The postman rang. He didn't have to twice; I was on the lookout for him. He handed the box to me and when I saw it was from Amazon, my heart soared like Olympic doves. “Could it be? Is it possible?”

“Theocritus,” I chid myself, “don't set yourself up for a fall. What if it isn't The Book?”

But the package was the right weight and size. I hurried to my office, clutching the box close to my heart. I felt...something. Some disturbance in the cosmic membrane. It had to be here. Fate would not be so cruel to tease me this way. It had to be here. I had to be holding the book.

I put the box on the desk and sank into my chair—my knees were weak with anticipation. Taking a deep breath to slow my pounding heart, I fumbled to get my letter opener. Shaking, I slit the tape on the ends and across the top, in practiced swipes. By this time my hands were shaking and I knew I might hurt myself if I didn't get control.

I stood, unsteadily, like a man who has seen a vision, and walked around my desk three times. “Theocritus,” I chid myself, “if it's not in this day's post, it will come in the next day's post. And you've lived your life without it so far.”

My inner Doppelganger answered back, “Yeah, right. But before 2008 you weren't really alive, were you, sucker? It had better be here.”

I sat at the desk again, and prized apart the box top, and removed the inflated plastic pillow. And then I saw it:

The Audacity of Hope! It was here!

The letter opener dropped from my nerveless fingers and I gave a laugh—hollow yet relieved, so soul-felt that my eyes misted, venting the emotions that had wracked my very being, down deep into my soul. A weight lifted from my shoulders, a weight that I hadn't known was there until, suddenly, like all pigeons in Venice's Piazza San Marco taking off, that soul-shriveling weight was gone.

I looked at the book and instantly I knew that I would be complete. The Rancho de Rio Grande? A bauble. My car? Mere transportation. My business? Mere sustenance. Here, I thought, staring at the Book, was the partner for the rest of my life. In it I could find nourishment and sustenance on a level that I'd never had before, something that I'd only thought I might find.

I could find meaning.

I'd studied the classics, hoping for wisdom. I'd learned foreign languages in the hope that they would provide an insight into the Music of the Spheres. The great museums? Tributes to dead white European males and therefore worthless. I had played Bach and Beethoven on the piano, hoping that that catharsis would fill the yawning void in my soul—how my soul yearns to be filled—but it was to no avail.

This book, this tome of all times, The Audacity of Hope, was my last hope in finding what I needed to make me a whole human being, one not at war with himself. A real American.

My hands shook as I took the Book out of the box; my heart lunged in my chest. Could this book fill me? Hope fluttered in my chest and I could feel my pulse in my neck.

I looked in Barack's eyes—they burned with a fierce, intense look that I felt all the way to the way to the depths of my soul, where it gave birth to a flame that seared through me from the inside out. I started shaking from the pent-up years of repressed emotion that I had not known I'd had.

I put a finger, very lightly, on His face. I thought I would fall apart from all the emotions that I felt. “Why didn't you come into the life of the world before now?” I asked, with a tremulous voice. “You are the light of the world. How did we live before you? Colors weren't vivid. Tastes weren't real. Sounds weren't pleasant. Where have you been?”

My heart stalled in my chest. I had never been so utterly aroused. Flames licked through me, leaping from one nerve ending to the other, turning my veins to liquid heat, stealing my air and leaving me gasping and on fire. His eyes followed me as I held the book. I know it seems impossible but in some way Barack's eyes did follow me, staring deeply into my soul, moving me to my core with waves of tectonic emotion.

I ran my hand over the spine of the book; a spiral of heat curled through my body. As I touched the pages, my blood pumped fast and hot like liquid fire through my veins.

And I couldn't stop looking into His eyes, which looked back at me—I know they followed me—with a breath-stealing mixture of tenderness, wisdom and understanding that made me feel healed and whole again.

My heart stalled in my chest. How had this mouth-watering perfection of a man been placed on this earth to lead us? To make us one again? To give us hope?

That he had been placed here by some beneficent supreme being made my blood pump fast and hot like molten gold through my veins; an artery in my temple throbbed. “Barack, if I stroke for you, I will gladly bear it,” escaped my lips with a heartfelt moan of desire.

I knew I should be measured and so I placed the book down on the desk but could not take my eyes off it. And he didn't want me to take my eyes off him either. I could feel it. His wisdom and caring vibrated through my body like a tuning fork. I thrummed with His understanding. Had he touched me, I'd have rung like a bell.

My throat clogged with emotion and my eyes misted over. I buried my face in my hands and scrubbed them over my cheeks, wondering how this had happened. It was too good, I thought; when I looked on the desk it would be bare, and the book only a dream. I thought that I might be delusional and there was no Barack, to lead us from the valley of the shadow of self-reliance into the pure, clean and sweet progressive air where what's mine is mine, what's yours is ours, and I get to say who's responsible.

I still could not bear to look. For decades all the emotion and desire had pooled inside me like magma, needing to be drawn to the surface for release, and this book, if it existed, could do that. The thought squeezed my heart, its tendrils giving me hope. If the book, and Barack, were not just a dream. Could I risk looking? Surely fate could not be that cruel, but the wager was so large that I had to screw up all the courage I had just to pull my trembling hands from my eyes, to make sure that the book, and Barack, were real, and there, to lead us away from ourselves. Our lost selves. O Barack! We are your sheep! We are your gadarene flock! Lead us, lest we, like lemmings, go astray!

Could I bear to look? I thought I didn't have the courage. I could get up with my eyes closed and feel my way around the desk and walk out of the office, never to return. Then I would never know if there was a book there which was not a dream, not a figment of my imagination, but really there, with Barack's eyes which opened windows into his soul, and the soul of the country, and the whole world. Eyes that could heal us, a voice which could set us free. And a mind which tapped into the mind of God.

But I was brave. I opened my eyes, and it was there.

Next week I will open the book and report on that.

Comrade Commissar, I weep from reading your post. Most joyous. I did fear though when you described going back to look at The Book that some sort of uncertainty principle would have taken effect and the simple act of observation might have changed something. But it didn't. Obama is proof against even physics.

I propose that a new law may have come into effect. The Obama Certainty Principle, in which the act of observing, reading, studying, looking at, thinking about, or simply being near the presence of an Obama Artifact; guarantees that said artifact will never be altered regardless of observation. The Obama Certainty Principle also states that Hope and Change will become the new driving forces of the universe, and that we will all have universal single payer health care and little tiny eco friendly Government Motors cars.

So powerful is the Obama Certainty Principle, that any substance containing the new element Obamite is assured to change the universe in strange and unknowable ways that will always though be for The Greater Good.

It will always be for the greater good(tm) even if it does not appear to be for the greater good(tm). It is possible that during the needed structural realignment of resources and liberties it will not appear that the greater good(tm) is being served but it is. All reeducation camps are for the greater good(tm). If you do not agree, report to Pinkie with your shovel.

You're quite right that Obamite changes physics--quantum mechanics is so passé; Heisenberg? A tyro. Einstein? A fraud. All we need to know is that to look at His O'liness will change the very laws of physics. And let us remember that to this end trifling things like liberties and property need to be adjusted on an ad-hoc basis. For the greater good(tm), of course.

Let us all remember that What is good for Jiffi-Lobo is good for America!

Indeed who needs hard physics when one has Obama? Perhaps some clever scientist somewhere can even figure out how to make a bomb out of Obamite. Just imagine the possibilities. With a single explosion Greater Good(TM) fallout will Change(TM) EVERYTHING it touches. Why an Obamite bomb detonated over Wasilla would make even Sarah Palin Change(TM) and become a Made Progressive.

Instead of threatening our enemies with our oppressive racist imperialistic military, all we have to do is detonate Obamite bombs high up in the atmosphere and watch the fallout Change(TM) everything. The Glorious World of Next Tuesday(TM) is upon us!

Colonel, I have to admit that I am just exhausted after my emotional upheaval with The Book. I can't stand at attention any more, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure you do. I just don't have the energy to consider Obamite Bombs right now.

Let us consign them to Breasts, not Bombs. Imagine this progressive lovely packed with Obamite:
There would no need of a whistling device to terrorize the populace we are bombing, would there? Based on this picture alone I suspect that this progressive lovely could make Dr. Janeane Garofalo shrink into a corner.

Commissar, that picture made more than just Dr. Garofalo shrink and hide if you get my drift. I fear after seeing that picture I will need some of Comrade Kim's Make Happy Ji-Ji pills.

I shall send you a coupon for Jiffi-Lobo. That'll take care of it.

Get there first thing in the morning; the doctor will see you right away and spend more time.

Colonel 7.62 wrote:Commissar, that picture made more than just Dr. Garofalo shrink and hide if you get my drift. I fear after seeing that picture I will need some of Comrade Kim's Make Happy Ji-Ji pills.

Comrade, this is the inevitable result of having burned your bra back in the 1970's. I would look with suspicion on any middle aged female who claims to be a lifelong progressive, if she didn't have pendulous droopy udders. I would suggest all young nubile progressive women to wear increasing large, heavy nipple rings in an effort to develop that look in midlife.

Commissar Theocritus

Might I suggest that you take a few pre-cautions before you actually open this brilliant tome, and start to inhale the intoxicating words held within.
As you start to read you will be filled with all sorts of emotions, and your body will react accordingly. Some of these reactions will resemble 'hot flashes' as sweat will very likely start to form on your fevered brow, as you can't wait to get to next awe inspiring word.
This is to be expected, however though your stomach may not be able to keep up with your excited emotional state, and may very well show distinct signs of upset and nausea as you pour over his words for the ages.
Do not fret, many others who have read his book have found their internal intestines under the same emotional on-slaught. It just comes with the territory when devouring such majestic prose that we mere mortals can barely comprehend.
I would suggest that you might take some of the following before you open up, 'The Book' it will help with keeping what he has to say down.

Comrade S-W, thanks for your consideration. I have taken further precautions. I have started dosing myself with morphine to build up a base-level dose in my body.

Also I will have a foley inserted, and IV lopressor just in case my blood pressure becomes too much.

Most of all, though, I have bought a barber's chair--you know how heavy they are--and had it fitted with seat belts. I do not want to read and find myself pinned to the ceiling at the inevitable rapture.

Comrade Commissar Theocritus,

Is that a pic of Judge Sotomayor? If so, were there companion photos?

I truly admire those of her kind who are leaders in La Raza. I was always made to feel the most guilty when this fine organization was busy in S Texas.

Yes, indeed. I recall their work here in Culo de Pecos. There were complaints that more hispanics were being arrested than gringos, when the hispanics were 80% of the population. That math is more equal than others.

Of course you cannot arrest more of a non white group than another, even when they make up the overwhelming majority of the population.

Or are younger and spend more time in bars and have a culture of a good deal more cerveza.

Right. Because young males who drink a lot commit disproportionately fewer crimes than their peers.

Comrade Theocritus,

Never have I seen so much devotion, so much dedication, so much trembling excitement for anything or any one, as you have for The One. I think you need a drink to settle down a bit.



{off}

In the meantime, if we come to Culo de Pecos to visit you, I'd better not see that book cover tatooed to your face.

Thank you, Leninka, for the Global Warming Vodka. I'm Pinkie's Beet of the Week, too, and I treasure both. I'll drink the Global Warming Vodka as I reread the Goracle's Holy Tome, <i>An Inconveniently Untrue Lie</i>.

But you should worry about me tattooing that on my face; today I got in my first passport in 30 years. The slight upward tilt of my senior picture 36 years ago has now, with time and experience and age, become Central Casting's definition of a sneer. Anything would be an improvement.

Well, perhaps not this.

Jiffi-Lobo to the rescue.

Commissar Theocritus,

But is it a distinguished sneer?

Evidently it is distinguished enough to command immediate attention from sales clerks. Either that or they want to hustle me out.