Adult son Mike steps to one side of the door and makes a sweeping arm gesture, as in: Look, look who I am welcoming in here.

They come in fast: young men and women in white stocking caps under the raised hoodies of emerald-green sweatshirts, with guns, looking, somewhat, like one of the teen musical ensembles adult son Mike will, when bored, make us watch on his phone.

Their leader urges Company to stay calm. Company does not: two men demand to know what this is, what is this all about, do they not know this is a private home? The leader urges the two men to step into the aisle, speak their minds, he is (they are) here to listen.

“I would hope so,” says the more rotund of the two, though both are rotund, then joins the leader in the aisle and extends a hand to his less-rotund friend, who is having some trouble getting out.

Both rotund men are now in the aisle, ready to register their feelings.

The leader raises the gun, shoots them dead, first one, then the other.

What a sound! We Speakers, we Singers, and Company, and Mr. U. and Mrs. U., and adult son Mike all flinch as one, a nest of mice beneath the black shadow of the massive wing of some overflying eagle.

The rotund men are two bleeding heaps on the floor, with seated, screaming wives.

“We are going to bring some decency into this world!” the leader shouts. “Once and for all. It begins tonight.”

How can they speak of decency, asks an old woman with young hair, when they have just killed Keith Durtz and Larry Reynolds, both of whom have given abundantly to so many charitable causes? Isn’t that right, Leah?

“And he didn’t even want to come to this,” sobs Leah, wife of the fallen Keith.

The leader grabs the old woman by her young hair, drags her into the aisle.

Would she like to elaborate? On her statement? In which she alleged hypocrisy among this group now holding her life in its hands?

She would not.

He casts her away. She falls to the floor with an inadvertent, melodramatic grace and lies there, eyes open. Blink, blink, blink.

One among the intruders, a girl in yellow tennis shoes, begins moving among Company, collecting cellphones in a tie-dyed cloth bag.

Company, the leader announces, will proceed into the basement. In a few hours, help will come and they will be released. They, the White Cap Consortium, understand the concept of differential guilt. Are they, Company, for merely attending an event, as culpable as Mr. and Mrs. Untermeyer? No. Some may, it is true, have Singers and/or Speakers of their own at home. But the Consortium has decided to err in the direction of mercy. Company may rest assured: none of them will be harmed. Not tonight, anyway. But he hopes that those among Company who do, in fact, have Singers and/or Speakers at home will, while down in the basement, reflect upon the role of chance at work tonight; this action is taking place here, in this home (and not in their homes), simply because the Consortium’s leadership recently found itself presented with an opportunity, by a certain enlightened party/former classmate (here he gives a playful salute to adult son Mike), but Company may be sure that there will come a time, and let us pray it will be soon, when no family participating in this barbaric, degrading practice will ever feel entirely safe in their home again.