[Our scene opens in third-person close on Representative Norman P. Saul—an obscure political figure who is vying for candidacy in a higher, executive (rather than legislative) position in the Glorious Union. Our narrator is notably separate from the piece’s main subject, Rep. Saul, but is far from omniscient. Standing beside Norman Saul are two other rhetor-candidates, each participating in the Debate, and to whom the narrator will later introduce us. The three candidates stand on-stage in the center of a large stadium at their respective podiums. Standing before the three candidates on an attached catwalk is a handsome, suited gentleman behind his own podium, who will serve as the Debate’s mediator. The stadium’s stands are partly filled—many people are out of their seats gathering refreshments and mind-altering beverages. The scene begins with an allegiance pledge:]
“I state my undying Loyalty,” recite the audience, the mediator, and the rhetor-candidates (including Rep. Norman Saul) as a tonally flat, but enthusiastically dedicated chorus, “To the infallible banner / Of our Nation’s Glorious Union.”
Lights flash left and right from the center of the backdrop behind the rhetors, all of whom are facing stage -right and gazing warmly at a long banner, which hangs below the Enormo-tron #1 (a giant screen on the North-side of the stadium, opposite Enormo-tron #2 [the only difference between 1 & 2 being the hanging banner and the screen locations]). The banner features a white, four-sided star in the center, which is surrounded by a gold circle against a solid navy- blue background. It symbolizes the unity of the four provinces [or: territories] of the Glorious Union (represented by the circle), which are contiguous.
The chorus continues: “And to the Great One / By Whom we are endorsed.” Rep. Saul never felt exactly comfortable when he had to mention the Great One within a rhetorical forum [the narrator of this piece floats between objectivity and analysis of Rep. Saul’s not-always-entirely-conscious thoughts and motives], but it wasn’t that he didn’t fear the Great One (because did he ever), it just always seemed a little off to mention HIM in a rhetorical forum, like rhetoric and the Deity were mutually exclusive in his mind. But, if he ever were to say anything, he knows he’d be shunned. Blacklisted. He’d be labeled a non-follower. Worse even than being called a mugwump. [A “mugwump” here being a derogatory term for someone who is socially obtuse or unconsciously counter-cultural, and in a political forum being called a “mugwump” is fatal to one’s career. “The “Great One” refers to a theoretical yet suspiciously allegorical deity, which carries no physical form, yet, counter to logic, maintains a substantial majority following within the Glorious Union.]
Rep. Saul looks down at his blue-tinted glass rhetor-podium, only momentarily disregarding the banner of the Glorious Union. The podium has neon lights shooting up and around in pink and yellow. He looks back up at the banner and tugs his neck -collar away from his jaw with the hand that isn’t all palm-out against his forehead in honor of the banner. He continues with the others: “And to our patrons / Particularly Syncon—“ [each month one conglomerate, out of six total, sponsors intra-web access for the entire Glorious Union (this month being corporation Syncon’s), which means that the text of their choosing perpetually scrolls across the top of the screen for each Tablet and MiniTab that’s connected to the corporate-run nationwide information outlet (“intra-web”)] “—For providing us with this sacred land.”
Rep. Saul looks down for an instant at the rhetor directly in front of him (as he faces stage -right). The rhetor is Executive Joseph Gareth, who is on the board of execs at Syncon, the corp that leases out sixty-eight percent of the landmass Stakosia (the continent in which the Glorious Union resides), and which gets forty percent of Syncon’s land each year. [Basically the corporations who actually own the land on which the government resides supersede allegiances and/or taxation by any government entity. The conglomerate Syncon for instance is a global entity who deals mostly in land ownership (though there are many outlets under Syncon’s umbrella who deal in various forms of business). Though the exact percentages aren’t readily available for review, the narrator estimates that Syncon leases 40 % percent of its land to the Glorious Union, and 60 % percent is split between other nations and sectors of private land that is used for its corporate agenda. Note that Syncon does not own the entirety of the land on which the Glorious Union resides.]
Exec. Gareth [reminder: Gareth is the rhetor-candidate to the right of our narrative subject] has a clear advantage over Rep. Saul, as Saul is just a lowly politician. In the Glorious Union, citizen-investors prefer a businessman for the position of High Leader, especially an exec. at such a prestigious corp as Syncon. Rep. Saul, who notices his lack of media coverage, is aware of his disadvantage, but knows he has little power to recover from such a heavy deficit. Sometimes he considers that perhaps his inherent underdog-ness is precisely the reason he gets invited to these debates, but his subconscious pride and desire to win an executive political office often deflect such thoughts.
The chorus blandly chimes in the final lines: “In which all persons are given / Equality in opportunity / And the hope for harmony.” The crowd and rhetors erupt in applause, and the audience-members squat in their seats as the rhetors turn from the banner to face them. Rep. Saul adjusts his upper and lower neckties respectively, then rests his still-stinging palms atop his podium. He looks up at Enormo-tron #1 and sees “Journalist for UMN [the Unbiased Media Network] / Mediator Chuck Wilikers” scrawled in electro-text below the chest and head of the man himself, just as he is standing not six meters away from Rep. Saul due west behind his own podium, which is what looks like solid mahogany rather than glass. Lights flash and music thumps from giant loudspeakers as Med. Wilikers speaks into his headset microphone:
“Tooo-night, the Glory Party’s [“Glory Party” being one of two seemingly identical political parties in the Glorious Union, the second being (somewhat obviously) “United Party,” which is divided amongst various sects and therefore frequently loses non-incumbent runs for High Leader] rhetor-candidates for High Leader meet head-to-head-to-head for the very first time, in one of our nation’s most influential territories: Pylosia!” [Pylosia is one of four provinces in the Glorious Union.] The audience clambers and claps as if the Fire-cats had just scored a net-shot. On the bottom-right of each Enormo-tron is a (relatively) small semi-circle scale, labeled “Applausurement,” that has a white arrow (an arrow that moves left-to-right in correspondence with the volume-level of the audience’s audible reaction), which at the moment flickers in the bright -green territory of the color-coded gamut, bordering on ninety percent of maximum applause.
A camera sweeps across the stage mere meters from Rep. Saul, who looks around and notices the other two rhetors broadly smiling. He attempts to do the same. Med. Wilikers continues, “This will be a rhetorical bout, the likeness of which you have never conceived! Not only will the rhetors receive queries from yours -truly and similar UMN journalist-types regarding various important topics of our choosing, they will also receive relevant inquiries from regular-Joe investors from across the great territory of Pylosia and from other parts of the Glorious Union at similarly -contrived Enormo-tron gatherings regarding additional topics which we have chosen!
“Let us meet the rhetors whom we have asked to participate today. Though we strongly dissuade from formal introductions, you may each make a greeting-esque statement—preferably three, four, maybe five seconds—about yourselves to the citizen-investors of Pylosia, and to those of the Glorious Union.” Upon hearing the title of their nation, several of the citizen-investors in the crowd holler and bark. This occurs each time a microphoned individual mentions the Union by name.
Med. Wilikers continues: “Follow my example,” he says. “Hello, I’m Chuck Wilikers with UMN and I am blessed to be your mediator here tonight and I am thrilled to be back in the land of the Fire-cats!” A majority of the audience root root root in honor of their local sports team (ninety-six percent Applausurement). “I have been nominated for numerous awards, including but not limited to UMN’s Journalist-of-the-Year Award, and have been deemed a worthy opponent to other recipients of equally -unbiased awards for journalistic integrity!” He pauses, but gets a mere thirty per-cent Applausurement. “Now let’s git-R-goin’, starting with rhetor-candidate and world-famous Syncon executive Joseph Gareth!” The audience roots hard, seemingly at the mention of this month’s corporate sponsor.
“Thank you all my loyal friends!” says Exec. Gareth. He garbs a designer-deluxe double-suit, which is worth, what Rep. Saul calculates (based on his personal experiences of suit-browsing) to be, nearly ninety-six hundred pixels—double a rep.’s monthly salary. “I am certainly pleased to see so many of my wonderful supporters here in one place! As you know, for nearly forty years I have been a high-level executive at Syncon, which leases reduced-rate land to this great city-state saving you thousands of pixels in taxes—yearly!” The crowd expresses happiness regarding Exec. Gareth’s statement. Rep. Saul had met Exec. Gareth directly before the debate. It was strange to meet probably the most powerful person in the nation. Exec. Gareth continues: “I have fourteen children, thirty grandchildren, and a house for each of them,” Gareth winks, and the crowd expresses enchantment. “Plus,” says the exec., “I donate a portion of my income to charity—sometimes!” Applausurement: eighty-seven percent.
“Okay okay,” Med. Wilikers says into his headset. “Let’s not take all day with our greetings all right folks? We all know you anyway, Mr. Executive. Let’s save time for some good ol’ meaty debatin’! And, speaking of meaty, let’s meet our second executive rhetor-candidate, the voluptuously meaty-yet-professional Sarah Stiltskin!”
The Enormo-tron flashes to Exec. Stiltskin, who has an uncannily thin body—except for her bafflingly large bosom, so large it nearly engulfs the obnoxiously lavish necklace that’s tucked into her valley of cleavage—and what Rep. Saul thinks looks like an airbrushed face. The crowd, seemingly recognizing Exec. Stiltskin’s name, claps wildly, and a few of the more rampant individuals whistle loudly, which boosts her close to eighty-five percent on the Applausurement scale. She speaks: “Why hello! I’m Sarah Stiltskin! I’m a high-up executive at the great corporation Genesis, who leases out a whopping thirty percent of its land to Pylosia, the live free or secede province!” At this the crowd reacts favorably. “Together with my loving husband Cécil, I rear over thirty-two unwanted children at any given time! We even adopted three of them,” she says and places her Tablet horizontally atop her breasts to allow the audience to see on the Enormo-tron. It shows a picture of the exec. with husband Cécil and their three noticeably-non-biological children, shown candidly munching caviar-bead-covered crackers. The crowd welcomingly whoops.
“Wow,” says Wilikers. “How interesting. How very interesting. Yes. Indeed. Well. Representative Norman Saul,” he says, crowd claps. Saul clears his throat. He speaks:
“I’m Representative Norman Saul, and I’ve uh, been elected as representative to the, erm, people of Chronopolis, a segment of the Glorious Union, due south, and I’ve served eighteen consecu—ahem—consecutive terms and I’m here to protect our basic equalities and, well, to return our Glorious Union to harmony.” Some audience-participants scoff, but the Applausurement floats somewhere in the yellow, something like seventy percent. But it’s not because he’s from out of town—they treat him the same in Chronopolis (a neighboring Glorious Union province). Even tThey (i.e., his territory’s own people) prefer Exec. Gareth, and even Exec. Stiltskin, to their own rep. In the Glorious Union, corporate execs are more highly regarded than political figures in terms of who should represent the Union as High Leader [but yeah, you already know that].
“All right, we get the point,” says Med. Wilikers. “Jeez that last one took forever huh?” Wilikers cocks his thumb toward Rep. Saul and the crowd is generally amused. “Now that the boring stuff is over let’s get this debate a-goin’ already!
“I’ll start out by telling you our easy-to-understand and extremely simple rules. First I will give each candidate the opportunity, nay the privilege, of discussing at least one important topic in the order that has been decided by UMN’s undisclosed parent corporation—and on top of that, each main question will have a series of improvised-by-me follow-up questions—if I choose to do so—to which I will assign on a whim the candidate which who has the most likelihood of answering in either a positive or a negative way depending on my own projected outcome of the debate—though I should say the outcome will be determined solely by the rhetor-candidates and in no way will the winner of the debate be chosen by the UMN nor by its unnamed umbrella corporation.
“Now regarding the questions: each candidate will have roughly fifteen or sixteen seconds to answer—and I say roughly because tonight we will trust the candidates to use their own discretion in determining the exact time that they will consume during the answer portion of their statement, and if they get out of hand I will try to pleasantly shut them up. Hopefully that will not be an issue. We at UMN would like to hear short, very short, answers to these questions. We’re talkin’ one or two sentences. And even that might be too long. We will not expect complete sentences. Try to use a one- or two- word answer. Something easy to understand and sound-bytable. Heck, you don’t even have to use words. And, come on guys, make it relevant to the question. These are important topics.
“First question comes from Old-man-river Army-vet from Who-the-hell-knows, Pylosia. Come on old-timer, make it snappy.”
Rep. Saul looks up and sees the head of a weary man dressed in full military regalia upon the Enormo-tron. The man, unaware he’s been insulted (or perhaps that’s actually his name), says, “Yes . . .Yes . . . I have a question for the can-di-dates. I’m a retired vet-er-an who worked in commercial enterprise for more than sixty-three years! Though I haven’t worked in many years since, I heard from a man on the T-V that the people that still are required to work don’t have any places to work. The guy on the screen said that over twenty per-cent of citizen-investors are sitting on their young tushes at home. Now I want to know—because this here is very important—I want to know what the Glory Party plans to do to make sure these people are getting jobs even though there aren’t any?”
Med. Wilikers says, “Yes candidates, the old bastard is right, this is indeed a very important topic. If you were elected High Leader, what things would you do, in a word or two—a sentence, tops—to force these people into work? Executive Gareth.”
“Jobs means economy,” says Exec. Gareth. “Our economy is like, stalled. Imagine the economy as a car, going uphill, but not moving, like it’s stuck. What we should—nay, need to do—is jumpstart the economy, like a car battery, and pixels are the electricity. Except the government is putting the pixels in the trunk, like as if that would help! What we need is more pixels in the engine, which is commercial enterprise, because that’s what drives the economy: pPixels to businesses. Because economy means businesses.” The audience seems unsure how to react, but at peak applause Rep. Saul sees the needle reach seventy-nine percent, which gives the spectrum a kind of yellowish-green shade.
“Executive Stiltskin,” says Med. Wilikers, “you too fetishize business. Do you feel as optimistic that giving pixels to businesses will increase our economy’s capacity?”
“I think that increasing our economy is important,” says Exec. Stiltskin, “but I think what’s even more importanter is decreasing the unnecessary dictations that our current High Leader has set on otherwise-would-be-flourishing businesses! I mean, what’s the deal? The High Leader outright refuses to allow us to charge whatever for dangerous fuel-sources, while at the same time he banned our ability to find more areas that might have an abundance of said fuel-sources! And, on top of that, this whole Disease-Prevention Act is preposterous—if the rich prevent their diseases, then no one else around them will get the disease either—it’s simple economy. We don’t need a government plan to rid disease. [Med. Wilikers: ‘Okay . . .’] Forcing businesses to prevent disease amongst their workers is oppressive [‘Okay, okay . . .’]. What this High Leader is doing to businesses is sick!” The crowd smacks their hands together hard, getting the Applausurement to peak at ninety-five percent—neon green.
“Okay, sweetie,” says Med. Wilikers, “don’t make me remind you again to make these answers ridiculously short. We don’t want your entire policy, just a couple short blips of information, okay? Executive Gareth, what do you make of what the High Leader is doing to the economy?”
“Well I think it’s ridiculous!” says Exec. Gareth. “Our High Leader is an imbecile! He thinks we’re just like all those other trashy countries, like they’re our equals or something. But we aren’t Shamaraquay, we aren’t that poor one, what’s it called? We’re better than them. Look at us: we wear shoes! [‘Okay . . .’] We have to boost this economy by cutting all funding to unimportant education and science endeavors, give more money to businesses, cut taxes to businesses and the wealthy, create a patriotic energy plan [‘Okay, okay . . .’] which allows us to raise prices for dangerous fuels-sources, eliminate disease-prevention—” the masses woot woot woot the needle past ninety-six percent Applausurement. “—and if we do all that [‘Okay okay okay okay’] then the economy will—“
“Okay I don’t want to have to keep doing this, but seriously you guys, learn when to shut the hell up. We don’t have enough time to hear you blabber about everything you think. Now Representative Saul,” says Med. Wilikers, “do you have an opinion on the economy?” The way it was going, Saul figured Wilikers would pass him on this question. As mentioned previously, legislative politicians in the Glorious Union garner very little respect from both the media (including the UMN news outlet by which Wilikers is employed) and from the populace. Legislative representatives [such as our protagonist Rep. Saul, who the majority widely consider to be a crackpot but who maintains a cultured following amongst his local community] are frequently portrayed in media as being counter to the agenda of the Great One, of which the portrayal is frequently cited in obscure/academic papers as the cause for the animosity toward locally elected individuals.
“Well, yes,” says Saul. “I think that—eh—we need to do something radical [‘Okay okay okay’] to improve our current, erm, dire situation [‘Okay’] that we’re in [‘All right’] and we can only do that by—“
“Yeah, all right,” says Med. Wilikers. The stadium is quiet. Saul looks up at the Enormo-tron, which after each question so far has lit up with bright colors and bounced and the arrow has moved clockwise from “9” all the way up to “3”; in this instance, it hadn’t moved, and the spectrum remained black. Wilikers continues: “I’m only going to say this politely one more time: short, to-the-point, answers. No excuses. We simply do not care. It’s boring as shit! Got it? Okay. Next question already—and let me remind you: in no way have any of these questions been written by our anonymous conglomerate, nor have any of the rhetor-candidates been receiving the questions ahead- of -time and suggested answers from the Unbiased Media Network via their personal tablets—next question, whatchu got Crazy Lady from Wherevers-ville?”
Rep. Saul looks up at the middle-aged woman on the Enormo-tron. She has dyed-red hair that sticks out all Raggedy Ann and glasses—large huge thick and brimless—that make her eyes appear unnaturally large, giving her a look of outright surprise. The lady cradles both hands around the microphone, holds it unreasonably close to her face, and while blinking far too many times says, “Yes, as a journalist who has written at least one article about some aspect of disease-prevention for as few as one unnamed corporate publication and possibly someday even a news -site, I feel that I am indeed qualified enough to be concerned with the amount of diseases that the Disease-Prevention Act wishes to prevent. They want to prevent too darn many! My question is: What four steps would each candidate take to halt pixel-streaming to the Disease-Prevention Act and to starve it to death as soon as humanly possible? Thank you.”
Med. Wilikers says, “Executive Stiltskin, care to give this one a shot?” Rep. Saul sees Wilikers point out his index finger with his thumb sticking up and wink at Stiltskin as he says “shot,” as like an inappropriate physical pun—maybe as a reference to how Exec. Stiltskin’s company Genesis owns one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the country or that how she is VP of the Glorious Union Gun Organization, or maybe the gesture had some sexual connotation that [neither] Saul [nor the narrator] [are able] to discern. Whatever it means, the crowd gets a kick and laughs the Applausurement up to seventy-eight percent.
Exec. Stiltskin winks back and says, “Why thank you Chuck. And thank you ma’am for such an important topic. I was the very first [pounds fist gently on podium, breasts jiggle, some audience-members whistle] executive in the nation to endorse an all-out killing of the Disease-Prevention Act. We should kill it dead [jumps up and flings arms outward horizontally, some cat-call]. And when you elect me to High Leader, I promise, on the graves of the lives potentially lost from disease-prevention, that I will not sleep, unlike those who will eternally sleep as a result of this act, until we abolish this absurd law! [Pounds fist, crowd likes] It’s a killer. It takes pixels away from companies like my own—and by the way, we own a chain of hospitals—and it gives them to useless free clinics. My top advisors tell me that unless our hospitals remain state-of-the-art—you know, really high-tech—then we could lose up to three billion lives [out of a population of three-hundred million] as a result! And these are the lives of wealthy citizen-investors. These people don’t need free clinics—they can afford high-cost disease-prevention—yet these are the people that will suffer the most.” The audience-folk, apparently heated at the prospect of losing their lives to disease-prevention, and from seeing Stiltskin’s breasts moving so fluidly and passionately as she gave her response, produce ninety-two percent applause.
“Very good answer,” says Med. Wilikers, “very good answer indeed. You hear that folks? Everyday wealthy citizen-investors, the people that matter, will suffer the most. Now let’s wrap this up already, we haven’t got all night! Let me hear yah gang, who wants to hurry up so we can get to some Fire-cats action?” The crowd claps sharply and root root roots the needle near ninety-nine percent—and for the first time Norman Saul sees the spectrum emit a bright white light. He feels slighted.
Wilikers continues: “Okay candidates, last chance to not ruin your campaign by saying the slightest most insignificantly incorrect answer which may-or-may-not be repeated over and over and over on the squeezebox, the tube, and the intra-web leaving your career in utter nothingness by answering this one final question proposed by myself: In twelve syllables or less, emphasis on the ‘less,’ what is the most important thing you learned this evening and/or what is your favorite government-approved carbonated beverage brand? Representative Saul?”
Twelve syllables, thinks Rep. Saul. He wonders what he could possibly say that would add to less than twelve syllables. Wonders why he agreed to such very short answers. He thinks “Mugwump” with a giant red “X” going through it. Mugwump = Political Persona-cide. He starts: “A-hem—“
“That counts as two!” says Wilikers.
“—well. Then. Prima-Cola, I guess.”
“That’s good,” says Wilikers. “Only ten syllables and you picked a company owned by our corporate overlords, whoever they are. Now c’mon c’mon c’mon, zoom zoom zoom ’xecutive Stiltskin go!”
Exec. Stiltskin seems startled at the mention of her name. Rep. Saul instinctually notices her perplexingly large breasts jump just a little. He then immediately feels guilty for having noticed the movement of another woman’s fun-bags. His wife, and oh dear, the Great One too, would be terribly ashamed of his infidelity, he thinks.
Then Stiltskin speaks: “Woooo liberty wooo wooo!” and she jumps up and down and up and down in place, and Saul stares down and to the right to avoid both her and the Enormo-tron. The crowd seems to enjoy it, though. They seem to enjoy it indeed. He can’t be sure, but Saul believes that the Applausurement may have reached the ultimate percentage. Forget fidelity, he decides. He wants to see. He’s sick of doing things just to appease the Great One (No one else could possibly know what he’s thinking, he thinks. He thinks maybe he doesn’t even believe in an omnipresent allegorical figure whose existence is merely theoretical [as far as he knows]). He’s tired of speaking in ten-syllable intervals. He wants to have a real debate, a debate with purpose, wants to change the Glorious Union into a more harmonious contiguous nation. He wants to look at another woman’s fun-bags. When he looks up at Exec. Stiltskin, however, she is unfortunately still. Posing.
“Nice,” says Wilikers. “Very nice. Very. Nice. Indeed. Yes. Okay. Who we got? Right. Executive Gareth. Let’s move it bub. Favorite soda-pop? Some supremely short quip? Come on, let’s be honest. You’ll probably win the vote. Just say whatever, man.”
Gareth chuckles and says, “Why thank you, Chuck.” Now this is ridiculous, thinks Saul. A mediator, especially one for the Unbiased Media Network, may not blatantly endorse a candidate for High Leader of the Glorious Union. But no one else seems to have noticed, or they totally noticed and they just don’t care. “It is true,” Exec. Gareth continues, “I do have the best chance.” Saul thinks that should count as twelve syllables at least. “Thanks to all the support from you, my precious Syncon supporters!” Gareth then grips his hands together and shakes them once and twice on each side of his head, and the crowd cheers in what appears to be adoration. This is preposterous, thinks Norman Saul. He knew he wasn’t the favored candidate, and not really even close to being tied for second, but come on.
Med. Wilikers chuckles too and says, “And it looks like that’s all from the political realm for tonight.” The entire audience seems to simultaneously sigh with relief. “And now, as promised, we’ve got the Fire-cats and the Chronopolis Cronies returning for the second half of their pre-season bout, simul-cast at other Enormo-tron gatherings across the Glorious Union and wide-cast on the tube exclusively at UMN’s sports outlet and now simultaneously on the Unbiased 24-hour news outlet—go Fire-cats!” The audience bursts into claps, hoots, roots, and what sounds like synchronized stomping, the combination of which causes the Applausurement pointer to spin and the spectrum to explode in a miniature supernova in the corner of the Enormo-tron.
The spotlights and cameras that were previously pointed toward the stage of rhetor-candidates have spun and now face the locker-room exit doorways (and the stage gets pulleye’d from the center of the stadium) from whence the players arrive on the game-court (upon which the stage had previously been) where the Fire-cats and Cronies are set for the first drop-off of the second half. The Enormo-tron now shows two greased-up athletes at center-game-court preparing to engage in near-deadly sports -combat.
Rep. Saul removes the clip-mic from his collar and uses his upper -tie to clear a dripping stripe of sweat from his brow. Saul looks up at Enormo-tron #2 when the umpire tosses the game-puck between the players. The bottom of the screen has a text-ticker that is designed to scroll the results of the debate. The results simply read: “Exec. Joseph Gareth wins!” repeated countless times and, somehow mystically, in overlapping infinite layers within the two-dimensional screen. Saul watches the words scroll and stack and stack and scroll for what seems like much longer than it could have possibly been with an unusually contemplative-seeming swirl of conflicting emotions. He isn’t sure what to do.
Norman Saul gathers the willpower to remove his gaze from the repetitive compilation of congratulation and he turns finally to the Banner of the Glorious Union, raises his hand to his forehead, palm-out, then quietly and with grace exits the inner-stadium through a tunnel marked “EXIT.”
