Baby Read online

BABY

  Andrew Wheeler

  Text Copyright © 2012 Andrew Wheeler

  All Rights Reserved

  Millicent the baby was so small and light that the wind picked her up in the playground one day and blew her halfway across the world.

  "Uh-oh," said one passing seabird to another. "That can’t be good," but Millicent landed on a fluffy white cloud which carried her all the way to Africa. When the cloud dispersed, she fluttered down through the atmosphere and landed in the back seat of a fat and ruthless dictator’s open top convertible.

  "Shit" he said.

  He took the baby to his crackpot witchdoctor and spiritual counsellor for advice.

  "A very bad sign," said the witchdoctor, and rattled some bones at the child.

  "Is it the UN?" asked the dictator.

  "Gaga," said Millicent.

  "No," said the witchdoctor, shuddering. "Far worse. An omen from the Gods."

  The dictator, whose name was King General Enguerrand du Bont, left the child under the watchful eye of one of his many wives and hurried to the dungeons beneath his palace.

  "Was it you who sent me this bad omen?" he accused his political opponent, who had been tortured earlier that day and had his tongue cut out.

  "Ack," said the political opponent.

  "My God," cried the dictator. "You too! I’m cursed!"

  Enguerrand drew his pistol and waddled through the palace, his numerous medals jangling on his corpulent military uniform. He found the child in the bedchamber of his one of many wives. He intended to kill it.

  "You cannot!" protested the one of his many wives, holding him back. "It’s just a baby."

  "Blah," said Millicent, and pooped in her nappy.

  "Shit," said Enguerrand doubtfully. "I’m screwed."

  "It is the will of the Gods," said his one of many wives.

  The witchdoctor rattled the bones, burned some incense, and consulted the entrails of a ritually slaughtered chicken.

  "Do good deeds," he instructed. "Appease the Gods."

  Enguerrand released his mother from jail and begged her forgiveness, but she slapped him and demanded all her shoes back, so he had her head cut off. He set free a number of church leaders who then denounced him as the Spawn of the Devil, which was an insult to his beloved mother, so he shot them.

  "Not progress," said Enguerrand’s first minister, his brother.

  "Penance!" cried the witchdoctor, so the portly dictator was forced to get on his hands and knees and play horsey for an hour, much to Millicent’s delight. She gave him a big, sloppy kiss.

  He pardoned a number of political opponents and tribal enemies, and hoped no one noticed when they were quietly hunted down and dispatched by his security forces in the dead of night.

  "You’re not trying," said the one of many wives.

  "It’s difficult," he conceded, and played horsey again.

  "Woba woba," said Millicent happily.

  He released a few journalists and newspaper editors, to whom his cousin the propaganda minister suggested that a new and glorious dawn had risen on their blessed earthly paradise, granted by the loving and benevolent grace of his magnificence, the bootylicious King General Enguerrand du Bont, and that if they didn’t write exactly that he would have them fed to the crocodiles.

  "Can I have a pencil?" asked one of the journalists.

  "Insolence!" cried the propaganda minister.

  Feeling rather good about himself, Enguerrand ordered the cessation of border hostilities with the neighbouring People’s Republic of Rot, and made concessions to the communist insurgents of the north. His brother the first minister grumbled and complained that the murderous thugs of the army would have nothing to do, so Enguerrand set them to work digging irrigation ditches in the arid fields of the west and draining the fetid swamps of the east. The crocodiles thought this was terribly convenient and caused mayhem, but the populace rejoiced and sang his praises. He instigated a massive public works program, cleaned up the capital a bit, and banned impoverished persons from being impoverished during daylight hours because the World Health Organisation were coming for an inspection.

  "That’s most of them," pointed out his brother the first minister.

  "Really?" answered Enguerrand innocently. Millicent scowled.

  "Can’t we just kill them?"

  "Shhh. You’ll upset the baby. Oh shit."

  Millicent howled. The witchdoctor scampered in from an adjoining room and whispered something in her ear until she gurgled contentedly.

  "What are you whispering?" demanded Enguerrand.

  "Only that the glorious radiance of your lion’s heart could not possibly bear imperfections of impure or unworthy thought, your Majesty."

  "Put that on a plaque," said Enguerrand, waving him away.

  The witchdoctor bowed and turned away, but glanced at the first minister as he made his way from the room, holding his gaze and nodding imperceptibly as he did so.

  In the following days Enguerrand toured the land in his convertible, ceremoniously waving his upturned palm and smiling broadly at carefully assembled crowds. He took Millicent with him. As the living symbol of the nation’s rebirth, she caused an ecstatic and enraptured reaction. Thus emboldened, and becoming increasingly attached to pleasing the little baby, he made a number of magnanimous and charitable gestures. He reopened the schools and the university, though most of the teachers had been executed, and released the carefully hoarded stash of internationally donated medical supplies to the hospital. He used a small fraction of his own savings stashed in a Swiss bank account to buy and import sacks of grain, and even reconvened parliament, though the three delegates that dared to turn up stood around and said, "huh?"

  His brother the first minister complained, and let sections of the disgruntled army attack and pillage the villages of the religious minorities in the south. When Enguerrand found out he was furious.

  "How dare you defy me!" he roared, and Millicent cried.

  "Brother, the people are becoming dangerously happy," protested the first minister. "You appear weak and democratic when they respect only the iron fist."

  "Whaaa!" bawled Millicent.

  "An iron fist cannot change a nappy!" shouted Enguerrand.

  They glared at each other, then Enguerrand swept Millicent into his arms and took her to the garden to play with the puppy he had bought her. The witchdoctor stepped from the shadows in the corner of the room and bowed to the first minister.

  "It is a sickness," he murmured, averting his eyes. "The Gods must be appeased..."

  "Then appease them we must," said the first minister softly.

  The following afternoon King General Enguerrand Du Bont participated in an all-star charity football game at the capital’s packed stadium, previously the venue for large scale executions. After scoring a spectacular goal the dictator was chased across the field by his teammates and hacked to death with machetes while he celebrated at the corner flag. The referee was furious and issued numerous red cards. The opposition team won 7-2.

  The cowardly assassination of The Glorious and Beloved Leader was denounced, righteous vengeance against the conspiracy was sworn, and troops loyal to the supposedly bereaved yet smirking first minister his brother rampaged through the capital exterminating protesters. Ascending the throne as Emperor Brigadier Hippolyte du Bont, he declared another radiant new dawn of Strength, Discipline and Obedience, then returned to the palace and summoned the witchdoctor.

  "What say the Gods?" he demanded.

  "Nu nu," intoned the witchdoctor.

  "Is that good?" Hippolyte asked.

  Incense was burned, bones rattled, and chickens sacrificed. Millicent looked pensive and unsure.

  "Relatively," pronounced the witchdoctor. "Crush your enemies. You will be fea
red and your penis will grow."

  The one of many wives rolled her eyes.

  "Aha!" declared the new dictator, and orchestrated an indiscriminate campaign of violence and intimidation throughout the land. He repealed his brother’s reforms, imprisoned enemies, embezzled foreign aid and investment, and occasionally checked down the front of his pants. The propaganda minister, sick of calling everything Glorious, Magnificent and Blessed, retired in disgust to his dental practice, where he was summarily dispatched in a messy assassination job meant to look like a root canal gone wrong.

  "Bigger?" asked the one of many wives one day, and in a fit of petulant rage he shot Millicent’s puppy. The baby was inconsolable.

  "What?" he protested to the ashen faced witchdoctor, but everything went to shit quite quickly after that.

  The communist rebels in the north attacked, and advanced on the capital until they hit the first McDonalds. International condemnation then sealed the borders, which starved the army thugs of their cocaine supply and sent them into a frenzy of hysterical looting and pillaging. Hippolyte was initially impressed until he realised that even he controlled them no longer, and was mortified to see members of his staff and many of the wives he had lain with whispering and sniggering behind his back in the palace corridors. A week later someone tossed a grenade at him during a storm while he was waving a ceremonial hand at the sad and oppressed populace. It failed to explode, but he fell off the back of the convertible into a muddy ditch by the side of the road and was savagely bitten by a stalking crocodile. Lying in the decrepit and ransacked hospital without any medical supplies or competent doctors, his mauled leg developed gangrene and had to be amputated. The witchdoctor was in wary attendance, rattling his bones and chanting unconvincingly.

  "Fuck off," said Emperor Brigadier Hippolyte du Bont. "You’re not helping."

  Late that night while recuperating, he was smothered to death with a pillow by a captain in his own security detail who was a member of the persecuted religious minority from the south. A new dawn was again declared by a hastily assembled military junta. They were advised and manipulated behind the scenes by the influential witchdoctor, who claimed divine guidance and the gift of speaking in tongues with the Omen of The Gods, baby Millicent.

  "Boopy doopy," he intoned seriously at a news conference, which impressed the assembled junta leaders and entertained Millicent enormously. When he tried to pick her up, however, she whimpered and reached for the comforting embrace of the one of many wives who was hovering protectively nearby. The witchdoctor laughed it off and engaged in an impressive ceremonial dance, but two humble members of the entourage, a lieutenant and a major both loved by their wives and children, exchanged cautious glances.

  Any semblance of law and order rapidly broke down in an indiscriminate wave of violence, torture, murder and mayhem, with warring factions of the army supporting different military and tribal leaders. The impotent and uncharismatic leaders of the junta squabbled, and the witchdoctor’s incoherent and increasingly bizarre exhortations drove the country into chaos. The communists stood back and said, "Wow," and decided to liberate another country. The Americans admitted they couldn’t be bothered. The country was already ruined.

  Behind the scenes the lieutenant and the major did what they could to alleviate the suffering, and were inspired by quiet, sensible, and humane advice from the one of many wives, whom they consulted. They distributed the remnants of the grain, kept the hospitals open, and protected the women and children in small enclaves and safe havens. They anonymously contradicted or sabotaged the most horrific of the junta’s orders, and steadily built quiet alliances with regional leaders, who were urged on by the determined outrage of their wives and women.

  Finally, late one afternoon in the blood red hue of the setting sun, the double doors to the palace conference room flew open and stunned the arguing and gesticulating assembly of junta leaders into silence. The one of many wives strode gloriously into the room, resplendent in her ceremonial robes with the Queen’s crown on her head, baby Millicent swinging happily on her hip.

  "Begone, woman!" shouted the exasperated witchdoctor, who strode forward and grasped her roughly by the arm. Millicent spat out her pacifier, squawked indignantly, and slapped him in the face. There were gasps of horror and the witchdoctor fell to his knees in shock.

  "Shut up, you stupid little man," commanded the one of many wives, and the lieutenant and the major strode forward to stand beside her, guns drawn. The building was suddenly and noisily surrounded by the two good men’s loyal troops. The coup d’état was swift and resolute.

  "The Gods," moaned the witchdoctor, rattling his bones and chanting in desperation. "The Wrath of the Gods!"

  The junta leaders looked uncertainly at each other.

  "Silence!" hissed the one of many wives. "Return to your homes and face the terrible wrath of your women."

  Years passed and the country grew stable and prosperous. When Millicent grew up she in turn was a wise and magnanimous Queen. Her parents recognised her on television.