steps at a time.
Arriving at the top of the stairs, Alice headed for the Press Area. She opened the door and stopped. They were having a huge party. High school cheerleaders on roller skates were zipping around the room, filling champagne flutes and handing out chocolate dipped strawberries. A bunch of guys from Fox News were sitting in the back watching a wet t-shirt contest on the TV monitor. David Gregory and Suzanne Malvaeux were competing against Dana Bash and some blind guy in three legged races around the room. Up front an older woman was sitting by herself. Alice went up and sat next to her.
The old woman seemed nice, but sad. "Welcome to the zoo," she said. "It wasn't always like this. I remember back when JFK was president..." A loud gong interrupted her. Everyone dropped what they were doing --literally. Cards, bottles, cheerleaders, everything got dumped in a big heap in the back of the room and everyone scrambled to find an empty chair. Several people tried to knock Alice out of her seat, but the old woman next to her kept shooing them away.
A Kazoo Marching Band struck up Hail To The Chief and everyone stood up. The president entered dressed like Don Quixote. As everyone sat down, the president pulled out a baton and started to conduct the Kazoo Marching Band in a special rendition of The Impossible Dream from the Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha. Alice was surprised he was such a good baritone.
When the president finished his serenade the crowd went wild! They all reached under their seats and pulled out confetti and noise makers, applauding and cheering like there was no tomorrow. The crowd was chanting "encore" when the old lady stood up and glared at them. Sheepishly, the crowd stopped chanting and sat down... some grumbling about the lack of fun. The president, clearly annoyed, looked at the old woman. "Helen, something on yer mind?" he asked. "Actually, I was going to ask a question, but I think the new kid should go first." She said while nudging Alice with her elbow.
Everyone looked at Alice. "C'mon kid, we ain't got all day here... you gonna ask a question or not?" The president asked in the most disdainful manner possible. Alice cleared her throat and asked the question that had been eating at her since she arrived, the only question that mattered. "Pardon me," she started. Everyone, including the president laughed. "But are you all insane?!" she concluded.
Everyone gasped. The president didn't react well to it either. First his eyes bulged. Then he turned red. Then he started to hold his breath. His face started to turn blue. When his tie turned blue, people started running for the doors and yelling "He's gonna blow!" Alice watched in amazement as his head started to expand and steam began pouring out of his ears with a roaring noise. It got louder and louder... his head got bigger and bigger... and then ....
Alice woke with a start to find herself back in her apartment.
She was a little shocked to notice the roaring sound was still there, so she looked around half expecting to see the president getting ready to explode. Instead she saw the ever-helpul Mrs. Edwards standing by the window bathed in the most beautiful halo of golden light. She looked positively angelic. She was saying something, but Alice couldn't hear her. Mrs. Edwards smiled and leaned over. When she moved away from the window, the bright light of the morning Sun forced Alice to squint. Mrs. Edwards turned off the vacuum cleaner and repeated herself. "Sorry for all the racket, but someone had to clean up the mess." She pointed to the remains of the flower pot and dirt by the windowsill. "Besides, I figured it was time for you to wake up and get to work."
"No need to apologize," Alice said brightly. "You're absolutely right. Time to get to work."
And that is exactly what she did.