man of the year

I was surprised to see over the weekend that Time magazine had named President Bush as Person of the Year. It makes me wonder whether I went to bed Saturday night in a comfortable, familiar world and woke up Sunday morning in a hell, presided over by a ghoulish demon named Dubya.

Perhaps there were not a large number of people who, during 2004, did historic, memorable things. At this point, no really earth-shaking accomplishments jump to mind, but I’m sure if I did the research, I could come up with someone better. The story I read quoted Time as crediting Bush with “reshaping the rules of politics…” Also, it says Bush remains polarizing to America and the world.

Using these criteria perhaps I could forward the name of Ron Artest for bringing the sport of basketball closer to the fans, or perhaps Osama Bin Laden for making us all feel closer to the threat of terrorism. In the same vein, let me propose the name of Lisa Montgomery for her efforts to nurture the children of others.

If I could paraphrase Leigh Hunt‘s poem Abou Ben Adhem:

Osama Bin Laden (may his tribe decrease)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace

Osama, of course, can dream peacefully because he has nothing to worry about from Bush. As long as his ally is in the white house he is able to roam the middle east free from any threat from the current administration. It is those of us here in America who have to worry about the nightmares.

In my nightmare I am in bed in a dark, cold room. I can see the vapor from my breath condensing in the icy air. I realize my arms and legs are restrained. I am tied down to the bed. Then I notice I have little girly arms and legs. A man in a dark robe comes into the room. I don’t recognize him at first because my head is rotating three-hundred and sixty degrees, spinning around and around. Finally, my head stops rotating and as the man approaches my bed I realize it is John Kerry.

“Are you here to help me?” I ask in a voice deep and masculine, definitely not a little girl voice, but deeper and louder than my own voice, like someone is speaking inside of me.

“I tried,” he answers. “I gave it my best, but it will be another four years…”

I let out a long string of expletives. He is somewhat taken aback.

“Come closer,” I say.

He leans toward me. He is unaware of what is about to happen, but I know that the green projectile vomit is coming and it is coming in volume, and as it does, I began to fall through space until I see there are fires all around me. I see armies of workers shoveling coal into the fires and throwing logs on, stoking the flames. Then I see the smirking face of the devil Dubya himself. He chuckles.

“Wanna buy some wood?” he asks demonically.

The demon Dubya pokes one of his workers with his fork until the worker cries out. Then he turns his attention back to me.

“Running this place is hard work,” he says. “We outsource the good jobs.”

He holds up a burning magazine. The name of the magazine is Hell. The cover features his picture along with the caption Satan of the Year.

Then he roars with laughter and as the volume of his laughter increases all I can see is his demonic expression, and I wake up, perspiration dripping from my forehead. I realize it was only a nightmare. I wipe the sweat from my face.

“It’s been a hell of a year,” I tell my girlfriend.

Because sometimes it’s hard to tell the nightmares from reality unless you’re in Jimbo’s world.