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Alix IN ONE-WORLD-LAND
Preface
By: The Editor, R.B. Date: December 17, 2006
On December 6, 2006 (San Nicholas Day) I received in the post a very curious letter in a plain manila envelope. Curious, I opened it to find a one-hundred page manuscript with the following message attached to it on a poste-it note.
Santa Claus The North Pole December 6, 2006
Dear R.B., I know dear sir that you are very interested in your dear friend Alix. Below is an adventure (completely true) that he recently experienced--on this Thanksgiving Day weekend-- that will shed some light on this extraordinary fellow.
Yours Truly Santa Claus
P.S: I got one of my elves to produce illustrations for the story. Since my elves didn't have pictures of Alix, they used their fellow elves as models (which they used for some of the other characters as well.)
In addition, since my elves aren't good artists, they copied the style of Dr. Suess; which was a good idea, for you see we have many if his books here because, naturally, we intend to give out a lot of them.
P.P.P.S. As I only made a quick stopover in this land in November---for I went to simply reconnoiter this new found land and I soon got lost in a foggy storm and was immediately arrested on arrival--I have only a few scanty theories on the reality and raison d'etre of this underworld land: 1) It could be a training camp run by one Worlders to practice their takeover of the above world or 2) some sort of theatre in the round to sift out info from what they called 'subversives" and if possible turn them around to their side.
Some of this land's kids--esp. the ones Alix interacted with--must have been real children of One-World participants in this camp and perhaps he entered their school without the knowledge of their parents.
In addition some of the characters in the story were not playing parts but were their real selves, like the 'higher beings,' Uncle Sam, The Treasure Cat and Catlan.
Lastly, the common villagers there--called the Trhoos--were used as test subjects by the One-Worlders and lived their lives out entirely in this underland as any village in any land; they were on the whole very good and nice people. Apparently, it seems, these higher beings came down to help these poor Trhoos.
Some of the strange effects that appear to have happened to Alix in One-World Land were caused, in part, by him eating a drug called by some 'Happy Candy, with all this exacerbated by his cold and his fever at the time. Note that If Alix knew that some of the food that he ate was drugged he would have not ingested them.
P.P.P.P.S. Most of what I know of Alix's adventure I learned from him as we shared a prison cell in One-World Land and from a talk we had a little after he returned home. (On December 6, 06) He will deny this for he has proof that he was around friends all that weekend, but even though events seem to have spanned days in the One-World Land, Alix returned, with my help, almost instantly to the time he departed. (Time Travel, you say. Bosh. Well how do you think I deliver presents to kids all over the world; using Expedia.ca? Nah.) In addition, I wiped out most of the adventure from his conscious mind. However, this adventure was still in his unconscious and ask him and he will say that this story, in a strange way, rings really true.
P.P.P.P...S. Yes, it took place in a land under D.C., for wherever Alix started from, he ended up the capital, for it seemed someone kidnapped him and brought him there.
P*S. You might be wondering why the Trhoos celebrated Christmas on Thanksgiving day. Well, it seemed to be all part of the theatre in the round I was talking about and they play their part well. However the Trhoos seemed to have celebrated very seriously as if it was really Christmas day, for either they like celebrating it very often or the One-Worlders so mixed up their calendars that they really believed it was Christmas.
As Editor of this manuscript, I have corrected some typos and added chapter headings and footnotes. I thought the poem by Thomas Paine and quotes from Dickens were appropriate.
It is in, indeed, a very curious and wonderful adventure. Hope you enjoy.
The Liberty Tree By Thomas Paine
In a chariot of light from the regions of day, The Goddess of Liberty came; Ten thousand celestials directed the way, And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the gardens above, Where millions with millions agree, She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground, Like a native it flourished and bore; The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came, For freemen like brothers agree; With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued, And their temple was Liberty Tree.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old, Their bread in contentment they ate Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold, The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied, And supported her power on the sea; Her battles they fought, without getting a groat, For the honor of Liberty Tree.
But hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane, How all the tyrannical powers, Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain, To cut down this guardian of ours;
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms, Through the land let the sound of it flee, Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.
Beginning words from A TALE OF TWO CITIES By Charles Dickens
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
From the 'Wisdom of the North Pole' by a Mr. Santa Claus.
The U.S. is the nicest of countries, It is the naughtiest of countries.
Chapter 1. Down The Blab-it Hole
It was the Thanksgiving Day Weekend and Alix was very tired from overwork. In addition, he thought that a gas main must be leaking for he noticed a strange gaseous smell, but that couldn't be, for he wondered where the source could be in this heighborhood. All in all this made him wander about the place sleepwalking and he started to believe he was in a museum in Washington (perhaps the Smithsonian.) "I'm beginning to get tired of using this bullhorn to lecture museum goers about the problems in the Homeland," Alix thought, "Oh, when will my message get through to the public at large. Maybe I should just give up," he sleepily said to his fellow radio talk show host George, but George was nowhere in sight. With his eyes sometimes closing by themselves, he stood before a painting of the Liberty Tree and wondered how many knew its story and true meaning. Walking on, robotically it seemed, he peeped at the newspaper a patron was reading, but it had no politics or conspiracies in it, "and what is the use of a newspaper without politics or conspiracies?" Alix felt a cold breeze as if he was now outside, but Alix thought is strange, for he was still well inside the museum. So he was considering in his mind (as well as he could, for the ubiquitous uniformed 'assurance watchpersons' made him feel a little unsettled) whether the pleasures of taunting--I mean teaching, oops sorry--a nearby watchperson would be worth the trouble of a few hours or days in 'meditative seclusion' at a 'freedom center' when suddenly a man-in-black came up to him and said to him, apparently in some kind of code, "I'm the White Rabbit and work for the White King. He wants to talk to you. Follow me. No time to lose."
There was nothing so remarkable about that; nor did Alix think it so very much out of the way to hear the White Rabbit say to himself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! We shall be too late" (for these types from De Capital--D.C. for short--are always dithering about this and that urgent crisis); but when the White Rabbit took a copy of the Constitution out of his trench coat pocket, and looked at it, Alix started to his feet, for it flashed across his mind that he had never seen a White Knave with either a copy of the Constitution or the need to read it and burning with curiosity, he decided to follow him. As Alix did this, the White Rabbit got out of his tight thinking circle and started quickly in one direction. The White Rabbit was fast but Alix caught up to him in time to see him swipe a card at a door and enter through it; Alix was just in time to catch the door before it closed and he too followed through it. He noticed that he was now in some long dark tunnel or corridor. All at once on entering this place, he was hit with a cloud of some strange chemical and he became woozy on his feet. The corridor went on for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alix had not a moment to think about himself before he found himself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.
He was frightened at first when he realized he was falling very slowly; puffs of hot air were keeping him up in place: this was nothing remarkable for if all the hot air in D.C. wasn't channeled into underground vents, the whole place would have a meltdown. Alix had plenty of time to look about him, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First he tried to look down and make out what he was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; he looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with filing cabinets and bookshelves; here and there he saw maps, pictures and notices hung upon pegs. These notices all seemed to have the same message in slightly different forms: "Do not read," "Absolutely no reading, especially by Congress," "Conclusively, no reading, by anybody, and I mean anybody, even by the person who wrote it," and one that made Alix worry a bit, "Do not read this notice you are reading right now under penalty of death." Alix thought this a bit much: how could he avoid reading it: but that is the D.C for you. He took a document down from a bookshelf; it was labeled "AGENT ORANGE," but to his great disappointment it was all blacked out; he did not like to drop the document for fear of giving somebody underneath a paper cut, so he managed to place it on another bookshelf as he fell past it. An automated voice from many horn-like speakers blared out to Alix: "This document does not belong here. Shelf it in its proper place." Alix tried to argue with the voice that this could not matter so very much for the whole document was blacked out, but could not get any headway with it but gave up as the voice gradually faded to nothing. Then the hot air became quite thick--and as anyone knows who has gone to D.C. and has become inundated by the hot air there--nothing else could happen but one thing: thick, dreamy sleep. Alix felt that he was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that he was walking beside James Madison and was saying very earnestly to him, "Now, Mr. Madison, did you ever think that the very Constitution, the one whose writing you presided over, would ever be so abused," when Alix fell into a totally dreamless, restless sleep.
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