My Interview with Pravda (Part I of II)

Yesterday, Brit Hume from Pravda dragged a technical crew into the apartment for an interview.

I was flattered by all the attention. Wires, lights, bloodstains on Brit Hume's flag lapel, work boots, headphones, light meters, undertaker's rouge, chrome splashed in an electrical socket, cordovans, and some talk of water-boarding.

"How is Mr. Whittington?" he asked me. I leaned against the bottom of my chair and stared at Brit Hume's black socks. You could look up his pant leg to the spot where the pasty flesh of his ankles began.

This is what the legs of Pravda correspondents look like. Lugubrious, pedestrian, milky.

"He still has Vice-Presidential buckshot coursing through his body," I said. "I talked to him yesterday about his heart problem. He's hiding underneath a futon."

"How did you feel when you heard about that?"

"We don't have a futon anymore."

Pravda brought German shepherds from Abu Ghraib on leashes. I insisted they stay outside the apartment. Sean Hannity was in the hallway, watching them, but they barked. My taut haunches could shred.

"Tell me what happened," Brit Hume said. His legs were crossed and he pulled up his left sock. A twitch, the pulpous magma bags below his eyes.

I will not be picked up. You cannot touch me. I hone my fangs every morning on my Alito-mouse with the red construction-paper tail.

"This morning I broke into the laundry room and launched a Persian Gulf War pincer move on a long string of mint-flavored dental floss. I buried it alive underneath the carpet. Just like Schwarzkopf and the troops did to the Iraqi army in 1991."

I licked my stellar left haunch. I jumped on the chair across from Brit Hume, then straightaway washed the sweet puffy fur of my right haunch. I settled into sphinx posture on the chair, staring at Brit Hume and the Pravda crew the whole time. I'm watching them. A German shepherd barked beyond the door.