The Seven Banned Words …

The Huckabeecyclops took a deep breath and stepped up to the bane of her existence, that damn flat, waist-high, belly-rubbing rock which was the Bullee Tar-Pit. She ground her teeth, licked her lips and picked out the Jimacosta in the first row of the dozens of Mediacircustops gathered today for her morning briefing outside the Oval Dwelling..

She’d woken up this morning with the Jimacosta’s image ingrained in her mind. She’d prepared herself to unload on him. She’d been waiting for this moment a long time. One week to be precise. Ever since the Jimacosta had asked her about the T-Rump’s Trollertweety message regarding the Kirstengillibrand, a female Donkeykongrus. The message had suggested that she’d come to the T-Rump “begging” for moolah-moolah leaves, willing to do anything. The Jimacosta had questioned the word ‘anything’ as if that meant, well, anything. How dare he. Multiple questions from the same Mediacircustops? As if she was there to do his bidding.

Look at him, she thought to herself. His hand is up already. I’ll play his little game.

“Yes, Jim?” She tried sounding pleasant, knowing full well she was unable to keep her wandering evil eye from showing her true intentions.

“What does the Oval Dwelling have to say about the Washingtonpostian dinosaur who reported that a support group for the CDC, the, uh Casual Dinosaur Coupling, has seven words banned from their breeding discussions.”

The Huckabeecyclops gripped the flat rock with clammy claws. He always did this to her.

“What’s it to you? I mean, those seven words have no place in the CDC’s mandate, nor dinosaur vocabulary.”

“Vulnerable is a bad word?”

“We’re dinosaurs, Jim. Dodoscaredypants dinos aside, we’re not weak.”

“And ‘fetus’? How can dinosaurs possibly discuss breeding without saying fetus?”

“They’re just going to have to put their little walnuts together then, aren’t they?”

“What about transgender?”

“Look, are you going to squat there and grill me all day?”

“I’ve only mentioned three of the seven words. This is exactly what the Orwellian dinosaur warned us about.”

The Huckabeecyclops glared at him, her evil eye crazily lolling about.

“Did you just compare me to the Orwellian?”

“No. But why? This isn’t the Moscovian Buffs. Are you trying to control our thoughts?”

The Huckabeecyclops stared him down.

‘You don’t get it, Jim, do you?”

“Get what?”

“There is no controlling you. The T-Rump Team is doing its best to make the Milkanhoney Preservation great again and every day you squat there in the front row, questioning me, pestering me to death. That’s it. You make me feel extinct.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but –”

“No buts. You can’t say ‘but’ anymore.”

“Conjunction or noun?”

“Smart guy, eh?”

“Huckabee, what does the T-Rump say to the vulnerable transgender fetus whose only entitlement will be a world void of diversity and science and evidence-based knowledge?

The seven banned words. All of them in one shot. How dare he. She glared at him.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Unless it’s fake news. I –”

“No.”

“No?” asked the Jimacosta.

“No ‘I’ either. I don’t care what you think. You can’t say ‘I’ any more.”

“This is insane.”

“That’s it.”

Her evil eye wildly livid, she bounded out from behind the flat rock and pounced on the Jimacosta. He held up his short arms in defense.

“The hands! Watch the hands! I need them to count!”

“Count this!”

“She bopped him one on the nose. She jumped to her feet and slapped him silly with her coarse, rugged tail. Finally she stepped on his throat with the heel of her big foot and ground it in hard.

“Those words don’t come so easy now, do they?”

“Banned or legal?” came his raspy gurgle.

The other Mediacircustops stood nearby, watching helplessly. They knew if they intervened they’d be banned from the next briefing. A Mediacircustops lived for the news. The Andersoncooper finally stepped forward.

“Look! The T-Rump!”

The Huckabeecyclops fell to the ground, scrambling to her knees before finally looking around.

“Where?”

It was the T-Rump. He’d turned down a different path, and unbelievably, was showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Jimacosta rolled away from the Huckabeecyclops and to his feet. He never missed a chance for a follow up question or a T-Rump tirade. He knew exactly what buttons to push.

“T-Rump!’

“Stop!” hollered the Huckabeecyclops. “I forbid you from speaking to the T-Rump!”

The T-Rump looked mildly amused. He enjoyed pandemonium.

“Huckabee, what’s going on here?”

She got to her feet, shook her tail and adjusted several ragged ridges of skin around her eyes, cheeks and neck. She finally pulled herself together.

“T-Rump, I was just informing the Jimacosta that he can’t use the words, ‘I’ and ‘but’ and …”

“Wait a minute, Huckabee. You’re stepping on my tail. I, only I, make up the list of banned words around here, remember.’

“Yes, T-Rump.”

The stinging rebuke hit her between the eyes. She turned three shades of red not in her camouflage repertoire. She looked out at the many Mediacircustops, their jaws dropped at the T-Rump’s dressing down of her. It was so Priebusunderbus of him.

She held her breath. She wasn’t going to cry. No, she’d have to look inside her heart of hearts, somewhere to the left of indigestion, and ask herself the simple question.

Could she ever lie again?