by Arthur Zulu
CHAPTER 6
SEARCH FOR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
But before going up to finish Inferno, the seven devils, and the dragons, the kings think that it would be better to first disarm them of their weapons of mass destruction, including the ones that they seized from the soldiers in the first war. This would grant them quick and sweet victory in this final battle, they reason. They, therefore, mandate the Destruction Team—a unit of the Talking Nations Organization—to inspect Inferno lands called Axis of Evil, for the purpose of discovering and destroying these dangerous weapons.
Therefore, Mr. Trigger and Mr. Warhead, leaders of the Destruction Team, take other inspectors, and set out with the latest detective gadgets to find these weapons. And I go with them.
Meanwhile, I have many questions to ask the heads of this team. Since I find their names very funny, I first ask them why they are bearing such outlandish names. They laugh when they hear that, and after that, Mr. Warhead replies: “Everyone thinks that the other person is bearing a funny name. But the meaning of our names is in our work. Warheads are the explosive parts of weapons of mass destruction. And there are thousands of these warheads on the loose, all over the world. So since my work is to find and destroy these weapons, I came to be called Mr. Warhead.”
“That’s interesting,” I say. “What about you, Mr. Trigger?” I ask.
He says that he came to be known as Mr. Trigger since his adverse report on a country’s nuclear capability constitutes the smoking gun for attack against such erring nation. In certain cases, deals are done with the Say powers so that they would look at the other side while some nations go on acquiring these weapons. But the Say powers are actually the most dangerous nations on earth, he says.”
And in order to buttress his point, he suddenly asks me: “Do you know math?” To which I find myself answering yes. Then he says, “The Second Great War took 55 million lives. Yet the combined total weapons of the Say powers are enough to replicate 6,000 Second Great Wars. So how many souls will die in the event of an all-out nuclear confrontation?”
But I am not able to figure out the sum. Therefore, I make for my study for the second time to compute the answer. But realizing my folly, I retrace my steps, and simply tell him that I have no idea.
And they laugh at my poor math skill. After this, they ask to know my name. I tell them that my name is Big Dreamer, and they are curious to know the meaning of it.
So I tell them my previous fearful dreams: how I fell from Heaven, how I found myself on a 1,000-foot high tree in the land of the lions, and how I was chased about by vampires. They listen attentively to my narration, and when I finish, they laugh and say that I should be demoted to the status of a small dreamer. Because they have had a more fearsome dream than those. And I ask them to relate it to me.
Then Mr. Trigger explains that it all happened in one of their searches for weapons of mass destruction in a certain land. He says that he was sleeping when he suddenly found himself being entertained in a soccer match by two teams—the Giants and the Pygmies—in outer space.
“Before the match began,” he says, “there was some haggling as to which of the nine planets to be used as the football. In the end, they settled for Earth.” I shudder to hear that.
“Full time was 90 days of continuous daylight,” he continues. “The great crowd of giants and pygmies danced and cheered their teams endlessly. It was a highly entertaining match. One remarkable thing about the match was that it was full of dribbling, fouls, corner-kicks, off-sides, and several throw-ins.
Many rough players got red cards, while several others who were wounded were wheeled away from the soccer field. The goalkeepers made many daring saves and did several acrobatic displays to celebrate their feats.
“The Earth itself, suffered in the tension-soaked match. Because it was bruised here and there as they kicked it about. Mountains were reduced to plains, the rivers dried up, and the forests turned into deserts. Living things groaned. As a result, the Earth deflated at the end of the first half of 45 days, without score.” I breathe hard and wait for him to finish narrating the strange dream.
“During the break time, the Earth was inflated and the players were drugged and urged to go for the kill. So when the second half began, it was a do-or-die battle, for the honor of each race was at stake. Even the referee stopped issuing red cards; so most players who lost legs, continued the match on one foot. In fact, it was most interesting. The spectators cheered and danced for goals, yet the goals refused to come.
“Then toward the dying minute of the soccer match, a pygmy committed an infringement in the penalty box, which led to the award of a penalty kick in favor of the giants. The crowd was electric. The giants celebrated as if they had already won. And the pygmies were umbfounded.
“One giant player, who was a penalty kick expert, was called to take the shot. This player was named Goliath, but his soccer alias was Thunder, because his shot has the power of a thunderclap. As he readied himself to take the shot, the giant spectators sang the dirge of previous goalkeepers who had perished trying to save or parry his shot, and wished the same fate to the present pygmy in the goal post. So Thunder took the run of his life and kicked the Earth with his left foot. But the Earth went over the bar, traveled 93,000,000 miles into the center of the sun, and burnt to cinders in nanosecond! The pygmies cheered, while the giants were stunned.
“At the end of full time, the referee added the injury time and asked the players to continue the soccer match. Then, they took planet Mars and played on as if nothing happened. And the deafening ovation awoke me. When I told the dream to Mr. Warhead, he said that he had dreamt exactly the same thing. Now tell me, Are you a big dreamer or a small dreamer?” he asks me, as he finishes narrating his fearful dream.
I laugh and they start calling me Small Dreamer. The horrific dream really dwarfs all of my dreams and makes me look very small. And I begin to feel shame.
I now ask them why they desire to seek out and destroy these weapons of mass destruction in Inferno countries while the Say powers are actually in possession of these same weapons. Then Mr. Warhead uses a question to answer me: “Do you know the temperature at the core of the sun?” he asks.
I scratch my head, but it is not enough to provide the answer. And I look at these men who seem to know everything, and I pity my ignorance. After laughing at my lack of knowledge of elementary nuclear physics, Mr. Warhead tells me the answer and goes on to explain why he asked the question.
“The temperature at the core of the sun is about 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface temperature itself is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. If you want to figure out what that means, you only have to detonate 100,000 million megatons of TNT per second. Or try exploding 100 billion hydrogen bombs every second. Now, Small Dreamer, let me tell you what just one megaton bomb would do to you in each of its three-action destruction process of light, wind, and heat.”
He pauses and then goes on to relate the most unimaginable things that would happen to me if I were struck by that seemingly insignificant unit of the bomb.
“You are going to be blinded by a terrible flash of light that would pale Saul’s experience to nothing. The intense heat of the fireball will vaporize you. Your house, clothes, furniture, including your family will end up in a conflagration twice the burning power of the core of the sun! And your body will be bathed by a black sooty rain!”
He pauses for effect and watches me as I open my mouth in fright. Then he continues to unfold the effect of the bomb blast.
“A terrible hurricane generated by the nuclear explosion will carry you, your house, and debris, to where only God knows! You, your family, and neighbors will suffocate to death with pieces of glass and metal buried in your body. Your ears, eyes, and lungs will rupture. Your flesh will hang from your body and drag on the ground, and your hairs will stand on ends.”
I wonder how many times I would have to die if such a bomb hits me, and I protest that it would not be my destiny. But Mr.
Warhead, who seems to be enjoying my agonies, goes on.
“Your body will be given a special treat by neutrons and gamma rays. And do you know the result? Nausea, vomiting, convulsion, tremor, ataxia, hemorrhaging, and lethargy will be your friends. And cancer, infertility, abortion, diarrhea, weakness, nervous disorder, deformed children, stillborn, and infectious diseases will be
your relatives. And if you die or are mortally wounded, flies and maggots will be your attendants.”
He pauses again to gauge the effect of his speech. He finds, however, that I am beyond shocking, anymore. After all, I am not going to die of weapons of mass destruction.
Therefore, I ask him whether there would be no survivor on earth in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Then he proceeds to overwhelm me with his answer.
“The unfortunate survivor will have only one inglorious job—gathering and lighting of dead bodies—and die of an epidemic in the end. In that case, vultures and other scavengers (if any are left) will eat, to eat no more. And let me tell you, Small Dreamer. You will not need to write a will. Because there will be no property or inheritors. The land, the vegetation, and the waters will be left (though too poisoned to sustain life). But which survivor (if at all) would like to inherit a poisoned estate?
“The danger now is that if rogue, or failed, states get hold of these weapons of mass destruction poetically called wepuhmadistricshun, or weapons of mass distraction as some cynics nickname it, they would endanger the security of civilized nations and threaten world peace. So it will be in the interest of the world powers to checkmate these evil regimes before they precipitate a nuclear Armageddon. This is the new gospel by the Say powers called Second Revelation. And who are we not to believe this twenty-first century gospel. That is why we are searching and destroying these destructive weapons or WMDs for short, before the Doomsday clock strikes midnight.”
He ends his frightful treatise, and I am now too confounded to utter a word. Mr. Trigger now says that in view of the dangers posed by these weapons, he does not understand why the Say powers are still acquiring and test-firing new ones. He says that they are deceiving the world. For if these powers actually think that there is peace in the world, there would not be any need to stockpile nuclear arsenals.
He goes on to say that all the treaties ever signed—the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the Test Ban Treaty, including all the talks about arms reduction—are a sham. The world powers, he says, are in fear of one another. To illustrate the danger, he says that the nuclear weapons possessed by one Say power alone can kill every living human on earth today more than 12 times!
Yet because of the double standard in this world, the Yes powers are forbidden by the Say powers to acquire and use nuclear energy, even for peaceful purposes. All these, however, are off limits for the Destruction Team. For they are to carry out their assignment without asking questions.
We agree with everything that he said. For even as there are small and big fishes, there should also be small and big nations. And oftentimes, the big fish swallows the small ones. Then I come to believe the saying that might is right. So I decide that after waking up from this dream, I would write a book entitled, The Dogs are eating the Dogs.
We now reach Inferno territory and it is not long before we see the seven dangerous spirits: Hatred, Oppression, Frustration, Injustice, Mistrust, Fear, and Enmity. Their leader, who is called Hatred, asks: “What is your mission, sons of the Earth?”
Then the inspectors reply: “We are weapon inspectors.”
“And what are you inspecting here? Or have you come to fight us again?” asks Hatred.
“No, we are here on a peaceful mission. We have only come to see your weapons,” reply the inspectors.
Hatred replies that they do not have any dangerous weapons, but that they would take us around, if we so desire. So the seven spirits take us around Inferno countries, but we see no weapons of mass destruction except scraps of weapons that they say were the very ones that they seized in the first stage of Operation Hell Fire.
But the question now is, Where did Inferno get the dangerous weapons that were used to launch the first attack on Orient and Occident?
So it dawns on the arms inspectors that since the seven spirits are known for playing pranks, they might have kept the destructive weapons in some hidden place. In fact, the official language that Mr. Trigger uses to describe the place is “concealed, secret location.”
Then I begin to think that if the weapons were hidden in a place that is “concealed” and “secret,” then there is no hope of finding them. Because it means that they were hidden in a “secret, secret location.” Does Mr. Trigger know what he is saying? I wonder.
Afterward, Trigger and Warhead hold a private meeting with the other inspectors. At the end of the meeting, they come up with a blue print for detecting these weapons.
In the first phase of this plan, they are to dig all the suspected places in Inferno lands. If nothing is found, they are to capture and dissect all the big animals and birds, and search their intestines for hidden weapons. Lastly, if nothing results from these, they would have to dive into the seas, seize the big fishes, and search their insides for these banned weapons.
The spirits are upbeat when the weapon inspectors tell them of this plan. In truth, their elation seems to diminish any hope of getting the expected results.
Nevertheless, the Destruction Team digs the entire suspected weapon sites in Inferno lands, but they find no dangerous weapons. What they find, however, are minerals like gold and diamonds. And these they confiscate under the pretext of testing them in a laboratory in order to determine whether they are new types of weapons of mass destruction. And the devils oblige them.
After the inspectors complete phase one of the plans, they start to catch and disembowel large birds and big animals. They dissect an ostrich, then an elephant, next a rhinoceros.
Yet there are no weapons found. It only gives us an opportunity to see the insides of these huge creatures. In desperation, they search treetops, fell the trees, and saw open the logs in search of these weapons of mass murder. Yet all their efforts end in a complete fiasco. They then decide to enter the third stage of their search—the bellies of sea creatures.
But before that, the seven devils who did not like what they call the “collateral damage” done to their lands, give them a condition. They say that the weapon inspectors would only be allowed to search for the weapons by actually entering into the bellies of the sea creatures through their mouths, instead of killing them. It is a tall order. Like passing through Scylla and Charybdis. Or through the gates of Hades. But surprisingly, the dogged arms inspectors agree. And I remember Jonah in the belly of the big fish!
So we all plunge into the sea to search for weapons of mass destruction, and we begin to experience horrific things. There, we enter into the belly of a dangerous crocodile and we are nearly eaten by the reptile. We gain entrance into the yawning mouth of the mighty hippopotamus, and it rushes out of the sea to land to forage for grass while we are still inside its belly. We clear the avalanche of grass in its stomach to find our way out after the beast returns to the sea. And a shark races up and down the sea with the speed of a jet while we are inside its belly. On top of all these, the seven monsters continue to fall and laugh at our cowardice.
But here is the most horrendous experience of them all. After we enter the bellies of the crocodile, the hippo, and the shark in our search for these weapons and come out without finding any, the seven devils say that it is now time for us to inspect the belly of the blue whale. Now, this is the last hurdle, and we wonder how we would scale it.
This sea monster is over 100 feet long, and it is so enormous that one of it is equal to 30 mature elephants. The first task is how to enter into its huge mouth that opens and closes like a trap-door. So when a male blue whale comes around, opens its mouth, and begins to gulp down a great quantity of water, we follow the rushing water into the whale’s big belly.
The blood vessel itself is so immense that children could skip and play hide-and-seek there. The only danger to such children is the blood, which tumbles and roars through the veins like a waterfall—the children would be crushed to death. And the skeletal structure of the fish resembles the frame of a gigantic iron bridge.
The inspectors’ scanning reveals no hidden weapons of mass destruction. But the great fish refuses to open its mouth for us to exit, leaving us to endure what seems a period of endless quaking, much to the delight of the devils who encourage the team to persevere in searching. But we beg to take our leave, swearing not to come to Inferno lands or seas, to search for dangerous weapons, anymore.
Suddenly, we see that the monster’s mouth is open again and that water is rushing into its belly. So we begin to swim against the incoming stream to go out of the belly of the whale. But contrary to our belief, the fish is not really drinking water. Instead, this male whale is kissing another female whale.
So as they tie their open mouths in a long kiss, we transfer from the belly of the male whale and find ourselves in the insides of the female whale! And we become angry for being fooled by these monstrous lovers, but the worse is still to come.
We glide downward into the belly of the female whale, not knowing that she had swallowed an octopus, which is at present desperately trying to get out from the rumblings there. Therefore, the octopus in its upward journey entangles us with its eight large arms. And a life-and-death struggle commences, as everyone fights to free himself. But none of us is able to get away from this eight-armed creature. And the seven devils just laugh and laugh.
But the saying is true that every cloud has its silver lining. Because it is the octopus that eventually pulls us outside the belly of the female whale when the twosome finish their lovemaking. It is as if the creature, having been subjected to the quaking in the belly of the whale, never wishes any other living thing to suffer it.
So when we get out of the mouth of the female whale, the octopus disentangles its arms and lets us go; but not without seizing all the instruments from the weapon inspectors, and the gold and diamonds that were earlier taken for examination.
We, nonetheless, give thanks to the octopus for freeing us, and even Trigger and Warhead are grateful in spite of the loss. What a ransom! For who knows what would have been our fate has not the octopus rescued us so miraculously.
So the inspectors give the seven devils a big certificate, saying that the Destruction Team did not find any weapons of mass destruction in Inferno lands, otherwise called Axis of Evil. But the devils insist that they would still have to visit the insides of another monstrous fish known as Devilfish to search for these banned weapons.
The terrified inspectors, however, plead to be let go. For they have seen enough devils. Besides, they do not have any instruments to detect any weapons. Nevertheless, they would still submit a favorable report to the Talking Nations and the Say powers.
And when they finally let us go, we run away with such a speed that words cannot describe.
