“Order!” shouted Hellish Quark in stentorian tones. The rabble seated around the meeting table continued shouting at each other and ignored the command, thus forcing Hellish to produce a gavel the size of a young sledge-hammer and whack a metal gavel plate with it, producing a noise like Big Ben on steroids. This had the desired effect, and the riffraff fell silent.
“When I say ‘Order!’ I mean ‘Order!’,” barked Hellish, visibly enraged. “I’m calling this extraordinary meeting of the Committee of Public Fear to order. I think most are here, and I remind members that we’re all on the same side. Unseemly verbal fisticuffs will not be tolerated.”
“Well, ze called me xe,” petulantly muttered a pink-haired monstrosity seated next to a weird-looking black-rimmed spectacle-wearer. “Ze knows that my pronoun is per. You know it goes ‘per, per, pers, pers, perself’.”
“My pronoun is not ze,” snapped Faker (the black-rimmed one). “You know perfectly well that it’s e. ‘E, em, eir, eirs, eirself’.”
“Enough,” roared Hellish. “I know that pronouns are important, but we must rise above this. Klouse would not be happy if he were to hear of this unseemly behaviour.”
The mention of Klouse caused all those at the table to turn to face Geneva, and cross themselves in the shape of a llama, the beast to which Klouse bears a remarkable resemblance.
My Spyfly sat on the wall in a strategic position, observing proceedings and rubbing its front legs together, a new innovation designed to banish any doubts as to its authenticity.
All seated again, Hellish proceeded. “We all seem to be here,” she said, “except, of course, Justinda. I was sure that ve is in OurTearRoar today.”
“I think that faer pronoun is actually ‘fae’,” said Bendy, “fae, faer, faer, faers, faerself’.”
“Last warning!” roared Hellish, “or I’ll tell Klouse. Now, where is that woman?”
At that point, there came a sound from the corridor which could have been mistaken for a broomstick being leaned against a wall, and Justinda stormed into the room.
“Someone has parked in the WEF witches’ spot,” she shouted. Then she spotted Hellish, “Oh of course, it was you.” She plonked herself in her chair at the table and glanced around at the other members of the committee.
What an eerie bunch of grotesque and creepy oddballs sat at that table. To give the reader an idea of the weirdness present, the participants were Hellish Quark, Rashly Broomfield, Fliouxsie Whales, Shorn Bendy, Michael Faker, Rod Klaxon, and of course, the loathsome and contemptible Justinda Ardeau faerself. Another individual was sitting apart in the shadows but I was unable to identify him.
“As you know,” proceeded Hellish, “this extraordinary meeting has been called to discuss the wonderful opportunities the current situation presents to us as a committee to rark up the fear factor amongst the ‘army of five million’ which is the term we are now using. Hopefully, we’ll be able to whittle that down to four million or less if we can get more people quadruple boosted. And of course, the use of remdesivir will help get the superannuation bill down. Does anyone have any good fear-inducing ideas?”
“We can use the new variant fear factor,” declared Rod Klaxon who proudly wore a T-shirt proclaiming ‘Suicide is Fun – Get quadruple jabbed’. “I think we should rename the BA.5 variant as BA.Death to be followed closely by BA.Double Death, and BA.Worse than Death.”
A murmur of appreciation rippled around the table. Hellish nodded.
“Yes, a good idea,” she said approvingly. “You were well overdue for one. Anyone else?”
“Monkey-pox needs to be improved upon,” remarked Fliouxsie earnestly. “I’m working on making the blisters luminesce in different colours, preferably changing every ten minutes or so. I may be able to get them to be all the colours of the rainbow at the same time, which will be great, and somehow very appropriate. We can rename it Rainbow-pox as a tribute to those most likely to catch it.”
“Don’t forget that Wuhan and Ukraine labs are currently working on making it transmissible much more easily,” said Rashly Broomfield. “It would need to be renamed at that point. Perhaps it could be called the Rabid Gorilla-pox, or the Black Death Taniwha-pox…”
“We’d never get away with that,” snapped Hellish. “Queen Matooter would want several billions in koha for the use of that.”
Justinda spoke up. “Masks,” she said. “Masks are the answer. Two classes of people; masked and unmasked. Yip, yip, that’s the way it is. Mask ’em up again.” She sat back in her chair.
“Mask-wearing is dropping off, like the masks,” said Hellish seriously. “That’s one of the reasons for this meeting. We must make everyone afraid to be unmasked. It must become a stigma to be seen without one. Even in bed, people must be shamed into wearing them. In the shower, the beach, the swimming pool… everywhere. But don’t look so distressed,” she hastened to add. “Of course, this doesn’t apply to us elite.”
The unidentified bloke in the shadows spoke up. “You’re a bunch of hypocritical idiots,” he thundered, “you all know that the science says that masks don’t work. Justinda and Rashly have both publicly stated that. Even Blind Freddy knows they don’t work…”
“That’s blindist,” shrieked Fliouxsie. “How dare you!”
“Oh my Klouse!” roared Hellish, “it’s our archenemy and nemesis! How did you get in here? I’ll…”
At this point, the meeting descended into chaos, with all the members screaming at each other and shaking their fists at their archenemy, who calmly strolled out of the room grinning broadly.
Unfortunately, the non-stop rubbing together of the fly’s front legs produced enough heat to cause the fly to explode at this point, and so I was unable to view the end of the carnage. I was told by a reliable source that it was epic. There may also have been some accidental damage to two broomsticks propped up in the corridor outside.
