My Spyfly was ready and waiting on the wall of the room wherein the worshippers were to assemble, my mole in the parliamentary cleaning ranks having informed me that the PM, Justinda Ardeau, was scheduled to give a beginning of year pep talk to her new quiverful of first-term MPs.
Well before the time, the excited MPs surged into the room, quite obviously agog with eagerness to be in the presence of Saint Justinda of the Flatulent Unicorn, and most of them were unable to sit still in their seats. When all twenty-two of them were seated, my Spyfly revealed to me that there seemed to be, on the surface, a gender-specific imbalance. There were no obvious examples of agenders, genderfluids, gender-transitionals, bicuriouses, androsexuals, gynosexuals, demisexuals, grey asexuals, variorienteds, cishets, polyamorouses or any other of the myriad genders that we are now expected to figuratively embrace.
It is rather difficult to detect some of these hitherto unknown genders of course, but surely there should be at least one of each represented? Perhaps there were, but how would you know? Not all the whacky ones identify themselves with pink hair.
My thoughts were interrupted by an excited and rather shrill cry of “She’s coming, she’s coming”. One of the MPs who appeared to be a womxn, looked rather puzzled, and remarked, “President Xi is coming? I thought xe wasn’t taking over until next year, when we become the Chinese province of Kowtow-aRoa. That’s the rumour I heard.”
“She, not Xi or xe”, corrected a colleague.
And sure enough the door burst open dramatically, and in wandered a colossal set of fangs followed closely by the sainted Justinda herself, amid wild scenes of frenzied excitement. She was accompanied by that fearsome looking minder, Hellish Quark. She held out her arms in a saintly pose and waited for the acclamation to abate. This took some time, but silence was at last restored, aided by an extremely ferocious glare from Justinda’s wet nurse.
“Well, it’s good to see you all here”, remarked Saint Justinda, “and I hope you all appreciate that I had to cut my holiday short by three months to be here. But duty calls — it’s no bed of roses being the dict… rather, shepherd of a flock of five million mindless sheep. But I have lockdowns to instigate, money to pay to Mouldy protesters, prisoners to hug and build hotels for, farmers to shaft, private land to confiscate and on it goes, so here I am. By the way, those of you fortunate enough to be in the front few rows may be able to catch a whiff of my new perfume. It’s called ‘Einhorn Furz’ or politely, ‘Unicorn Flatulence’, and I had it especially imported from Schweinfurz in Germany.”
A few front row noses wrinkled and stayed wrinkled and a greenish tinge appeared on a few fainthearted faces.
“The more gummy bears I eat, the better it smells”, said Justinda, giving her characteristic barf-inducing wink. “When I was President of the Young Communists…”, her voice trailed off and she winced as a sharp poke in the ribs from Hellish Quark brought her back from her nostalgic diversion.
“My dear comrades”, she continued, “before us lies a really cruisy and untroubled year. We have received a total mandate from the flock of five million to do whatever we like, and whatever we like is exactly what we will do. Hate speech laws, lockdowns, mandatory vaccination, mandatory masks, more gun control…” She shivered with excitement. “There will be no defiance or resistance. The flock will submit to everything I demand as usual, due to their seeing me as the only source of truth, and as for parliament…” a smirk flickered across her cadaverous countenance, “there is no opposition to speak of, and they are powerless to do anything to stop me.
“That Seemore fellow may need to be flicked away like an annoying insect from time to time, but he and his party, like the Notional party, pose no threat. So I say unto you,” again spreading her arms wide like Charlton Heston, a.k.a. Moses, parting the Red Sea, “go forth and multiply elsewhere… ah no, wrong quote; rather, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow something or rather happens; I forget what it is…”
The twenty-two rose as one, and cheered their acclaim for some time, as nobody wanted to be the first to stop and be branded subversive, which is a capital crime in any Communist dictatorship worthy of the name. They would probably still be cheering now if Saint Justinda hadn’t again raised her arms. They stopped immediately.
“It will be an easy three years for you all”, she said. “You won’t need to do anything apart from collect your salaries and perks. An occasional patsy question for those of you who can read; those unfortunate enough to have been elected to an electorate seat may have to turn up to the electorate office occasionally, but just nod and do nothing and the constituents will soon stop coming.
“List MPs can make inflammatory comments on social media if they feel like it. A few caucus meetings and Labour Youth camps to attend, and that’s about it. You can spend time with the whanau and tamariki, avoid mahi, say a few kia oras, ka kites and nga mihis, always call Auckland Tamaki Makaurau, and don’t forget the artificial macron on Tamaki.
“Always say Aotearoa, not the real name, although when President Xi takes his place, the name may change again. Ohh… and I’d recommend that if you have a bit of time you learn Chinese, and throw out any copies of Winnie the Pooh you may have. President Xi is apparently opposed to Winnie the Pooh for some reason. Thanks very much, my one horse ponies.”
With that, she turned and swept out of the room. The MPs dispersed, as did your intrepid eyewitness, who wandered home feeling rather disturbed by the scene he had just witnessed.
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