A Short History of the Supreme Democratically Elected Tyrant

by Kat Beyer

After his inauguration as Supreme Democratically Elected Tyrant, Walter Fishwrap began to enact the first of his visionary reforms in the tiny country of Beetroot. First, he outlawed fog and artificial banana flavor, while at the same time increasing government funding for other types of weather and for the artificial flavors of mango, watermelon, blueberry, and cheese.

He followed these triumphs with the now famous Tax Reform Act of 2012, which, in addition to other improvements to the Brobdignagian behemoth that is the Beetroot Internal Revenue Code, reduced the national tax form to a single sheet. Detractors complain that he did this by making the text so small that Beetroot’s one magnifying glass producer quintupled its income overnight, and special Accredited Tax Form Readers leaped into business around the country.

But what of the man himself? His biographer calls him “a mystery ‘Fishwrapped’ inside an enigma.” His neighbors say that he was a quiet man, kept to himself mostly. “Never would have guessed him for the type to put on red tights and a silly hat and issue proclamations from his back step,” says Mrs. Emmeline Harper, who shared a fence with him for thirty years. “Guess we know what all them tiny building and railroads back by the apple tree was for.”

— From A History of Backyard Megalomaniacs, by Marcus ‘Aurelius’ Boomer, Ph. D.