Chapter 23-B
Then Pharaoh Sunbeam of Egypt went to battle the nameless new king of Big Funland: and President Josiah entered the battle and fought against Egypt, for the sake of his siblings from the northern caravan, which were captives in Big Funland; and Pharaoh Sunbeam slew Josiah. So, his staffers carried President Josiah’s cadaver back in a rickshaw from Megiddo, the mountain where he met death. And they embalmed Josiah, and placed him in an ornate sarcophagus that was embellished, inside and out, with astrological arcana. And the populace elected his son, whose name was Jehovah’s Second Ass, to be their new president.
So they had a great ceremony where they anointed Jehovah’s Second Ass; and he was twenty-three years old when he began to govern.
And the first thing that happened was that the Egyptian pharaoh who had slain Josiah now came and tied up his son, Jehovah’s Second Ass, and tossed him into a jail pit in Big Funland, to impede his ability to govern Eldorado. Pharaoh Sunbeam also levied a tax on the caravan. Then the pharaoh elected Josiah’s other son, whose name was God-rump, to be president in place of his father, despite the fact that Jehovah’s Second Ass, though imprisoned, was still technically president. And after singlehandedly earning the popular vote in a landslide to elect this new prez over the existing prez, Sunbeam changed the president’s name from God-rump to Jah-rump. I wish I were kidding.
Then, after thinking about it, Pharaoh Sunbeam decided that it would be better if the rival president were dead, so that the pharaoh’s personal choice, President Jah-rump, could be the unequivocal leader. Therefore, the pharaoh of Egypt slew Jehovah’s Second Ass.
And President Jah-rump repeatedly raised taxes on the caravan’s populace, to give Pharaoh Sunbeam all the money that he asked for.
Jah-rump was twenty-five years old when the pharaoh elected him president; and he governed eleven years in Eldorado.
Chapter 24
President Ozymandias of Wonderland then made a vassal of Jah-rump. But after three years of vassalage, Jah-rump turned and rebelled. However, the moment Jah-rump declared sovereignty for his caravan, he was attacked by Chaldees, Funlanders, wild prophets from the woods, Persian Fire-Worshippers, and Canadians. All these nations came and destroyed the southern remainder of the caravansary.
Then President Jah-rump kicked the bucket: and his son Jehovah-booty got elected in his stead.
Now Egypt was no longer a problem for the caravan, because Wonderland had come and dominated everything. Meet the new boss.
§
President Jehovah-booty was eighteen years old when his term began, and he governed in Eldorado for a whopping three months.
At that moment, Ozymandias of Wonderland besieged the caravansary. And President Jehovah-booty surrendered: he came out of his office waving a white flag (which means “I give up”), followed by his mother and all the members of his staff. Thus, the caravan became a possession of Wonderland.
Ozymandias carried out all the treasures of the House of the LORD, and the treasures of the presidential residence, and stripped all the gold away from the interior of the Temple of Solomon. He also exiled all the people who still dwelt in Eldorado: all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and smiths; even ten thousand captives. None remained but the poorest sort of people. And he carried away Jehovah-booty to Wonderland, along with the president’s mother, and his wives, and his officers, and the soldiers: all these he carried captive out of Eldorado into Wonderland.
And Ozymandias democratically elected a new president to replace Jehovah-booty: it was Jehovah-booty’s uncle, whose name was Madhouse Manager; but Ozymandias changed his name to Zookeeper.
President Zookeeper was twenty-one years old when he began to govern, and his term lasted eleven years in Eldorado.
Chapter 25
But President Zookeeper rebelled against Ozymandias of Wonderland; therefore, in the ninth year of Zookeeper’s term, Ozymandias came and built forts all around Eldorado; and the country was besieged for two years. So, of course, a famine prevailed in the caravan; there was no food for anyone.
Then the great wall around the country was breached. All the soldiers that had remained defending the caravan now abandoned it: they escaped through the garden of the presidential residence. And President Zookeeper himself tried to flee in the direction of the Great Basin; but the shock-troops of Wonderland caught him at the edge of the jungle. They then took the president to a courthouse and put him on trial: but instead of bringing in witnesses to testify against him, they brought his own children before him, and slew them. Then they put out his eyes, and bound him with brass fetters, and dragged him to Wonderland. (This is the last we will ever hear of President Zookeeper.)
§
On the seventh day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of Ozymandias’s reign, the shock-troops of Wonderland ravaged the caravan. They burnt the Temple of the Hairy One, and the presidential residence, and all the tents of the common folk, and every important person’s house got burnt with fire. And the foreign army broke down the walls that surrounded Sweet Beulah Land. And any pilgrims of the caravan who remained in Eldorado were carried away. But the guard commander left the poorest people in the land, to dress it and to keep it.
Now the Temple of Solomon had already been ransacked and stripped for its gold, but the shock troops dislodged and stole the brass Pillars of Justice, and the bases, and the brazen sea, and they chopped away anything made of brass, and brought it to Wonderland. The pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass, they confiscated.
Also, anything that remained of gold, or of silver, such as the firepans and the bowls, the guard commander kept for himself.
(Regarding the two huge pillars and the sea of brass mentioned above, which they looted from Solomon’s Temple: those items were so heavy, it would be impossible to weigh them; likewise, no one could calculate their worth. I wonder where they are today.)
§
And the master guard took Man the robo-butler and Nicholas the robo-bellboy, and all the copies and versions of these machines that had been mass produced, and he brought them unto the president of Wonderland, to see what he would say. And President Ozymandias slew them.
Thus was the southern remainder of the caravansary’s populace carried away from Eldorado: now the whole caravan was exiled.
And as for the extremely poor people who remained in the land, whom Ozymandias did not bother to scrape up, they were governed by a pseudo-president named True Yahweh, an archon-for-hire. Then, when all the dregs who were left behind saw that there was something like a new prez or overseer half-governing them, they scrambled up to him and asked questions. And True Yahweh answered, saying: “Fear not. Stay in the country: if you serve Wonderland, it shall be well with you.”
Then it came to pass that one of the impoverished southerners remaining in Eldorado who believed that he was of the royal bloodline assassinated True Yahweh the pseudo-president. So all the rest of the poor folk who were left in the land ran off to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Wonderlanders.
Now recall that President Jehovah-booty had been taken captive when Ozymandias deposed him. Jehovah-booty then spent thirty-seven years in Wonderland Maximum Security Prison. But, at that point, Ozymandias dropped dead; and the leadership of Wonderland was taken over by his son, whose Christian name was Evil Murdock. Once he became president, Evil Murdock pardoned Jehovah-booty and set him free him from prison. For whatever reason, Evil Murdock spoke kindly to the ex-president of the southern caravan, and he appointed Jehovah-booty to be the second highest officeholder in Wonderland. (So it was just like when Joseph in Egypt became the Vice Pharoah and enslaved everyone.) Jehovah-booty exchanged his prison garments for an executive V.P. suit; and he was fed regular meals for the rest of his life.
—END OF SCROLL—
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