A Special Prosecutor In Count Dracula's Crypt (Robert Mueller Testifies)

"Privatize It Now!"
Trump As Count Dracula:

A bygone battle cry
from an old protest sign

<Artwork: The Squawker>

Reckoner's Note: As a House of Representatives committee finally heard from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller Wednesday, we here at Ramen Noodle Nation sat back, sighed aloud, and began playing that ever-popular parlor game of...what if? What if? 

We now invite you to imagine an alternate reality, a parallel universe, if you like, one that takes place in Bram Stoker's beloved classic Gothic novel, Dracula. Specifically, imagine Trump as the Count, and Mueller as his arch-nemesis, the vampire hunter...Van Helsing. We begin in a setting familiar to countless horror movies.

Van Helsing arrives at the Count's singular crypt, identifies his coffin, and raises the familiar implements of his trade -- the hammer and stake -- high above his head. Suddenly, his eyes dart around, he takes a deep whiff, and then he sighs. He puts the hammer and stake down, and walks slowly out of the crypt. On arriving back in downtown metropolitan Transylvania, Van Helsing does not dare breathe a word to anyone about what he was doing, or why he slipped the stake back in its shoulder bag.

Less than an hour later, Dracula rises from the grave, and embarks on a spectacular raid. The body count ticks up spectacularly, as the people who haven't locked their shutters and doors pay the ultimate price. At the local casualty ward, corpses pile up by the tens, twenties, thirties, until the chroniclers lose track of the tally. Still, faith remains high in Van Helsing, who has been doggedly trailing the Count for months.

"Mein Gott, vhat is happening here?"

"Is Dracula sending us a message to..."

"Surely, if Van Helsing had known, if van Helsing would have come across him, he would have put a stake right through Dracula's dirty little blackened heart!"

"Ja, if only we could be sure of that, eh?"

Still, popular feeling runs high, especially at the casualty ward, and the morgue, where shocked families are reeling from the impact of Dracula's latest killing spree. The undertakers hover closely behind them, with one-page sheets of coffin sizes and measuring tape at the ready.

A press conference is called at the Town Hall. Van Helsing stands solemnly at the dais, the city fathers arrayed behind him, as the reporters shout their questions.

"Herr Van Helsing, what did Count Dracula know, and when did he know it?"

"Was Jack The Ripper colluding with the Count in any way? Is the Ripper a foreign national of some kind?"

"We understand there were numerous sightings of the Count, in and around his crypt, before the latest rampage. How is it, Herr van Helsing, that you and your associates failed to tally these numerous sightings? Wouldn't you have acted, if you'd known about them in time?"

Finally, the respected senior correspondent for the Transylvania Times gets to ask the million dollar question, the one that everybody's waited to hear: "Herr Van Helsing, you have had Dracula in your sights for nearly a year now. Many of his associates, like Renfield, are languishing in the castle dungeon, waiting for their day in court. Yet we hear that you could have gotten Count Dracula last night. is this true? If so, why didn't you act?"

Van Helsing sighs, furrows his mighty brow once more, and checks to make sure his garlic necklace is firmly in place. "Ja, mein Freund, it is all true. That rumor is true, every syllable of it. But even so..." The reporters begin to murmur, then growl.

The famed vampire tracker sighs, furrows his brow yet again, and mops it once more. He has been heaving rivers of sweat all night, and needless to say, he hasn't slept a proverbial wink.

Van Helsing grips the podium. Knowing what's coming next, and how the press corps will react, he steels himself to deliver the remainder of his response. "To have driven a stake through the heart of a creature so manifestly wicked, well -- it would have been unfair. I had to give him a fighting chance. After all, he is Count Dracula, and for all his dark doings, I must respect his office and his position. That was my rationale for leaving him as he was, in his coffin." 

The murmurs rise to a fever pitch now, but are soon drowned out in a cascade of shouts, muffled oaths, and obscure Eastern European curses. 

Seeing that the game is now up, his royal commission now apparently clouded forever, Van Helsing backs slowly away from the podium, shouting back in return: "That's it for now, gentlemen. No more questions! No more questions!" --The Reckoner