"Stand aside. I have journeyed far to address this august body."
"You must be mistaken. I understand the secretary general himself is about to address the General Assembly."
"I am the Reigning Master of Sinanju. I outrank a mere secretary even if he is a general."
Sergeant Mace blinked. "What country do you represent?"
"Sinanju."
"That country I am not familiar with, sir."
"It is not a country. Countries rise and countries fall. Sinanju is eternal even if certain ingrates spurn the opportunity to head the House."
"Sinanju is a house?"
"You are blocking my path and wasting my time."
"Excuse me, but if you are not a delegate or an aide to a delegate, I cannot let you pass. Security, you must understand."
"You are in charge of security?"
"For this door, yes."
"Then allow me to teach you an important lesson in guarding doors to important chambers."
The little Asian beckoned Sergeant Mace to lean over, the better to hear him dispense his advice.
Sergeant Mace decided to humor the little Asian because the use of force was frowned on by UN guards just as it was frowned upon by UN peacekeepers. He bent over. And a hand he didn't see and barely felt tapped the lumbar region where the vertebrae were most flexible.
Acid seemed to pour into the sergeant's spine, spreading in both directions, and as if he had a crick in his back, Sergeant Mace suddenly couldn't straighten his back.
"Something is wrong with my back," he bleated.
"Allow me to help you," said the little Asian, taking him by the hand. Sergeant Mace found himself guided to the nearest men's room and escorted into a stall.
"I am not sick," he insisted.
"You are not well," said the little Asian, abruptly closing the stall door in such a way that the bolt slipped into place.
"Let me out."
"If you wish to be let out, you should have let the Master of Sinanju in. That is the lesson of guarding doors."
And Sergeant Mace, unable to straighten his back and use his dangling arms, took the bolt handle in his teeth and went to work freeing himself.
The General Assembly of the United Nations was abuzz as it awaited the appearance of the secretary general at the green marble podium under the great blue seal of the UN.
When the tiny Asian breezed up to the podium and began speaking in an unfamiliar tongue, they grabbed for their earphones and tried to focus on the words coming from their translators.
But no translation came.
"What is he saying?" asked the delegate from Italy.
"I do not know," replied his Brazilian counterpart.
"What language is he speaking?" wondered the ambassador from Norway.
No one seemed to know that, either.
Then the delegate from Surinam noticed the delegate from the Republic of Korea turn absolutely white while the representative from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea begin grinning from ear to ear, his dark eyes squeezing into slits of crafty pleasure.
"Try Korean. I think he is speaking Korean."
The word spread through the General Assembly as the tiny Asian continued speaking in a squeaky yet serious voice. He was so small his chin barely rose above the lectern, giving the appearance of a floating talking head.
When the representative Democratic People's Republic of Korea bolted for the exit, the delegate from the Republic of Korea tackled him. A fist flew, missed and another fist connected.
Instantly, there was a rolling, spitting commotion in the aisle, but no one moved to intervene. They were listening with rapt intentness to the running translation, while it was now getting organized.
Soon other delegates bolted for the exits. And were jumped before they could make it.
Fistfights broke out everywhere. Chairs were lifted and broken over tonsured heads. Alliances were quickly formed, lasting only as long as it took for a common foe to be knocked senseless. Then the alliances degenerated into fisticuffs.
Into this melee stepped a very befuddled secretary general and his under secretary for peacekeeping operations.
As he observed the open brawling, the secretary general's stony face did not change one particle. He looked to the under secretary, and the under secretary looked back. Both men shrugged their shoulders in mirrored gestures.
When the delegate from Iran, sans Islamic turban, went tumbling past, the secretary general asked him, "What is wrong?"
"I do not know. I did not hear the speech."
"Then why are you fighting?"
"I am fighting the delegate from Israel. I have always wanted to punch him in the face. This seemed like the perfect opportunity."
The delegate from Iraq came sliding by on his Saddam Hussein-style mustache. "Allow me to guess. The delegate from Israel did that."
"How did you know?"
"Because they did exactly that to my country during the Six Day War," replied Anwar Anwar-Sadat.
Striding forward, the secretary general waded through the surge and clash of bodies, pushing and tripping combatants as they swirled around him. His liquid brown eyes sought the podium. He caught a brief glimpse of a colorful little man as he exited through a side door.
"I do not recognize him," he muttered.
"Nor do I," said the under secretary.