Warmest Regards, from Dick Cheney

13 November, 2008

It is with a dread foreboding and protective eye toward the safety of my family that I, Joseph Robinette Biden, United States senator, put pen to paper in an attempt to relate what eldritch evil I encountered at Number One Observatory Circle on this date.

My impression, as we left my home state of Dela-ware, was that we were leaving the east, and entering the west. The district I was to enter is the capital of this nation, just on the borders of two states--Virginia and Mary-land, one of the wildest and least enjoyable portions of America.

I, with my wife Jill in attendance, were to oversee a ritualistic transference of some property, some real estate, as the notorious and eccentric boyar of that region, the vice president, prepared to abdicate the power of his office to me, his replacement in that position.

Having arrived by coach, Jill and I stood upon the steps of his manse as the vice president greeted us, in a formal manner still used by the people of that district: "I am Dick Cheney. I bid you welcome."

By all outward appearances, the property had been maintained to a certain degree, but it was not until we had crossed the threshold that it became clear of the greater attention to the decor required: the vice president pushed through a curtain of cobwebs in the corner of the foyer. "The spider, spinning his web for the unwary fly...The blood is the life, Senator Biden."

Refreshments were served forthwith, an attempt to soothe this awkward visitation. The vice president proffered a glass, saying "This is very old wine. I hope you will like it."

"Aren't you drinking?" I asked. The vice president responded, somewhat circumspectly, "I never drink...wine."

Conversation among us was polite, but the vice president seemed to engage in a perverse pleasure of creating some discomfiture in his guests. He took to telling my wife, with some amusement, about a controversial mishap he had on a recent hunting trip. One of his party was injured, the wounds he suffered having come at the hands of the vice president himself.

"Ah, but fear not, madam, for as we know, he lived," said the vice president, with some melancholy. "But to die, to be truly dead, that must be glorious!"

"Why, Mr. Vice President!," my wife exclaimed, casting me a sidelong glance.

"There are far worse things awaiting man, than death," said the vice president.

A tour of the many rooms commenced, a rather dismal and dark collection of rooms, I might add. Age had run its gnarled hand over seemingly every banister, hearth and clothing trunk throughout the place.

My wife, overcome with the gloom, and acutely affected by the strange company of our tour guide, observed "Lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter as though the dead were there...quaff a cup to the dead already, hooray for the next to die!"

We departed, finally, shaken by our meeting, feeling that we had made a narrow escape from the lair of some dark predator. Returned to the well-lit safety of our coach and making speed to Dela-ware, my wife laughed at her all-too-recent sense of doom about the vice president's home, and asked aloud why anyone should be so blighted with fear with regard to Mr. Cheney and his political office.

"The strength of the vice president is that people will not believe in his power," I said, observing myself in the coach's vanity mirror, noting that my hair had very recently gone a lighter shade of grey.