The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (9 page)

“What the heck was that?” said Melvin.

“It sure looked weird,” said Leon.

“And it sure ran funny,” said Larry.

The truth was, relative to the Inner and Outer Hornerites, the Greater Kellerites did look weird. They had no mechanical or botanical parts, and were tall and whippetlike and stood permanently leaning off to one side as if going around a bend, which, normally, they were.

They were also, it should be mentioned, huge: approximately three times the height of the Special Friends, with significantly less body fat. And longer legs. Their legs were long and lean from constant walking, and they never got tired, and their faces were slightly beveled and aerodynamic, and so, once you got them going, they were incredibly fast runners.

Dale, the fastest of all, reached Greater Keller just six minutes after he left the Border Area.

Nine minutes after Dale left the Border Area, the nation of Greater Keller, coffee cups clinking nervously against their saucers, listened as Dale concluded his report.

“Cliff, how are we doing?” President Rick tersely asked the National Enjoyment Assessor.

“Well, we’ve been better, sir,” said Cliff. “Although our coffee cups are full and we have, on average, four cookies remaining on our plates, the National Life Enjoyment Index Score has dropped to an alarming Three out of Ten. I would attribute this to anxiety associated with Dale’s report. In fact, Mr. President, knowing our people as I do, I foresee continued significant downturns in the NLEIS, if we do not in some way address Dale’s findings.”

“People will mope and feel guilty?” said President Rick.

“I’m afraid so,” said Cliff.

“Our coffee will not taste as good?” said President Rick. ” When regarding a beautiful vista or hearing a delightful bon mot, our hearts will not be as uplifted, due to we will be thinking of those people far away who need our help?”

“Basically, yes,” said Cliff.

“Maybe we should send out an Expeditionary Force,” said the First Daughter.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know,” said President Rick. ” I mean, if this new President is as bad as Dale says, isn’t it possible that he might do something bad to our Expeditionary Force? And therefore, wouldn’t it be better to keep everybody safe at home? That sounds much more Enjoyable to me.”

“Sir, the nation is tense,” said Cliff gravely. “It is asking itself how it can possibly stand idly by drinking gourmet coffee when an entire race is about to be disassembled. It wants to Enjoy, yes, but feels it will not be able to fully Enjoy until some sort of closure is reached.”

“I’m just really torn about this,” said President Rick. “If some of us get hurt, the NLEIS could easily drop below Three. It could even conceivably go into negative numbers.”

“We could Suffer,” said Lenore.

“We could Suffer, exactly,” said President Rick.

“On the other hand,” said the First Daughter, “if these people are as bad as Dale says, they could come here next.”

“Talk about Suffering,” said Kevin.

“They could destroy our coffee cart,” said the First Lady.

“They could disassemble us,” said Kelli.

“Sir,” Cliff whispered urgently. “The NLEIS is dropping like a stone.”

“Dang,” said President Rick, who had been looking forward to that evening, when he planned on passing around some surprise eclairs and challenging his nation to write a collective national sonnet on the pleasurable sensation of eating an eclair while watching a sunset.

But President Rick knew his people, and knew that the only sonnets they would be able to write now would be sad guilt-racked sonnets, no matter how many eclairs he fed them.

So President Rick ordered Elroy, Citizen #6, the National Coffeemaker, to brew five thermoses of coffee, and had Dale lead a brief preliminary training hike into Outer Horner, during which Dale demonstrated various techniques he had found useful for running in a straight line.

Then the nation of Greater Keller sprinted into Outer Horner, commenting, as was their national habit, on the beauty of the landscape through which they were passing, but in uncharacteristically terse, joyless voices.

*  *  *

“All of them, sir?” Jimmy the Special Friend was saying at that very moment. ” Even the ladies?”

“Even the kid?” said Vance.

“I do not see any lady or kids!” shouted Phil. “I only see some curvier Inner Hornerites with longer hair, and one smaller Inner Hornerite with two freakish brains! With Inner Hornerites there is no lady, there is no kid, there are only evil, which must be dealt with harsh, before it spread! Hurry, boys! Seize all remaining national asset, lift said national asses out from the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure plonto!”

So Jimmy plucked Carol and Elmer out of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, and Vance plucked Wanda and Little Andy out of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, and the entire remaining population of the once-great land of Inner Horner found itself suddenly suspended in the air, legs flailing, seconds from total extinction.

Which was when the Expeditionary Force of the Nation of Greater Keller arrived at the Border Area in five colossal, parallel, dust-raising arcs.

“What in the world?” said President Rick.

“Boys,” Phil shouted frantically. “Arrest this invaderment!”

The Special Friends had never in their lives seen anyone bigger than themselves. Suddenly they nostalgically remembered their previous careers as Mud-Consistency Testing Associates. Those were the good old days, when the worst thing that ever happened to them was that occasionally Edna inadvertently left them out in the yard all night, covered in mud.

“SPECIAL FRIENDS FLEE BORDER AREA!” shouted the first little man.

“STRIPPING OFF BIG RED SHIRTS, THEY RUN LIKE WIND!” shouted the second.

“ALREADY THEY ARE OUT OF SIGHT!” shouted the third.

“PRESIDENT PHIL SPEECHLESS WITH HANGING-OPEN MOUTH AND LOOK OF TOTAL SHOCK ON FACE!” shouted the second.

“ANXIOUS NATION AWAITS PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT!” shouted the third.

Actually, Phil felt, he wasn’t feeling all that well. He was feeling totally devanced in terms of how good he could think. Where was that stupid brain? Where dud he left it? That thing had been offen a long time. No wonder no salvation thoughts were come winging out of him. He wanted to communerate to these idiotic tall circle-walking invaders they couldn’t know how it was like, forced to live close to a national of inhuman puny coveting your wide open, claiming to be just as human, giving those hostility look just because you lived in a spacious total bounty of righteous plenty. Only suddenly he couldn’t seem to speak so super.

Phil’s legs gave out, and he sat on the ground near the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure.

“Sir?” said Larry. “Are you okay?”

It could not end this way, it could not end in any way but total triumph redemption of his dream of upward conquest, thereby him, Phil, in gold chair, and all the lessers, lying stretched out at his trenchant feet, citing his blessed nameplate.

“Cruel freight,” he mumbled. “Working crosswise to my bold national, fate interdicted my glorious, and due to nefarious, all grand uplift purposes crash down, flags droop, crowds go home.”

Then the weight of his brainless rack proved too much, and he slumped over, snagging his rack in the barbed wire of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure.

A final spark flew out of his nosehole, and he was still.

A great silence fell across the Border Area.

“Mistakes were made,” said Larry.

“Excesses were committed,” said Leon.

“Let’s get those poor people out of that cage, shall we?” said President Rick. “That doesn’t look very Enjoyable.”

Dale, Citizen #9, with the help of Kelli, Citizen #7, tore down the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, and the nation of Inner Horner stumbled out.

“Our advice, to all of you people, is Enjoy!” said President Rick. “Life is full of beauty. Why fight? Why hate? Learn to Enjoy, and you will have no need to fight, and no desire to! Love life, walk in a circle, learn to enjoy coffee! Will you do that? Will you promise to try that?”

The Inner Hornerites looked blankly at President Rick.

“Well, we have to be going!” said President Rick. “I’m sure you folks will figure everything out!”

And the Greater Kellerites started home in a loping victorious arc, their National Enjoyment Level an astonishing 9.8 out of Ten, due to their pride in their recent heroism and their anticipation of the many days of Enjoyable storytelling that lay ahead.

“I told Phil this would happen,” said the mirror-faced Advisor.

“So did I,” said the smiley Advisor.

“I said to him, Phil, honestly, who do you think you are, let’s not get too big for our britches,” said the mirror-faced Advisor.

“I think we all said that,” said the mere mouth.

“HOW WAS NATION SO EASILY DUPED?” shouted the first little man.

“WHY DID NATION IGNORE REPEATED WARNINGS BY MEDIA?” shouted the second.

“NERVOUS-LOOKING ADVISORS LEAVE AREA AT FAST WALK!” shouted the third.

“MAJOR MEDIA FIGURES BRAVELY FOLLOW STRANGE EXODUS FROM BORDER AREA, DETERMINED TO SEE WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!” shouted the first.

And the Advisors and media men left the Border Area, the Advisors discussing strategies for reminding the former President of how constantly loyal they had been to him, the media men feverishly whispering potential headlines out their rear-mouths.

The Inner Hornerites (Elmer, Carol, Little Andy, and Wanda), suddenly realizing they now outnumbered the Outer Hornerites (Leon, Larry, and Melvin), fell upon the Outer Hornerites with all the fury of a people who, naked and starving, had been imprisoned for days on end, in a cage, on the brink of extinction. Soon from out of the rising cloud of dust there flew a cotter pin (Melvin’s) and a Temperature Gauge (Leon’s), and Larry’s Frontal Hairpiece, and several unidentified Teeth Plates, and suddenly it was the nation of Outer Horner, inside the cloud of dust, that found itself on the brink of extinction.

Which was when, in the sky above the Border Area, there appeared a hand so massive that its golden ring could easily have encircled the entire Border Area. Across its wrist ran a vast flower garden, one of its three fingers was mechanical, in its palm was what appeared to be a shimmering blue lake.

The Outer Hornerites and Inner Hornerites had all thought about the Creator, and talked about the Creator, and some of them had even prayed to the Creator, but none of them had ever dreamed the Creator was so big.

The fighting stopped, the dust cloud settled, the nations of Inner and Outer Horner stared up, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

Then a second hand descended, with a vegetable garden running across the wrist, and two mechanical fingers, and a frozen lake in its palm, holding a spray can, and the Creator’s left hand sprayed the Border Area, and the Outer and Inner Hornerites fell instantly asleep.

YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH, TRUST ME, YOU ARE.

The two hands, working together, gently disassembled the Outer Hornerites.

Then they gently disassembled the Inner Hornerites.

Using the Inner and Outer Horner parts, they rapidly constructed fifteen entirely new little people.

The only parts they didn’t use were Phil’s parts. Phil’s brain (retrieved from under his couch, covered in chip-crumbs and lint, giving off the hissing noise a Type C brain makes when off-gassing) they dropped into the stream, where several of the new fish, mistaking it for a misshapen fallen apple, began eating it. Phil’s body, they mounted on a platform, after first spray-painting it black and mounting a plaque beneath it.

“PHIL,” the plaque read. “MONSTER.”

Then the massive hands lifted the new people up to a pair of giant indescribable lips and whispered, in a fundamentally untranslatable Creator-language, something that meant, approximately: THIS TIME, BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER. REMEMBER: EACH OF YOU WANTS TO BE HAPPY. AND I WANT YOU TO. EACH OF YOU WANTS TO LIVE FREE FROM FEAR. AND I WANT YOU TO. EACH OF YOU ARE SECRETLY AFRAID YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. BUT YOU ARE, TRUST ME, YOU ARE.

Then the left hand picked up the green string that constituted the boundary of the Short-Term Residency Zone, and the right hand picked up the red string that constituted the Inner Horner border, and the left hand took away the remnants of the Peace-Encouraging Enclosure, while the right hand planted a sign reading: “Welcome to New Horner.”

Then the hands did that dusting-off thing hands do when they’ve just finished a difficult piece of work, and withdrew, majestically, through a large white cloud.

Soon the fifteen new people woke up, stretching and

yawning. Where the heck were they? And who the heck were they? They felt sort of sore. Apparently, they concluded, by looking at the sign, they were New Hornerites, and lived in New Horner. Apparently, they concluded, reading the little name-tags around their necks, they each had a name.

They were, they all agreed, just amazingly hungry.

On the way to a nearby apple tree, they passed a hulking black mess on a platform.

“What is that thing?” said Gil.

“It’s a Phil,” said Clive.

“What is a Phil?” said Sally.