The Terrorists Guild

I woke in the middle of the night and heard, “There was increased chatter about possible, upcoming terrorist attacks on the homeland, but the source is not entirely credible. The alert level has remained at orange, and not elevated to red”.

What do these colors mean anyway? Do the terrorists dress accordingly? “Okay everyone, get into your orange things,” I imagine the al-qaeda wardrobe tsar nudging the guys. “We want to scare them, enough to raise their blood pressure, but not to the max”.

Was this deja-vu? A dream? Could it be we’ve run out of news and this was a re-run of an old terrorist alert? Summer, after all, is not the season for first run programming. Have the terrorists formed a guild to secure collective bargaining and insurance benefits? Are they entitled to residuals for repeated threats? Will they have an annual award show on Al-Jazeera? “In the category of best suicide bombers”, they’ll present an award, posthumously, of course, to the winner. There will be a new sub-system of terrorists created specifically to accept awards for those unable to make the show. These could be our equivalent of peace workers, guys who want to be of service but avoid the military. Instead of the traditional trophy and acceptance speeches, they’ll announce who’s taken credit for each atrocity.

It’s getting harder to know what's real and what's show business.