CSI: American Carnage (Saturday, April 27, 2019)
SUNLAND NM – Little Timmy, pup reporter, finally escapes the Theater of the Jumbled Word and stumbles out onto the fairway. Roller coasters continue to rattle up mountainous slopes, poise at the top, and then clatter down. The hurdy gurdy music flashes and burns, red and blue lights sizzle, and the fairway is filled with the smell of grilling bratwurst. The ringmaster, twirling his stick, saunters out to the fairway behind Timmy. Leibchen, he says, follow me. The Professor makes his way from the theater. He is angry. The Professor says, Wait a minute here. Timmy slumps to the asphalt holding his head. The Professor and the rest of the strike force rush to his side. The Professor says, Are you alright? Timmy says, There’s something in my head. The pressure is intense! Timmy’s friend from the resistance pot luck, Sarah, bends over and then looks up at the professor. She says, It is the autocrat. He fills everything. He is like a small worm that crawls into your ear and begins to grow, chewing the brain and twisting and sliding down until he fills the whole body, always eating, always consuming. But the autocrat cannot exist without a host. He is like any parasitic intruder. We must extract him. The ringmaster taps his stick. He says, Beachtung! Attention! Attention! That is so silly, leibchen. Here all is so beautiful. Here all is so great. We do only what needs to be done. We protect. We entertain. Your worries dissolve in our distractions. There is nothing to worry about! There is everything to worry about! Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself! What more is there? Richts! Rien! Nothing! We take care of you and only ask that you take care of us! What could be more fair, mein hübsches? Now if you follow me, I will take you to the Temple of Transparency and its WORLD FAMOUS flight simulator! He pirouettes again and cocks his invisible hat. The ringmaster says, Suis moi! Folge mir! Follow me! You shall see gravity defied in complete Sens-Or-Round Sound! You will see the earth rising up and the sky lowering down! You will see spectacular events! But do not worry. You will make your way through flying toasters at break-neck speed. All to see if you are up too the task! The professor says, What is the task? The ringmaster twirls, he struts, he says: To give the investigation credibility, what else. The question is not whether you can fly between clouds and flying birds and shooting streams of lava. The question is: Can you land the plane? –Saturday, April 27, 2019