Karl E. Meyer, Volume XIX, No 4, Winter 2002/03
Now it happened that Martin Dies rubbed the magic lamp, and the genie appeared, and the genie said: "What is thy will, master?"
And Martin Dies answered: "It is my will that straightaway all the aliens in America be exiled to some distant and most inhospitable spot, and there do sufferance for their sins."
And the genie said: "Truly I can grant thy wish, master, but there is a law in my land which says that whosoever is sent into exile shall be allowed to take with him whatever he has created by his own efforts. This is, I think, a just law, and if you abide by it, I can grant your desire."
And Martin Dies said: "Indeed, your law is quite just. Let the aliens be deported, and let them take with them what they have created, for surely they have fashioned nothing but dissent and plots and radical heresies and sins and sabotage, and to these they are welcome."
And the genie said: "So be it master." And he uttered a few words of strange power, and a miracle happened.
It followed in that very instant that a vast fleet of barges and boats was fashioned, and into them, millions upon millions, flocked the aliens, and they took with them what they had created in America.
They took with them highways hewn out of the wilderness by Sicilians and Slavs, and great rafts of lumber felled in the forests by the Irish, Swedes and Norwegians, and many millions of square miles of earth made fertile by the Germans, the Danes and the Dutch, and billions of garments woven by the Jews, and mountainous masses of coal and iron and copper dug from the pits by Italians and Finns and Poles, and whole cities of skyscrapers and subways and railroads and mills and marts wrought by the sinews of many aliens from the earth's four quarters.
And they took with them also their alien culture, their music and their songs, their languages and their literature, their books and their Bibles and their cookery, their piety and their passions, their ideals and philosophy and folk-dances and fun which had been woven into the rich and multi-colored fabric of America.
Now all this happened when the genie granted the wish of Martin Dies, when the aliens left with all their works, and a great want followed, and a great and strange silence. And in that silence there was naught to be heard save the frightened whimpering of Martin Dies crying: "Genie, genie!" But there was no answer, for the genie, an alien, was on the boat to Baghdad, and after that there was nothing and the night.
Full Article: Slouching Down Xenophobe Alley
