Late last week your W Team was in the conference room discussing this that and the other thing--topics we had all but exhausted when Mrs. Feeny appeared quietly like the Angel of Death in the doorway.

Common courtesy demanded we invite her to join us, and we did so with no more than grave misgivings. One of the staff who is young and therefore of impaired judgment, asked her what she had been doing lately, and immediately rose out of his seat in consequence of a sharp kick issued from under the table.

Whatever benefit this advice may have conferred upon the imprudent youth, it availed the rest of us not, for the old lady proceed to launch into a fulsomely detailed account of her most recent wheres and whats.

It developed that from whatever place such nightmares are born, the wrinkled wonder had dredged up a latent obsession with self-improvement, choosing a creative writing course at the community college as the ground zero of her renascence. What's more, she exulted, she had already finished her first assignment.

The impulsive youngster who had prompted this deluge of unwelcome intelligence leaned forward, plainly intending to pursue the subject, but instead suddenly yelped and fell into a steep and diligent silence.

As it happened, the old girl needed no encouragement. From deep within her Gladstone bag she excavated a faux morocco-bound composition book, which, smiling like a mongoose, she slid across to our side of the table. With the customary foreboding that is the inescapable companion of those who traffic in matters Feeny, we took up the book and read:

 

At the Front

By C. Feeny

Sub-Captain-Uber-Major George W. Bush focused his binoculars and peered across the trenches at the enemy camp no more than a hundred yards away. A light snowfall settled on his manly shoulders and semi-defiant chin.

The American forces were in serious trouble. For days the enemy had been executing a flanking maneuver that would soon overwhelm their position. The Irani-Iraqi-Jordanian-Syrian-Egyptian-Saudi-Lebanese-Kuwaiti-Turkish-Korean alliance had formed to the west, and even greater danger loomed in the east, where the French-Italian-Cuban-Scottish forces were only a few hours away from the northern edge of the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

The war was going badly.

Sub-Captain-Uber-Major Bush realized that all might be lost by nightfall. His little eyes narrowed as he barked orders to his troops and summoned his adjutant. "Carruthers," he said, as he sniffed the crisp early morning air, "What do you suppose that smell is?"

"I believe the enemy is preparing breakfast, Sub-Captain-Uber-Major," said the adjutant.

"That's what I thought!" the War Leader exclaimed. "What d'ya think they're makin'? It smells WONDERFUL!"

* * * * *

The room was silent for a time, and then, as if by signal everyone, began talking at once. The principal theme of the livid discussion that followed being a concern that, in these critical times, the casual reader might not derive comfort from Mrs. Feeny's depiction of our nation's leader.

The ancien dame responded that it was hard enough to write these things without having also to worry about how others read them, and that we'd best believe she wasn't going to start doing so now.

There seemed little to be gained from pursuit of this line of reasoning, and so, with a deepening sense of gloom we trudged on through the rest of the document.

 

With the Fox

By C. Feeny

A fox and a man went foxhunting.

They raced through the forest on their giddily galloping geldings, sighting down their blunderbusses (or perhaps that is "blunderbae"), shouting their view halloos and, all told, having the finest time of it. At length, however, the man begged leave to inquire, "Tell me, dear fox, how is it that you hunt your own kind?"

"They are hardly my kind," replied the fox, "Despite any superficial physical similarity we are nothing alike. Those renegade-ransackers, pullet-purloiners, egg-abductors, and sneaks-in-the-wood would surely destroy our way of life if they could, and might even acquire their own blunderbae, and then we should find ourselves eating our soup from the other side of the plate."

"Surely I am a woeful muddle-head," said the man, "but the distinction is lost upon me. If I am not mistaken, the crimes you deplore have been ascribed in like manner to you and yours. If the others are thieves, then what are you?"

The fox paused for a moment, eyeing the man as if considering the tragedy of obtuseness; then he spurred his horse as he shouted, "Statesmen!" and continued into the forest.

 

* * * * *

It pains us to tell you that these chefs-d'oeuvres received the highest grades. And as sad a commentary as that may be on the present state of academia, even sadder is the fact that Mrs. Feeny's classmates now lionize the old lady and studiously follow her example in their own work. She is now celebrated everywhere on campus and students vie for the honor of driving her wherever she wishes.

Which, were we at the wheel, would be into the lake.

Hank