The Great Tree Growing Incident (p173-p178)

(Setting:  Washington is swallowed by darkness when every government agency becomes focused on growing trees.  The Head Honcho enlists the support of the apparitional Mad Hatter, who suggests using the government's most potent weapon for destroying things in order to get rid of the trees.)

Fortunately, they got a reprieve when they stumbled upon the Great Tree Growing Incident. Actually, they stumbled over furniture in the Honcho's office when total darkness mysteriously descended upon Washington, causing everyone to wander about in sightless disarray.

Since it was unacceptable for America's leaders to stumble about in darkness rather than broad daylight, the Defense Intelligence Agency was ordered to find the source of the inky blackness that had swallowed Washington. The DIA’s first working hypothesis was that Washington’s ubiquitous fog had somehow congealed into an opaque substance. However, using sophisticated infrared night vision devices, DIA technicians discovered that a huge canopy of trees had blossomed above the city’s skyline, blocking out any light that might otherwise have penetrated the fog.

Further DIA investigation revealed that the Great Tree Growing Incident began innocently enough when two intrepid employees at the Department of Agriculture planted trees in front of their office building to assuage their guilt about subsidizing people who grow things for a living to not grow things anymore. Unfortunately, other agencies in Washington suspected that this was a secret strategy by the Agriculture Department to get additional federal funds by subsidizing themselves to stop growing trees.

A remarkable contest of horticultural leapfrog ensued. Government agencies grew trees greater in size and number than each preceding attempt by their competitors, hoping for the federal government to step in and subsidize the non-growing of trees once the situation got out of hand. The Commerce Department imported fast growing bamboo from the Far East. The Interior Department transplanted Sequoias from California. The Labor Department conscripted labor unions to plant millions of seedlings. The Education Department banned textbook printing so that their trees wouldn’t be needlessly sacrificed to pulp mills. The Justice Department declared Dutch Elm Disease to be unconstitutional.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development bulldozed huge tracts of apartment buildings to plant trees. The Energy Department developed a tree that grew so fast people got whiplash and radiation poisoning watching the iridescent mutants grow. The Defense Department produced invisible Stealth Trees that were undetectable by radar, in case a jealous adversary in these horticultural war games launched surface-to-foliage missiles. The CIA transplanted palm trees they had used for training Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Internal Revenue Service confiscated all the fruit trees from growers in Florida under the guise of an obscure tax law.

This tree-growing contest escalated, as a matter of greed, prestige, and bureaucratic momentum. Maples, elms, cedars, ashes, walnuts, pines, redwoods, birches, willows, and oaks transformed the landscape into an immense urban forest. There were soon more trees in Washington than in the Amazon rain forests or in Poland’s Bialowieza National Park, which the noted conservationist Hermann Goering had zealously protected while his Luftwaffe rained death on Europe’s humans. Thousands of tree huggers flocked to this magnificent new forest, although they had trouble finding it because the trees blocked their view. As they embraced millions of insentient trunks, they chanted "Treat human beings as a tool, and Nature as the object", which helped explain the Hermann Goerings of the world.

Washington was suffocatingly dark under the canopy of this primordial forest. The Honcho sat alone in his blackened office after everyone left to find flashlights. He dreaded this bizarre arboreal manifestation, mostly because his constituents would expect him to conquer it. He began to moan aloud. He abruptly stopped moaning when other moans answered his. At first, he thought they were echoes in his cavernous office, but the other moans continued even after he stopped. He was clearly not alone. "Who's there?" he demanded.

"It's me again", a voice called from the darkness.

The Honcho couldn’t place the nasally voice with a name or a face. "Who’s me?"

"Who's you? You is the Honcho."

The Honcho still couldn’t place the voice. "Why were you moaning? Are you okay?"

"How would I know?" said the disembodied voice. "I've never been okay before. And why shouldn't I moan? Is moaning fit for you, but not for me? At least I know who I am."

"But who are you? I can't see you!"

"That’s a reasonable excuse for not knowing who I am, but why don’t you know who you are?"

"I know who the fuck I am!" shouted the Honcho. "Who the fuck are you?"

The Honcho heard his humidor being opened, followed by the sound of a cigar being unwrapped. Suddenly, a struck match starkly illuminated the visitor’s face, from which an expensive Cuban cigar dangled jauntily. The Honcho's heart sank to his toes. The pallid face floating eerily in the darkness was the Mad Hatter’s. "Why do you torture me like this?" he asked.

"I’m not torturing you. You were moaning before I got here."

"But every time you show up, things get so fucking confusing."

"Things are indeed more confusing on your side of the looking glass than ours", agreed the Hatter haughtily. "Just the other day, we in Wonderland observed a ridiculous farce on your side of the glass. Somebody fired a Howitzer at the Dormouse. Missed him completely, although your nonsensical archives took a direct hit. Doesn't seem sporting to kill a dormouse with a Howitzer. Or to kill paperwork with a Howitzer either. Or worse still, to kill a dormouse with paperwork, which is what eventually happened. Care for some treacle?" he offered.

The Honcho ignored him. "Tell me why you’re here", he begged.

"Care for some treacle?" the Hatter repeated emphatically.

The Honcho thought to himself, "Every time he offers treacle, I decline it. Then, he tells me he didn't have any anyway." He decided to cross the Hatter up. "Yes, I want some treacle", he said aloud with a self-satisfied chuckle. "Now, tell me why you’re here."

"I'm here because other Mad Hatters mated. Why are you here? No...wait....It’s silly of me to ask. You don't even know who you are. I withdraw the question."

An uneasy silence ensued. The Honcho waited for his treacle while the Mad Hatter puffed contentedly on a cigar, his face dimming and brightening intermittently as he inhaled and stoked the embers. The Honcho broke the maddening silence. "Where’s my treacle?" he asked menacingly, suspecting that the Mad Hatter had been bluffing all these years about having some.

"Right in front of you", said the Hatter politely. "Should I have served it behind you?"

"But I can't see it!"

"Of course you can't. It's much too dark."

"Then why did you bother to give it to me?"

"Because you asked for it. It would have been rude to do otherwise."

"How do I know it’s really here?"

"Reality is indeed very confusing in the dark....and in the light", said the Hatter. "Especially for Ismism followers. By the way, did I tell you why I was here?"

"No! And not because I didn't ask!"

"I would have told you sooner, if you hadn't already asked."

"That doesn't make any sense", said the Honcho, with intense anguish.

"That's why things are much clearer on my side of the looking glass. We are quite content to wallow in nonsense. It makes our world rather orderly, in a queer sort of way. Your world wallows in just as much nonsense, but you foolishly try to make sense of it. You should either stop wallowing in nonsense, or stop trying to make sense of it. Doing both is quite impossible. But that's not why I'm here."

The Honcho gritted his teeth. "Why…are…you…here?"

"To help you."

"I don't want your help", barked the Honcho. "Things will just get worse."

"You don't know who you are, you can't find your treacle, darkness has swallowed Washington, and your reelection campaign is floundering. Don't you want just a tad bit of help?"

"What kind of help?" the Honcho asked warily, edging closer to biting the hook.

"I can't help your reelection campaign. On our side of the looking glass, the Red Queen frowns on democracy, so we avoid it religiously. On your side of the glass, democracy is an elegant charade that you and your subjects perform with blind religious pomposity, which is another reason why things are much clearer for us. We don't put up with elegant charades or with blind religious pomposity. The Red Queen rules, and that's that. When she says off with our heads, it’s off with our heads. However, I can help with this confounding darkness."

The Honcho felt madness coming on. "What can we do?" he pleaded.

"Let's use the Socratic method to unravel this. What’s your problem?"

"The darkness."

"What’s causing the darkness?"

"More trees than anyone can count."

"What must be done with the trees?"

"They must be destroyed", the Honcho concluded.

"What is the quickest, surest way to destroy a government creation?"

"Make it a low income housing project?"

"Precisely!" The Mad Hatter snuffed out his cigar embers in a handcrafted alabaster ashtray. The office fell completely dark and silent.