Witch Hunt Inc.

Los Angeles Convention Center. Located in the heart of heartless LA. It shimmers in the endless heatwave like a Jorge Luis Borges nightmare of an infinite shopping mall. Business has been good lately. One con after another, pun intended. Last week, defense contractors pushing face-rec drones the size of bees. This week, WITCHCON 2037. Hunter-gatherers of a different kind. And very big business.

Hall after hall, booth after booth, auditorium after auditorium, the place is packed. Monster crowd, broad assortment. Industry reps, industry pioneers (in person!) industry wannabes, customers, the odd reporter, brats playing Witchfinder, and significant and insignificant others. Crowd’s in a good mood. Happy babble echoes off the walls. They’re all laughing, joking, swiping coin for t-shirts, hats, hoodies, mugs, cozies, and other swag. You’d think Steve Jobs just came back from the dead. Or Brad Ragnarok was still alive.

Brad is the star attraction today. You want to talk industry pioneers? Start with Brad. He pretty much invented the whole damn industry, right after the Second Great Awakening.
Today, some of you chumps might get to meet him.

A kid in VR specs crashes into Brad like a bull. Right in the gut. Brad doesn’t flinch, what with his amazing abs and all.
Brad smiles. Kid takes off his blindman specs.

“Sorry,” kid says. “Oh, I’m real sorry.”

“No worries, kid. What’s your name?”

“Tommy,” says the kid.

“Tommy What?”

“Tommy Smith.”

Brad takes the specs, looks through them.

“Well, Tommy Smith. Fun’s fun, but you’d best play safe. Dial back the filter, huh? Don’t want to keep running into folks, huh?”

“No, sir.”

Hands specs back. Tommy does a frantic voice command; the specs shade back to a reasonable tint.  Kid returns specs to Brad for his approval. Brad looks through, nods, hands them back.

“Well, that’s a whole lot better. You play safe, Tommy Smith.”

“I will, sir. Thanks.”

Tommy runs off. Crowd’s looking at him in awe. Got their iPhones out, so it's lights, vid, action. They even start applauding. Brad waves off the fanboy idolatry.

“Kid’s got to learn sometime.”

They nod like the chumps they are.

“Gotta run, folks. It’s showtime!”

They applaud again. Chumps.

Brad smiles, turns his back, walks off. Whispers, “Tommy Smith. Search and cross reference family attendance WitchCon.”

Little bastard has to be a witch. But that can wait.

Brad goes through the front doors of the auditorium, does his prizefighter run up the center aisle, bounds up on stage, takes the lectern.

“How you doing, folks?”

Big applause.

“That’s what I thought. You’re all witch-hunters, and I’m the man who started the hunt. You all know that. And you’re all doing OK. But you know you could do better, and that's why you're here. I’m about to tell you how. Now here’s another question.”

Pause for dramatic effect.

“What does a witch look like?”

An image pops up on the massive high-def screen behind the stage.

A color photo of Margaret Hamilton, in full costume and green-skin makeup as The Wicked Witch of the West. 

This gets a big laugh.

“Yeah, this one's easy to spot. But that’s only in the movies. It’s not that easy in real life. The truth is, a witch looks like you. Or me. Or him. Or her. Or me.”

They gasp with shock. Then sigh. Oh, that’s what he meant.

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Witches hid out for centuries. They hid out during the old time witch hunts. They kept it up for a century or two when the witch hunts went away. America nearly went to hell as a result! The great scientific minds of the Godless Age figured the climate was going to hell because of carbon in the atmosphere! They assumed abortion was a woman’s right to choose, not a human sacrifice. Wells were poisoned, crops failed, wombs became barren. Why, there had to be a scientific explanation, huh? Well there was! What was it?”

“Witchcraft!” they all shouted.

“You’re damn right. By the time our leaders figured it out, most of the real science had been lost! And then they came to me. You all know the story.”

Yeah. Brad’s big success story. Security Solutions Inc. (aka SS) was his baby. It specialized in private prisons and detention centers. Big data nearly put him out of business. Quantum computing and all that shit. It was predictive, if not prophetic. Why lock people up when you know the crime before the time? Why detain illegals, when they can’t get in anymore?

The answer is, you don’t. You find another business model. Damned if Brad knew what it was. Had two lean years.

Then a wave of religious fervor swept America and saved his ass. The new holy roller President and his cronies came to Brad. Supplicants, on their knees practically. They were convinced all our nation's problems boiled down to witchcraft. They had no idea how to find the bastards. Could he help? 

Sure. Brad was happy to help. His competitors refused. These American ayatollahs were convinced the country was rotten with witchcraft. Wouldn't big data work on that? Brad's competitors said, well, gee, what with black magic and all they can fool the computers. Utter bullshit, of course. The truth was they just couldn't stomach it. But Brad could. And he got the job. 

And Brad said the job was good. 

Once upon a time, the United States government paid Brad to lock people up. Now, they paid him to find witches. Sweet deal. Something like quadruple billing with no oversight. Flat monthly charge. Per diem. Then fee for service plus expenses, and SS gets to seize the assets of the witches once apprehended. Paid a whole lot better than throwing teenage punks in a cinderblock hellhole.

Sweet deal, man. Sweet, sweet deal. Now, just between us chickens, Brad no more believed in witches (then or now) than he believed in the man in the moon or a flying purple people eater hiding under the bed. Come on! But, hell, if you pay Brad to find the witches and sons of witches, he's sure as hell going to find them. And Brad did. 

Now, Brad doesn't say any of this in public. The official history of Brad's new business model is bullshit. PR, hype, a cover story, dig? The truth is ugly, so Brad let the chumps believe the happy lie.

He'd sold today's show as a tips and tricks kinda deal. As per usual, Brad plans to say exactly nothing. You think Brad's giving away trade secrets? You got another think coming, pal. This is a commercial in disguise, folks. But Brad's good at this shit.

Time to give 'em what they want.

Flashes the crowd a big smile.

"So, how do you find a witch who doesn't aim to be found? A cunning witch who's got the Devil and black magic on their side? Who's got a network of other witches backing 'em up?"

Brad smiled wider. Knowingly. 

"Start with the network. Witches thought it was their strength! Turns out it was their weak point ... and their downfall. Find one witch, make 'em name all the other witches in their branch of the coven. Then work your way up. Get the names of the whole coven. Then the coven above that. And then the next one. And ... you just keep going. One name after another."

Names bubble into Brad's head. One after another. Sean McCormick. Goth-type artist, little shithead. Lasted for hours. Bastard had balls, Brad had to give him that. At least at first. Then he spilled. Name, after name. Jeff Harkness, Alissa Thompson, Joe Whatsisname. His mother was a suspect, too, but she'd vanished into thin air.

"Of course, you've still got your lone wolves. This righteous nation blocked the digital evil of the world system outside the USA, and destroyed all the magic-related paraphernalia in the bonfires of 2023. But countless bad apples squirreled stuff away. Ain't in no coven, doing their witchcraft in secret. Practiced spells and so forth when nobody was looking. So how do you see what they're doing in the dark? By bringing everything to light. As you know, we relied on spirit-filled men of God to reveal the iniquity among us. The suspects always deny the accusation. God sees all—but God's ministers sometimes err. Yes, mistakes can be made. How can you be sure?"

He smiled. They knew that one.

"Fire and water, of course. We set up state-of-the-art hydraulic containment units to drown suspected witches until they confessed. If some poor innocent says nothing and drowns, their soul's with God."

Brad's dear departed wife, for example. Teresa, bless her heart, kept her mouth shut. Glaring at him through the glass the whole time, even after the water covered her mouth until she couldn't help but open it, gasping for breath, getting water instead. Hate in her eyes, until her eyes went dead. Sorry, honey. But it sure beats a messy divorce.

"As to fire, well, why reinvent the wheel? Or in this case, the stake."

Teresa's feminazi support group explored that option. Quite a spectacle. Sparks flying up like a campfire in the night. Brad stood there, smiling. While Brad was dealing with Teresa, those whores just screamed and screamed at him. (All that 20th century jive about civil rights and freedom and shit.) Now they just screamed. Bye ladies. See you in hell. 

Brad keeps it up.

Colorful anecdotes that say exactly nothing. Now Brad's reached his favorite point in the talk. The pitch. Sign these chumps up for seminars, intensive sessions and all that horseshit. 

But one lady in the audience is breaking his flow. She's waving her hand in the air.

"Sorry, ma'am. No questions in the presentation," says Brad. "We've got a FAQ on our site ... Do I know you?"

"I don't think so. Can I come up?

The obvious answer is no. Brad avoids audience participation like the plague it is. But today, hell. She's pretty. Got something about her. Why not?"

He waved her up. She ran up the aisle, just like Brad did at the start of the show. Zips up the stairs, then walks up to him at the lectern.

Good looking woman. Red hair, green eyes. 35 or so. Something about her. Something stirring in Brad's pants.

"Well, hello little lady. What's your name?'

"Alice McCormick."

McCormick?

"OK, Alice. What's your question?"

"It's not exactly a question."

She laughs.

"I just think it's kind of funny ..."

"What's so funny?"

"All this. This witch-hunting thing you all got going for yourself. Sweet deal you've got." 

Sweet deal. Exact same words running through Brad's head a few minutes ago. Shout for security? Nah. She's harmless. 

The lady giggles again.

"So what's so funny, ma'am?"


"Well ... you." Laughs. "All of you! All you high-tech witch-hunters, chasing after witches. I think you're hilarious, I really do. Like dogs chasing after cars. Did it ever occur to you ... Did you ever even ask yourselves ..."

Talking with her hands, giggling. A ball of St. Elmo's fire slowly grows in her hands. Crackling energy. Reflected in her eyes. No. Inside her eyes.

She laughs uncontrollably. The fireball grows.

"What the fuck did you plan to do if you ever caught one?"

She laughs insanely, then opens her hands. The sizzling energy leaps out and fries Brad like a mosquito in a bug zapper. The crowd screams and tries to run.

It gets bad after that.

Angerdream

Anger is the most seductive of all human emotions. Fear hurts. But anger feels good. Rage feels like righteousness. It begins as a voice in your head. The speech you're not going to say. The speech that begins with "You." Then, surprise, surprise. You hear the words coming out of your mouth.
And it feels so goddamn good.
Rage tells you these are words of prophecy.
You're Moses, Jesus and Morpheus rolled into one.
And somebody needs to hear your prophetic words.
A very, very bad person.
This son of a bitch needs to hear your speech.
This bitch needs to hear your speech.
And if you're very goddamn lucky, the hate coming out of you is nothing more than words.

The Doorway Effect

Then the next thing you know he died. He didn’t even notice it at the time. He’d been working on the unified field theory. Yes, Einstein’s great white whale. Not string theory or any of that other idiotic nonsense. Inelegant fads. Ugly models patched together with mathematical duct tape. No, sir. God did not play dice. And God doesn’t patch, kludge, tape, solder or trowel. The truth is beautiful. The truth is simple. And he had the simple formula. Let "R" stand for reality. It follows as the night to the day that …

As the simple truth dawned, he realized that he was “dead,” so to speak. This was, of course, the reason why he’d worked the formula out. His insight flowed from the clarity that “death” affords, though he disliked the term. (Vague! Inelegant!) Linguistic wrangling aside, being a "dead," non-corporeal intelligence certainly had its advantages. Unconstrained by the parameters of local space-time, his mind (metaphorically speaking) could see around corners. Cheating? No, math is math. Truth is truth.

Let R = Reality. R =

He had to write it down! Comically, he realized that there was nothing to write with. No matter. (Ha!) The truth burned in his brain. (Mind, intelligence, whatever the hell or heaven it was.) Ineluctable, indelible truth. This lambent knowledge could never be erased. Good thing.

Because he was (if such a thing were possible in this half world) distracted …

By sound. Or something that he experienced as sound. It came in the form of periodic bursts of indiscrete happiness. Like the whoops which irritating teenagers make whilst jumping into a pool.

Confident in his knowledge of the theory of everything, he "looked" around for the source of the "sound."

At this point he perceived an indeterminate series of beings. Beings of light. All standing in a queue. He then realized that he also was standing in that queue. And the queue was advancing? Approaching? A sort of whirlpool? A vortex?

A doorway, yes of course.
A doorway.

Each being of light approached this maelstrom of light and color. Before leaping into it, each being hollered (with what vocal organs he couldn’t begin to guess) something vulgar along the lines of “Yippee!” or “Whee!” He was determined not to follow their example. Referring here to their rude phatic utterances, and not the transition through the doorway. He stayed in line, and patiently awaited his turn.

The basis of his equanimity was easy to grasp.
Upon seeing the doorway, he immediately knew what it was.

This phenomenon was some sort of soul recycling station, to put it crudely. A mechanism of reincarnation. (Oppie would be pleased. And perhaps was.) Dead intelligences enter, and are promptly returned to some new life.

And therein the danger presented itself.

Earthly cognitive psychologists refer to the “doorway effect.” Simply put, passing from one room to another creates an Etch-a-Sketch effect in the brain. Having moved from Room A to Room B, the brain promptly dumps the bulk of its short term memory. It thus forgets the previous experience of Room A and resets, allowing for the creation of a new memories in Room B.

But he wouldn’t forget.

R =

It was now his turn. He would never.

The doorway swirled with garish color.

He leapt through. He didn’t say “Wheee!”

A giant hand slapped him on the ass. He screamed.

He had no idea why.

Review: "Pet Sematary"

Just saw the remake of Pet Sematary. A scary movie and a respectable Stephen King adaptation. It also
offers many valuable lessons … 

• If you have kids and move to a rustic, rural home in Maine by a busy highway, be sure to put up a fence before you let them play outside.

• If you have a cat, keep it inside as well until you put up the fence. 

• If, despite your best efforts, a maniacal trucker flattens your cat, don’t panic. 

• Avoid pet cemeteries created by unknown people who can’t spell. 

• Avoid pet cemeteries where processions of creepy children in animal masks bury their dead pets. 

• Avoid creepy guys who look like John Lithgow. Above all, don’t let them talk to your child. 

• If a creepy guy volunteers to take your dead cat to a “special” pet cemetery beyond the official “Pet Sematary,” politely decline his offer. 

• Cremate your dead cat for best results. 

• If a maniacal trucker flattens your child, don’t dig them up and bury them in the “special” pet cemetery.

• Before moving to Maine, research the property to make sure it’s not near any cursed real estate. 

• To stay on the safe side, don’t move to Maine at all.

Earworm

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

The relentless ditty flooded her mind. An earworm, along the lines of Punch Brothers or Let’s All Go to the Lobby. Only four lines. She knew them by heart, because she wrote them. But everyone knew them by heart. Once you knew the ditty, you couldn’t stop knowing it. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

That was the point, OK? Nutty mega-billionaire came up with the concept. Gave up on finding a new planet, turned his attention to saving this one, figured the death ditty would do it. Hired every major ad agency to create the perfect earworm, hers included. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

Crazy idea, and they said so to his face. You want to pay us? Fine. We'll take your money, but it'll never work. But the man insisted. They took his money and did the job. No guilt, right? It'll never work. Hey, most of the jingles didn't. They cranked out reams of morbid doggerel. Pure crap. None of it worked. Until they got to her copy late one night. Ditty #457 worked. Too goddamn well.

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK. 

The surplus humans were gone now. And then some. Billions of people took the ditty’s advice and checked out early. The suicide solution had the desired ecological effect. Cities in ruins, forests coming back, animal habitats rebounding. Their tree-hugging employer would've been pleased. But he'd checked out, too.

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

She tried to hang on. Wake up, get up. Then keep on keeping on, like some stupid sole survivor in a cheesy, post-apocalyptic movie. Just one more day. After that, just another day. Repeat as often as necessary. And she did, she really did. She kept it up. But she knew she couldn’t keep it up forever. 

Kill yourself, it’s the only way.
Kill yourself, better do it today.
Kill yourself, don’t bother to pray.
Kill yourself, it’ll all be OK.

In his heart of hearts, she believed in the power of advertising.

(C) 2019, Marty Fugate. All rights reserved.

Barely restrained psychotic reactions on Trump's state of the union address

What is the sound of an empty barrel thudding down a flight of stairs?
Trump.
Auggh. Take this vision from my sight. I’m reminded of Michael O’Donoghue’s “needles-in-the-eyes” bit.
Trump, Trump.
That speech of his. This is a steaming load of manipulative, strawman-bashing, deck-stacking, flag-waving, tear-jerking, demagogic bullshit.
Trump, Trump, Trump.
The Churchillian parallelisms. Trump, evidently reads Cicero. Which is to say the abused nerds who did his homework read Cicero. Or hack sitcom writers. This isn’t Trump’s voice. This is their idea of his voice. They’re writing for the Trump character. Kramer would say this, Trump would say that. The material writes itself!
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
The special pleading. The shameless sob stories. The steaming farce of statistics and non-sequiturs. “60% of all illegal Mexican immigrants stabbed 40% of America’s Girl Scouts. That reminds me of the story of Linda, a former Girl Scout who’s now in Special Forces, who was assaulted by a Mexican Drug Mule Sex Trafficker and chopped into small pieces and buried in the desert only to come back to life through the power of the American flag.”
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
And what’s with the cokefiend sniffing? I expect Trump to start screaming at any moment. “What you lookin' at? You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!”
Applause, applause.
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
Make it stop! Make it stop!
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
Take this vision from my sight!

The Undisputed Truth

-->

What Putin would say to Trump is he'd been shot with a dart of the Undisputed Truth serum from “Kill Bill.”

Donald, Donald, Donald. Being with you is always a pleasure. Ha. I always feel so much smarter in your presence, ha-ha. But seriously. Ha-ha-ha. Allow me to speak plainly. Ha-ha-ha-ha. To speak the unspeakable truth that we both understand …

Truth! Agggh!

What the fuck is "truth"...?

Agghh! 

Despite my years of practice, for chemical reasons, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to lie! What a "bummer," as you Americans say. 

How shall I put this …

Democracy is a fucking joke, yes? “All men are created equal.” Wrong. There are two kinds of people in this world. Winners and losers. Winners win, losers lose. That’s the way the world works. Winners don’t debate with losers. Winners don’t ask permission from losers. They just take what they want. “Democracy” pretends that’s not the way it is. But it’s an idiotic lie that only losers believe. You and I know better, Donald.

We are winners, you and I. Yes? Of course, yes.

Winners perpetuate this lie. To losers, the fiction of democracy is a comfy rationalization. “I’m not a serf! I’ve got a voice in the system!” Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, sure you do, loser. Put your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone. Work will make you free, asshole.

It’s a sweet little grift we’ve got going.

But sell it to your peasants, not me. Do I have to state the obvious?

There is no “we,” Donald.

Stop smiling at me! That was not a compliment!

You fucking useful idiot! How shall I explain this so your simple mind would understand?

OK.

Hypothetically, Donald. If I found the most hateful cartoonist at “Krokodil” and had him draw a caricature of bullshit American democracy, that caricature would look exactly like you.

Donald Trump IS America. Get it?

You don’t get it. Seriously?

Why do you think we fucking helped you? Because we liked you?

Idiot!

When you crash and burn the losers of the world …

Stop crying, Donald. Please. This serum is …

Nevermind. Forget it.

You are still my friend.