Kings and Queens

Kings and Queens

The President was in his bathroom fantasizing about torturing his political enemies. They clearly deserved it. It was a habit of his; he meant no harm by it (or not much). He stood up and his ample buttocks were reflected in the gold plate of his Presidential toilet. He gazed at his pudgy polluted face in the mirror and told himself he looked very handsome today—forceful, masculine, yet oddly pretty. Many people said so and they should know, despite the losers and haters that found him repulsive. He flashed his high-price implants and smoothed his carefully arranged hair. He had to look good today. He had a press conference at noon: it was sure to draw a big crowd, it always did. He felt a mixture of dread and jubilance: dread because of all the obvious lies he would have to tell, jubilance because he prided himself on his lying prowess (no one ever in the history of the world was a better liar than the President). Journalists were all dumb anyway, especially the intelligent ones. That young girl reporter from CNN was always trying to trip him up by asking him factual questions, but he knew how to deal with her—just pivot to how bad her network was. He must use that word more often, pivot, because it sounded smart and decisive–he was one of the great pivoters in history. His pivoting was sorely underrated.

The President walked into his large kitchen area and saw his wife sipping tea and reading a women’s magazine. She looked up briefly and then down again. As so often, he reminded himself that she was reckoned one of the world’s top women; not many women could compete with her regarding top woman. She had won several beauty contests in Central Europe and every man wanted to sleep with her (even his own sons, it was sad). He didn’t know what to say so he said, “Have you seen the polls today?” In a heavy accent she replied, “I never look polls, I don’t trust them”. “We are way up in Indiana”, he noted with satisfaction, noticing her eye makeup. He thought she was looking too skinny, as if she wasn’t given enough to eat. “You should eat more,” he advised, but she wasn’t listening to him.

In his Presidential office he was surrounded by his sir-men and yes-women. These were all good people, great people, they love our country. But he was suspicious of all of them: they were all out to get him, rob him, undermine his authority. Some of the men were aggressively taller than him, and not all the women (scandalously) wanted to sleep with him. Still, he could always just get rid of them. He was incredibly good at getting rid of people, famous for it—firing them, deporting them, imprisoning them. They should really be grateful he wasn’t having them shot. Shooting people was one of things he regularly fantasized about. Criminals should be shot, also treasonous generals, and people who don’t love our country. He could shoot anyone and no one would object—he was that popular. But he was a good man, a decent man, and wouldn’t shoot someone for no reason. There had to be a reason, like shoplifting or supporting terrorist organizations. He had been shot at himself, probably by his political opponents, so it was only fair that he should shoot back. It was common sense: they shoot at you so you shoot back—except you don’t miss, because you are a great shot. That was how the world worked. He smiled to himself, if you can call it that. He ordered a coke and wondered who he would call on the Presidential phone. Perhaps he should catch up on cable news, which he dominated like no one in history.

The Presidential press conference was like a rock concert, with him as the star turn. All he had to do was scowl and wave his hands. Occasionally he made sounds with his tight little circle of a mouth. His voice was his main weapon (he actually didn’t know how to shoot): it went from a nasty rasp, to a buttery bleat. And he had the best words: the best insults and put-downs, the classiest vocabulary. Sure, he could cuss like a world-class cusser, but he also knew how to talk civilized. He was from Queens after all, where people are people, not so-called elites and low-ratings losers. With regard to the speaking, he was in a class of his own—sort of a Shakespeare, you could say, but without the long words that nobody knows anyway. He opened the proceedings by congratulating one of his great people, the Secretary of Offence, who had recently succeeded in deporting dozens of people who don’t love our country, several of them minors. The girl from CNN, though, wanted to make trouble, asking her nasty questions. She asked if any of the deported people had broken any laws. The President had a ready answer to this unpatriotic question: “I am the law,” he stated. “The law is my decision, because I was elected by the people, not you and your failing network”. This was a decisive put-down and the President moved on to talk about dress codes in the halls of government. Another reporter asked him about his policy towards Europe, to which he loftily replied, “I’ve never heard of it”, eliciting a loud guffaw of support from his allies and enablers. He also deftly parried questions about breaches of national security caused by top secret information being revealed on the Jeff Regan show, observing that the information hadn’t yet led to any actual deaths of civilians. He felt he had turned in a characteristically stellar performance, marred only by failing to insult the lead reporter from the Times, who he particularly hated.

The President had received a beautiful invitation from the president of England, whose name he couldn’t quite remember, to come and visit the king of England. This idea appealed to him because he felt it was only right for him to hang out with the top royals in the world. He actually despised the king of England: he couldn’t understand a word he said, the king was pro the environment, and his women were not among the top women of the world. Still, he could lord it over this so-called king (wasn’t he once just a prince?) as the most powerful person in the most powerful country of the entire universe. Plus, he had a couple of inches on the king and he drew bigger crowds (the king of England didn’t even have rallies). It was in this frame of mind, if we may call it that, that he turned up at the palace, motorcaded to the hilt. The king was drably dressed but wearing a crown. This immediately put the President on edge—where was his crown! He felt that the king was trying to insult him, diminish him in the eyes of the world. He asked the king how much he would take for the crown, while squeezing his hand, but the king affably replied that the crown wasn’t for sale (it was a hair loom or something). These Americans, with their odd sense of humor, the king mused. Anyway, with that gaffe smoothed over, they went on to a royal banquet in which the President tried to eat food that his gut wasn’t remotely familiar with. He didn’t actually vomit, but his belly let him know it wasn’t happy. He suavely remarked to the king that he was more of a burger and fries man himself, chuckling urbanely. The king nodded, smiled, and carried on talking to the person next to him. The man from Queens was hobnobbing with an actual King—how cool was that? The President felt he had made a great impression, which was no doubt true.

It was only discovered later that the President had arranged with his secret service agents to steal the crown from the king of England. It was surprisingly easy, the king not suspecting that the President might have designs on his crown. It ended up in the Presidential bathroom, where the President could happily gaze at it and revel in his Presidential power. Naturally, the theft caused a diplomatic incident, in which the President was correctly accused of stealing the king of England’s crown. The President tried to brush it off by saying the king should be more careful and anyway he was thinking of annexing Great Britain. He seemed genuinely bemused when this didn’t go down well, at home or abroad. All his bluster about royal losers, sleazeballs, and crooks didn’t turn the tide of public opinion; he was held accountable for the act of Robbery of a Royal Appendage. It didn’t help matters when he loudly asserted that the king of England was the worst king England had ever had, ever. Even his most loyal supporters found this a little hard to stomach and could see in what direction the wind was blowing. He had to make a plea bargain to step down instead of serving hard time. He thereupon sank into oblivion and was never heard from again. He never did understand quite what had happened.