Pah!

MY LIFE

My name is William Jefferyson Clineton. I was the President of the United Sovereignities of Andulasia, USA for short. I became President easily enough. The total voting population of my country is a gargantuan 51 people, of which 27 are my relatives, or my wife's relatives... or 'her' relatives. So anyway, mine was a clear mandate, I won 49-31 on the vote count. The election officers were slightly perplexed. There had been totally 103 votes polled, so the missing 29 had to be accounted for. Then they figured that those people had probably been electrocuted when they pressed their finger into the electrical socket of the Extremely Vile Machine (EVM) rather than into the button beside my name... So yes, as you can see from the Math, it is pretty clear how I became President. However, this story is about how I UN-became President...

"Shall we tell the President?" is the name of a book by Jeffrey Archer. It featured Edward Kennedy in the President's role in the original version, but was replaced by Florentyna Kane in later versions. THAT however, is not why I brought that sentence up... I'm saying this because that was the line I overheard when I was passing by my Chief Security Officer's room in my Presidential Mansion, The Off-White House. Nevertheless, I carried on to my own room, the ellipsoidal-heptangular-tetra cuspidal hypocycloid... also called the Oval Office for convenience, feeling sure that my Officer would come and tell me whatever was bothering him. And sure enough...

He came in and took the seat facing across from me. I gave him a cup of coffee to soothe his high-strung nerves. He finished the coffee, but still seemed extremely shifty and uncomfortable, even more so, if it was possible. "Mr. President", he began, still staring straight down as if he'd just figured out how shoes fit perfectly around the feet thanks to those wonderful things called Laces. I was really beginning to lose my patience now.

"Mr. Edward, it's all right, you can go ahead and say it", I coaxed him. No one used his full name, Edward Shit. Which was quite unfortunate really, because it was HE who had to sign all the official memos to the armies- the ones which cut down on their holidays, increased their training periods and placed a limit on the amount to be bet on Barrack-fights between Captains and Privates... Invariably, the reaction to such memos was "Aw, this is SO Shit E. man!"... and so was the signature...

"Mr. President", he began again, and looked up and saw that I was really getting ready to blow. So he hesitantly stretched his hand and asked, "Can I have another cup of coffee?"

I was taken aback by this request. It felt as if someone had just driven a piledriver through my mid-section. For all his life, Edward had never asked for a second helping of ANTYHING. Even in the parched sands of Irania, where we had fought together during The Bay War (no one called it the Gulf War anymore), Edward had been offered only a thimble-full of water at the end of a long day, an amount that would have barely quenched the thirst of an ant after a marathon. But Edward had stoutly refused another thimble-full, and had marched on the next day sprightly as ever...

I handed him his second cup of Coffee. He downed it in a single gulp, drew a deep breath and began, "Mr. President..."

"Oh for God's Sake, call me Bill!" I snapped.

"Bill, we have a crisis. The Central Reserve Army of Promenia (CRAP) is revloting against their dictator, Am-Ul Dhoodh. Promenia is the second largest exporter of oil to our country, and right now they're trading a barrel of oil for a barrel of sand... apparently, they want a beach in their county, but all they have is oil and no coastline... so anyway, it's a profitable trade for us, and if Am-Ul is toppled..." his voice trailed off, leaving unspoken the terrible calamities that could befall my country as a result of such a disastrous act.

"What are our options?" I asked in my most everyone-asks-this-question-in-this-tone tone.

"One very good one, actually. The leader of CRAP, Amino Acidov, is willing to continue the same oil-sand exchange with us if we do not speak against his revoulution in public and if we pass him some weapons on the side... like we always do"

"Excellent then, what's the catch in this?" I asked incredulously.

"He wants you to come over to Promenia, alone, and sign an agreement to such an effect with him and his associates. He's crazy, I told him so. The nerve to expect that we'd let you go..."

"Nonsense, Edward! I've been in the army too, you remember? Of course I know how to handle myself in hostile territory. Now, no more arguements. Chalk up the rendezvous details and arrange for my transport" I ended the conversation with a finality befitting a President.

So there I was, the President of the USA, all alone in a dark alley in the capital of Promenia. I wasn't sure how Amino would show up, fully-armed and heavily guarded or defenceless like me. Either way, he was on home gorund, so he had the advantage. At the end of the alley, I could see the headlights of a car shining right at me. As they dimmed, I saw that it was a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, complete with tinted glasses, bullet-proof body armour, puncuture-resistant tyres and a 6-litre, turbo-charged V8 engine... or so I thought. As it drew closer, I saw it was a battered 1920s Ford, with the bumper hanging loose and the front windshield missing.

And a woman driving.

The car pulled up closer and stopped. The woman, in full military dress (it was amazing how severely cut men's clothes looked so great on women), walked up to me and said, "Hi... I'm Amino."

"Wha...???" was all I could manage to get out of my larynx as my brain raced as fast as it could to catch up with proceedings... and my eyes tried very hard not to stray below her face.

"Yes, I know," she smiled, "Promoenian names can be gender-confusing. We believe in an equal society, you know." She smiled again, "The agreement is in the car, you can sign it there."

She was getting straight to business. Which was fine by me. I squeezed into the passenger's seat, read through the agreement, noted that the words 'oil' and 'sand' were exactly where they should have been with more than a degree of satisfaction and signed it. She leant closer to check my signature, and I could feel her perfume lifting me. She took the agreement from my hand, and in the process, her hair brushed against my face. She put away the agreement and turned back to me. The rest, as they say, was Chemistry.

I had never had that experience in a car before. She smiled at me as she slid out through the driver's door to tie up her hair. She was still smiling when I heard the unmistakeable clicking off of the safety latches of sub-machine guns. I turned forward and saw four gunmen, with their Uzi submachines pointed right at me through the boken windshield. Immediately the reason behind the boken windshield became clear to me. She was still smiling when I stared at her numbly, with my eyes asking Why? She was still smiling when the gunmen gently squeezed the trigger of the four Uzis...

So you see, God, I have done nothing wrong, personally. It was all circumstances, as always they are. So if you could please get me out of this horrible place that people around me are calling 'Hell', I'd be very grateful. God! You don't know how hot it is in here!

This was a Creative Writing piece. I got disqualified for the 'shit' and 'crap'

Pah!