Episode 26

Woody woke up to the sound of horse hooves clattering on cobblestones. Prairie Flower was beside him. She was just waking up too. The morning sun was peeking through a set of venetian blinds. Woody looked around for his computers and saw nothing but a dresser and mirror. He looked at Prairie Flower who shrugged and said, "We're not in Amherst any more, Woody. Your father seems to have spirited us away to Lanai somehow. Cheer up, it's what you wanted."

Woody looked for an electric clock, but there was only a windup one on the dresser. In the hallway, a grandfather clock was beginning to ring the hour. Woody followed the hallway to the front of the house, where an attractive set of rattan furniture nestled against stucco walls. The ceiling seemed to be of bamboo, rising to a central point above the middle of the room. Woody looked in vain for any electrical appliances. "What century are we in?" he exclaimed.

Prairie Flower wandered out to the front door, where a daily newspaper was waiting for them. "We're in the same century, same month, and a day later than when we gave Nebraska back to your father. Oh, and there's a letter for you."

Woody opened the letter. It read:

Dear Woody.

As you can see, you have the tropical paradise that you wanted. I thank you for returning Nebraska. Your grandparents and cousins who still live there thank you, too. What troubles me is that you took it in the first place. Some of my advisors have urged me to make you stand trial, with the object of sending you to prison for a long time. That seemed unnecessarily harsh to me, but we still needed to make you pay some kind of a price. Who knows when some future President's relative (or the President himself/herself) might do something even more damaging? So, with the help of some very expert people who know how to travel between universes and dimensions, I have sent you to an alternative universe where electricity has not yet been invented. Your computer skills will be of no use to you there. I have taken the liberty of enrolling you in the University of Hawaii's Lanai campus, where you will finish the last three years of your education. After that, if you behave yourself, you can come back to my universe. Obviously, since your "tribe" now owns Lanai, you will get a taste of the dilemmas that face rulers, and I don't envy you. For one thing, you are a Hao Li on an island where indigenous Hawaiians won't be patient with your people. Chances are, they will quickly figure out that Prairie Flower is no more indigenous than you are. Please meditate on your sins. When you finish college and come back to us, I will (if I get reelected) have only two years remaining in my second term, so I will be a lame duck and have very little power. Maybe you will like the nonelectric life enough to stay where you are, but we may not let you. If, as I suspect, you turn out to be a dud as a leader, you'll be desperate to return. You thought I was a dud? Wait until you find out how hard it is to be a leader. Good luck. I think you'll need it.

Love,

Wilson Woodhed, President (for now) of the United States.

Woody opened the window and gazed out at the lovely landscape that surrounded the bulding he was in. The sweet scent of oleanders wafted into the room. Some birds with trumpetlike calls were perched on the branches of a tree. A pair of Monarch butterflies flew by, and a Ne Ne wandered by twenty feet away. A banyan tree covering at least an acre was in the distance. This was going to be interesting.

Paulh

08.07.24 Front Page

Back Issue Page