When The Butterflies Come

by Rosemary Ness Bitner

  “Global bank failures on a colossal scale are coming at them at light speed and they’re shitting their pants. Their game is over, Andy. They have no teeth, no gold or silver, and no street cred. Just be ready for when fiat becomes worthless. It’s coming at you fast, Andy. Buy lots of good toilet paper while you can still get it. The dollar doesn’t wipe very well. It won’t even be good for toilet paper, Andy. It just kind of smears everything around. I tried it.

  “We need to watch the next election carefully, Andy. Both candidates have flaws and vocal detractors, but remember this, Andy. You are an American, and you must give your heart and soul and affections to whichever candidate wins. You must believe that, whatever the flaws, the winner will rule with goodness and benevolence toward all Americans and with malice toward none. Even if the female reptile wins, Andy, we must support her for the common good. We know in our heart of hearts, Andy, that these fucking women are smarter than us men. Just never let them hear that. What goes on in this room stays in this room, Andy. If you ever tell anyone that women are really smart, I’ll take you out of your jar and spank you.

  “Now, Andy, pay attention! This is important! If America doesn’t soon choose honest money over Bilderbunker fiat communism, we’ll need to run away before the country descends into a police state. It’s going to happen fast.” As the alcohol took its effect, David slurred some of his words together and drooled streams of saliva. His vision went into and out of focus and his mind became tipsy as he blabbered incoherently his deepest feelings to his imaginary protégé. “Everything will blow apart at once. Pay attention, Andy. This is important! The hundreds of trillions of undisclosed unaudited Federal Reserve swap lines of Dollars for Pounds, Euros, Yen, Loonies, Aussies, Pesos, Kiwis, Francs, Pesetas, Yuan, Won, Dong, Rupees, Escudos, Lira, Drachma, and other currencies. And with Federal Reserve bank and member bank balance sheets chock-a-block full of no income, no job loans to illegal immigrants who buy cars, disappear and get the car chopped for cash for dope. Money will all fly into chaos. These insane derivative positions holding up phony loans are going to blow apart and the leveraged credit implosion of the banking abortion will fall like the Eiffel Tower standing upside down on its head on a pinpoint, collapsing thousands of trillions in derivatives and collar trades to worthlessness when it all tips over. All this magical financial engineering, the interest rate swaps, currency collars, insurance-guaranteed portfolios, hedges on bonds and bank stocks will all crash and burn. Poof! Whoosh! Gone! Blown away! When it all blows apart we’ll watch it together on TV Andy. It will be wonderful!” David drank some more whiskey. He was slobbering all over his shirt and getting drunk.

  “The least disturbance, like a butterfly flapping its wings or a Parisian whore spreading her legs too quickly, will set off a breeze that will take the tower of financial babble out of perfect normal and bring the whole façade crashing down. It’ll be like the Tower of Babble coming down. The hubris of the banking elite will take a huge drubbing and it won’t recover until a new gold- and silver-backed honest money returns. That’s called a reset of the bank credit proxy, Andy. See, banks can’t make new loans until they have a fresh base of honest money to renew the currency debasing cycle. It’s a process they need to go through. The hubris of man against God and nature will end until another John Law, John Maynard Keynes, Alan Greenspan, Mario Draghi, or Robert Rubin comes along playing their Pied Piper meat whistle, the siren sounds of debt creation and money debasement. It’s not voodoo rocket science, Andy. It’s just a con game. Dark pools and high frequency trades will blow the markets apart and fuck the little guy and his pension and his kids’ college funds. Then the gamers will fuck each other. Don’t get upset, Andy. This is normal. It happens every hundred or so years. People without ethics or conscience attracted to power and greed will always be with the human species, screwing the little guy with dishonest money.

  “Even the vote-switching software in key battleground states’ crooked voting machines in vote-stealing precincts won’t be enough to stop the peoples’ cry for freedom when it comes. The people will rise up against their fascist oppressors and make sure their honest votes are counted. Voting machines will get tossed into lakes in favor of honest paper hand counts. Thugs breaking the law by blocking votes at polling stations with their baseball bats will be met head-on. Honest voters will not be denied by bully thugs. Dead people and illegal immigrants will no longer get to vote. The people will put a stop to communist vote-rigging scam tactics. People have had enough of phony bullshit rigged elections.

  “The establishment banking order is going to end in complete destruction because the assholes who play the game don’t understand it any better than the agencies that pretend to regulate it. It’s going to be a world where only those who own gold and silver survive. People will have to eat their pets and mothers-in-law to stay alive, Andy. No, it will even be worse than that. There won’t be any TV! People won’t be able to pay for extras. Hollywood will lose its moviegoers. People will have to learn to read books, talk to each other, and go to church again.

  “I’m serious, Andy. So far the game has held together because the governments went all-in supplying gold and silver inventory to the market to keep the metal prices down and their scam going. Now they are down to stealing gold from allocated accounts, raiding gold exchange traded funds and begging gold and silver from the Vatican. The pope is pissed off at the liberal secularist commie bastards. It’s not good to get the pope pissed off. He wants secularism to end and a return to old-fashioned religion. He’s going to get his way. The Imams and the Chinese and the Buddhists all want gold and silver money too. Do you know why the pope and all the rest of the world wants to go back to gold, Andy? It’s because they have gold and we don’t. Fort Knox gold hasn’t been audited for over sixty years. Can you believe they have gold there? There are some real deep pocket players about to show up and change the money game. Dad told me this day would come.

  “The fascists that want a single world order will have their nuts removed, Andy. Banks will fail, countries will fail, but we’ll keep our nuts on because we’re smarter nuts than those other nuts. We’ll pick up and move to another country before the roof caves in. We’ll find a place where there is real money and honest society. I might have to take you out of your jar and put you in my pocket to get you through Homeland Security, Andy, but don’t you worry, son. I never leave a man behind. I’m as trustworthy as the United States Marine Corps, Andy. You can always count on me. You can believe everything I tell you. I’ll always take good care of you.”

  David’s mind, polluted with alcohol, began to wander. He skipped from one random subject to another as he spewed advice to his imaginary student. “To become a complete executive, Andy, you need to know all about Europe. I can give you great advice on Europe because I went there once when I was a kid. I’m an expert on Europe. My dad took me there for a five-day trip. He wanted to stay longer, but I kept throwing up over there because the place smelled funny and the people ate fish all the time. What I learned about Europe is that you should never bother going there. It’s too far north, too close to the North Pole, so you’re always cold over there. It rains all the time in Europe and the people are always coughing because they are cold and they all smoke. It takes forever to get there, even by plane. You risk a terrorist blowing your plane up coming and going, so you worry constantly about surviving the trip.

  “When you eventually, finally, get to Europe after five exhausting days on an airplane, you’ll find that nobody speaks English except for a couple people in a couple countries, like England, so it’s impossible to make sense out of anything anybody says. But even in England, the people don’t speak proper English. They speak with a golf ball stuck up their noses and asses and they use the wrong words for things, like calling a sweater a ‘jersey’ or a ‘pullover.’ The entire place is a jumbled mess of people who don’t know what the other person is saying. You always have to be careful because they could be trying to steal your mone
y. When it rains the only thing you can do is go to a museum.

  “The whole country of Europe is one continuous museum. When you go into one of their museums, you’ll stand in front of glass cases where they show you the kinds of clubs guys used a thousand years ago to knock the crap out of other guys. They had some torture racks on display which were really neat, but other than that, nothing I saw in Europe was interesting. After all, who gives a shit about how one guy killed another guy a thousand years ago? And do you know the most insulting thing about those museums, Andy? They make you pay to go in there and get bored out of your mind looking at all that old crap.

  “If you grow up liking women, Andy, you especially don’t want to go to Europe. The women over there all look undernourished compared to American girls, and all the women in Europe are hairy, smelly, and fat and they all have saggy tits. So my executive advice to you is save your money and stay right where you are. I can tell you all you need to know about the world anyway. Don’t go to Europe. It’s a waste of time.

  “Every now and then you’ll encounter someone who is a liberal, Andy. They can’t help the way they are or that they can’t think logically. That’s because they get their news from biased liberal media outlets. Don’t get upset with these people Andy. They are useful and we need more of them, because they never know what’s going on. When it comes time to dump a stock position we need dummies to buy from us. We need people who believe everything they see on TV.

  “There’s another really big secret I need to tell you about, Andy. It’s about warts. It’ll be important to you when you get older. See, there’s this special subset of doctor quacks called dermatologists. These guys make a fortune going around with little nitrogen spray cans zapping warts. They charge fifty to a hundred dollars a wart. Now, if you’re like me with dozens of warts that adds up to real money. You need to be really smart when it comes to money, Andy. Warts are the perfect example.

  “I discovered that I can get rid of them just as easily by biting them off and then digging out the residual wart residue with my fingernails. But, when your warts are on your chest, your back, your feet, or your ass, you need a wart removal buddy who will cut your warts off in exchange for you cutting his off, like I do with my lifelong friend Hirsh. Hirsh and I have saved thousands by cutting off each other’s warts. All you need is a simple pocket knife. It’s important to think about these things, Andy, because with all the money you save by cutting off your own warts you can buy shares in UGGA instead of throwing it away on some quack doctor.

  “But I want to be totally honest with you Andy. You know I’d never advise you to do anything that would hurt you. A lot of times when I have Hirsh cut a wart off, later I get two new warts at just about the same place. In fact, my back looks kind of like a wart field. And taking those damn things off is painful. But I’m okay with pain, Andy. I’ve come to associate life with pain. Life is just never-ending pain that gets more and more unbearable the older you get. Sometimes I wish I was never born in the first place, in the same way Mother wished I’d never been born. She hated me, Andy, and now I even hate myself. Life makes me cry, Andy, and it will make you cry too. It’s painful to go through life, but you have to keep fighting life and never give up that fight, Andy. After you’ve fought life as long and hard as I have, someday you, too, will probably wish you’d never been born.”

  Andy sat there in his jar of formaldehyde with his tiny head facing the carnage taking place in the glass arena. The ants were massing, their red bodies a living ball of destruction. The tearing and ripping away of spider flesh was approaching the grand finale of the arachnid’s agony.

  “Andy, there’s news! I just heard on the radio that the conservatives won the election! That means the liberals likely won’t get to use the Dodd Frank law to seize everybody’s assets. Instead, the country will deficit spend its way into hell and oblivion, and the currency will get monetized by the Fed buying up the government debt. That means your money will get more worthless faster than before, Andy. It also means you need to get your hands on as much gold and silver as you can afford to buy. Stick with me, Andy. I’ll make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams!

  “I just had a brilliant thought, Andy! You know, the more I drink the smarter I get. The new President wants to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. He’ll do it all right, by putting silver back into U. S. coinage and getting rid of the Federal Reserve. That’s it, Andy! We’ve figured it out! Mexico will make a fortune on rising silver prices, and part of the price rise they’ll remit to the U. S. to pay for the border wall. Mexicans will do great because their peso currency will rise. They’ll want to stay in Mexico! Americans will do great because they’ll have an honest weights and measures country and government again. The government will shrink in size and our economy will soar!”

  Andy sat inside his formaldehyde jar and stared at the carnage taking place inside the glass gladiator cage. David changed topics from his executive lessons to events in the combat arena. He whispered breathlessly to his student fetus as the ants tore away a third leg from the spider. “Look how wonderful this is, Andy! Can you see the beauty of it? Look at the spider shaking. He’s well into his death throes! Hear the sounds? I’ll turn up the volume on the sound translation system. Can you hear him screeching and screaming? It’s a unique sound you won’t hear anywhere else in the world.

  “It’s the sound of unrelenting agony. It’s beautiful to hear his pain, Andy. He’s in horrible unbearable pain. Can’t you hear it? He can’t escape from it! It’s so beautiful to watch him shudder and shake from his pain. I love this part so much, Andy! I love watching creatures in pain. Listen to how much he hates his suffering! It’s his plea for mercy, for his pain to stop. He so badly wants to die so his pain and torture will end, but the ants can’t give him mercy and end it. They don’t even know how to. They just keep tearing his flesh away and eating him. He only gets to die when his body is eaten away so badly that the body can no longer live. This is how life is, Andy. Those dishing out the pain never stop. They hurt you until you die inside.

  “Someday the little people are going to hurt the banks, Andy. There will come a time when the little guy gets even, just like ants ganging up on a spider. The ants are like the little people who are killing the big evil banks by buying gold and silver, Andy. It’s like they’re taking their bites out of the banks! I wanted you to see this. It’s class warfare, just like Dad said. Dad said the little people will win in the end. This is very special to watch and hear. It’s wonderful, Andy. I love it so much, and I love you too, Andy. It’s much more fun than watching reality TV, don’t you think? Here, Andy, have a drink with me.”

  David poured some whiskey over the top of Andy’s jar. Then, David took a healthy gulp of whiskey, leaned over and kissed the top of Andy’s formaldehyde jar. He then put down his glass of whiskey and drew his pants zipper down to reach his penis with his free hand. His experienced fingers began their familiar work, stroking and coaxing David’s truest and trusted longtime friend until its little head ejaculated to the excitement and tortured sounds of arachnid carnage. His mind long gone, an inebriated David experienced nirvana.

  Andy was David’s perfect protégé. The spider twisted and screeched in spasmodic twitches of agony as the ants executed David’s sadistic death sentence. Andy looked on, ever the loyal, unquestioning observer in his formaldehyde jar. He showed no signs of letting emotions cloud his judgment and never got distracted by the silly needs of women. He never talked back to David, nor did he ever question David’s wisdom, behaviors, or entertainment preferences. Alex had a promising future with David.

  ANTS

  Travelers to Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone, or the Tetons noticed little signs along the roadsides of the surrounding towns and in the parks themselves, signs that cautioned the unwary. ‘Caution! Bears are active in this area. Avoid all bears!’ Those who lived near these parks heeded these warnings. Especially to be avoided was a female bear’s cubs. Getting ne
ar a cub, playing with it, touching it, getting between it and its mother was not merely a bad idea. It was a terrible idea.

  Something instinctual happened when a mother sensed that her cub was threatened. It mattered not a hoot what the cub had done or whether the cub decided to first approach the human. The mother bear had no human capacity to rationalize or tell a good person from a bad person. All momma bear knew was her primordial drive that told her she must kill the intruder, dismember the meddler, and rescue her cub from any dangers real or perceived. All ursine, feline, canine, and most human mothers shared that protective instinct, and woe to anyone who triggered it.

  Whatever composure Susan normally maintained was overwhelmed by the gnawing realization that her precious darling Marty had likely been murdered by David. She visualized her daughter being hoisted into the air by the block and tackle apparatus, suspended in midair like a helpless sheep to be slaughtered. Had David taunted her before she died, before he butchered her? Had he dismembered her, fed her guts to his pigs and her bones to his wood chipper, and mulched her with his compost into his flower gardens? What did you do to my daughter, you sick son of a bitch? Her motherly instincts cried out for an answer.

  Susan was sickened and enraged by the revelations of Muscle Man. It was too late to save Marty, but not too late to avenge her daughter’s death. David was a child Susan never liked. He got in the way of her love for Marvin. He disgusted her. His thievery, lack of ethics and morals, and impish pranks nauseated her, but Susan had tolerated him for these many years, leaving Mrs. Rodriguez and Barbara to bear the brunt of his petty annoyances. Marvin provided well for Susan, ensconced her securely in the firm, and now this! Murder!

  Her world was thrown into turmoil. You little bastard! Susan seethed with rage. She was incensed at David’s audacity. As his lifetime sitter, she saw him do many deplorable acts, but he was not going to kill her flesh and blood and get away with it. Going to the authorities was out of the question. He would lawyer up, bribe a judge or a juror and laugh at her as he walked out of a hung jury or a dismissal. Justice could not be trusted to normal bureaucratic channels. The criminal justice system would be too good for him, even if it convicted him and sentenced him to life in prison. This was a matter that needed to be settled the old biblical way, with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Revenge through personal vendetta has a finality that punishment meted out by a jury can’t approach. When it’s personal, only blood answers for blood, and Susan’s blood boiled with rage.