Read Part I here, Part II here and Part III here.
The morning began disastrously.
Sir Marcus Josephus McBridus Snailius, Custos Slimi, Knight of the Perpetually Slippery Robe, was discovered beneath his judicial desk, attempting to bury a newspaper in seventeen gallons of freshly secreted slime.
“OUTRAGE!” he shrieked. “SCANDAL! JOURNALISM!”
His valet, a modest earthworm named Wrigglesworth, cautiously approached.
“Your Judicial Viscosity, perhaps another application of sanctions?”
“BWOMP-YA!”
A magnificent fountain of slime struck the ceiling.
“Summon Dr. Gaston Slug! IMMEDIATELY!”
I. A Medical Emergency
Dr. Gaston Slug, distinguished Director of the Institute of Molluscan Behavioral Therapy, arrived seventeen hours later, having traveled at maximum clinical speed.
He found his celebrated patient clinging upside down to a portrait of Lady Justice.
“Marcus! My finest therapeutic achievement! What has happened?”
“THEY FOUND OUT!”
“Found out what?”
“THAT I WAS A DISTRICT ATTORNEY!”
Dr. Slug blinked.
“Marcus, your previous employment was never classified.”
“BUT THEY ARE READING ABOUT IT! THAT I WAS A DISTRICT ATTORNEY IN A CASE RELATED TO NERONI V MOLE AND NERONI V DELAWARE COUNTY!!!! WHERE I JUST SANCTIONED THEM SUA SPONTE EX PARTE FOR STATING..... STATING... STATING... WHAT THEY NOW KNOW WAS TRUE - AND MORE!!!!!! AND THEY KNOW I HAD TO DISCLOSE MY DA'S INVOLVEMENT! AND I DID NOT!!!”
“Ah,” murmured Dr. Slug. “A much more serious condition.”
He produced his diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Molluscan Disorders, and opened it to Chapter 13: Pathological Public Accountability.
“Tell me everything.”
“LAUGHMAN!”
“Bless you.”
“NERONI V. MOLÉ!”
“Gesundheit.”
“NERONI V. DELAWARE COUNTY!”
Dr. Slug dropped his lettuce.
“Good heavens, Marcus. Three consecutive exposures to the public record! How have you survived?”
“BY SANCTIONING PEOPLE!”
“Naturally. But apparently your dosage has become insufficient.”
II. The Terrible Discovery
Sir McBridus crawled down the portrait, leaving a translucent trail across Lady Justice's blindfold.
“They have been looking into the Laughman affair, Gaston!”
“Dreadful.”
“They have been examining what happened when I was District Attorney!”
“Barbaric.”
“They have been connecting it to the litigation!”
“Unscientific.”
“AND THEY ARE PUBLISHING IT!”
Dr. Slug gasped.
“Publishing? Without your permission?”
“WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME WHETHER I CONSIDER IT FRIVOLOUS!”
The psychiatrist closed his eyes.
“This is worse than I feared.”
He began dictating his clinical observations.
Patient presents with acute historical exposure, accompanied by involuntary judicial secretions, catastrophic loss of narrative control, and recurrent attacks of BWOMP-YA.
“Marcus, when you became a judge, did you believe your prosecutorial history would cease to exist?”
“OF COURSE!”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE I AM A JUDGE!”
Dr. Slug smiled tenderly.
“Excellent. Your original treatment remains effective. Your cognitive defenses are intact.”
“THEN WHY AM I SUFFERING?”
“Because, Marcus, although we successfully removed your capacity to recognize inconvenient facts, we neglected to remove the facts themselves.”
There was a terrible silence.
Then:
“BWOOOOOMP-YAAAA!”
Three windows shattered. The court reporter drowned in metaphorical mucus.
III. The Forbidden Word
Dr. Slug decided to administer a psychological association test.
“Marcus, I shall say a word. You tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”
“Proceed.”
“Evidence.”
“FRIVOLOUS!”
“Newspaper.”
“SANCTIONS!”
“History.”
“DISMISSED!”
“Litigant.”
“VEXATIOUS!”
“Appeal.”
“MORE SANCTIONS!”
“Recusal.”
Sir McBridus turned pale green.
His eyestalks crossed.
His judicial foot contracted.
A thin stream of slime escaped beneath his robe.
“DOCTOR! YOU KNOW THAT WORD IS FORBIDDEN!”
Dr. Slug immediately administered two emergency lettuce leaves.
“Forgive me, Marcus. I momentarily forgot your constitutional intolerance to self-examination.”
IV. The Slime Defense
After forty minutes of intensive molluscan psychotherapy, Dr. Slug proposed a treatment.
“We shall construct a protective shell of judicial immunity.”
“ABSOLUTE?”
“Absolutely.”
“RETROACTIVE?”
“Psychologically, certainly.”
“WILL IT COVER MY DISTRICT ATTORNEY YEARS?”
Dr. Slug hesitated.
“Marcus, judicial immunity is a legal doctrine. It cannot change the chronology of your employment.”
“THEN CHANGE THE CHRONOLOGY!”
“How?”
“ISSUE AN ORDER!”
“Against time?”
“IF NECESSARY!”
The psychiatrist made another entry:
Patient exhibits advanced temporal jurisdictional grandiosity. Believes calendar subject to judicial discretion.
“Marcus, there are certain limitations to the power of an order.”
“NAME ONE!”
“Yesterday.”
Sir McBridus screamed.
V. The Fatal Complication
“Doctor,” whispered Sir McBridus, “suppose they continue investigating Laughman?”
Dr. Slug adjusted his spectacles.
“They might.”
“And the prosecutorial records?”
“They might examine those too.”
“And Neroni v. Molé?”
“Possibly.”
“And Neroni v. Delaware County?”
“Indeed.”
“And suppose they put everything together?”
The psychiatrist contemplated the question for a very long time.
“Marcus, I fear you are experiencing a condition never before documented in molluscan medicine.”
“WHAT CONDITION?”
“Continuity.”
“IS IT FATAL?”
“To certain narratives, yes.”
Sir McBridus collapsed into a puddle.
“BUT I HAVE ISSUED ORDERS!”
“Yes.”
“I HAVE IMPOSED SANCTIONS!”
“Yes.”
“I HAVE DECLARED PEOPLE FRIVOLOUS!”
“Repeatedly.”
“WHAT MORE COULD A SNAIL POSSIBLY DO?”
Dr. Slug sighed.
“You could answer the questions.”
Sir McBridus emitted a noise resembling a judicial opinion being sucked through a clogged drain.
VI. The Doctor's Final Report
That evening, Dr. Gaston Slug submitted his confidential psychiatric report to the Institute of Molluscan Behavioral Therapy.
Patient: Sir Marcus Josephus McBridus Snailius, Custos Slimi.
Diagnosis: Acute Public Record Exposure Syndrome, Stage IV, with recurrent sanctions reflex and severe chronological incompatibility.
Prognosis: Guarded. Patient remains capable of producing extraordinary quantities of slime. Unfortunately, the slime has demonstrated no capacity to dissolve public records, suppress independent journalism, or reverse the passage of time.
Recommended treatment: Complete isolation from newspapers, docket sheets, archival records, historical chronology, and persons capable of reading.
Contraindications: Facts. Questions. Dates. Documents. Journalists. Litigants. The First Amendment.
Emergency intervention: In the event of further exposure, patient should immediately retreat into his shell and repeat the therapeutic affirmation:
“I am the Court. I am the Court. I am the Court.”
Special warning: Under no circumstances should the patient be informed that the Court itself has a record.
EPILOGUE: THE UNFORTUNATE NEWSPAPER
At midnight, Wrigglesworth entered the consulting chamber.
“Your Judicial Viscosity, there is another article.”
Sir McBridus trembled.
“About whom?”
“You, sir.”
“WHAT DOES IT SAY?”
“That the public is entitled to know.”
Sir McBridus turned toward his psychiatrist.
“GASTON! WHAT IS THE MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT?”
Dr. Slug slowly withdrew into his shell.
From deep within came his muffled professional opinion:
“Marcus, I am afraid it is incurable.”
And from Chenangus Slimery Castle rose the most magnificent judicial eruption ever recorded in the annals of molluscan psychiatry.
BWOOOOOOOOOMP-YAAAAAAAAAAAA!
The slime reached the chandelier.
The chandelier fell.
The newspaper remained perfectly legible.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Episode V: THE PEOPLE v. YESTERDAY — Sir McBridus Attempts to Sanction the Calendar.
The Chronicles of Sir McBridus is a work of political and judicial satire. Its molluscan characters, psychiatric diagnoses, dialogue, and supernatural judicial powers are fictional.
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