Romney Shirked

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It was a dark and stormy night. Having strapped the dog atop the car, the Romney family embarked upon the long road to oblivion and mormons. The trip itself was uneventful, disturbed only by the flapping of dog ears in the lonely wind! It was, of course, fate. Fate! Fate to which Mitt would never submit or acknowledge. Mitt had to make this trip by car. As a matter of principle, he would never allow his dog or family aboard a craft that did not have roll down windows!

Ms Mitt sat by the window, her head thrown back defiantly in defeat. One of her two legs stretched across floorboard. If she expected Mitt to be aroused, she was sorely disappointed.

The window frame trembled with the speed of motion despite the fact that the speed limit was posted --20 MPH. The window pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while, not often, and even then not worth mentioning. She was disappointed to learn that they were only fireflies.

Mitt --for just about one second and a half --considered surrender, completely, utterly! That did not last long. Even as he tried to forget everything, he suddenly remembered it all. 'Darn it', he said aloud! 'Frap! Why can't I just permit myself to feel? Let go—drop the controls—this is it.'

Then --as if awakening from hypnosis --he remembered the dog! The dog! But just as suddenly, he forgot the dog. He remembered the suffocating airplane trip, nearly choking, banging on the un-openable, the window, the CLOSED window, the window he could never open.

Then he remembered being humiliated in public debates. He remembered being laughed at when his pants fell down. In his nightmares, he fled the scene in 'official' Mormon Doodiepants and photographed by vermin: photographers and reporters! Reporters! Reporters! Then he broke out in a sweat! He was never certain that the empty chair did not talk back to Clint.

Somewhere on the edge of his mind, under the sounds of Lawrence Welch and his All Mormon Orchestra, he heard the sound of train wheels. They knocked in an even rhythm, like a good mormon orchestra --boring! Bored --he could relax now. He heard the wheels and was, therefore, reasonably sure that the car was still moving forward. But 'why?', he wondered. Why? Surely, he thought, the warranty had run out on the tires.

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