He drummed his fingers on the wooden desk, alternating taps from his index, to his middle, to the ring, and to the pinkie, with a rhythmic but monotonous beat.
“Mr. President,” one of his assistants announced, walking into the room with a slow, composed gait. Dark bags hung like snoods from his bottom eyelids, a consequence from having worked a seventy-two hour shift with only five hours allotted him each night to re-energize with sleep. “The last one is waiting outside.”
The President slowly swung his hands behind his back, interlocking his fingers as he turned around to look out the window. He cracked his knuckles, as was his habit, as he inspected his progress while it stared at him from the outside lawn. A giant green truck borrowed from the nearby disposal facility was just pulling in from around the bend, slowly, of course, so as not to buckle under the weight of the load nearly overflowing from the top. The President watched from his office, in front of the reflection of his own orange self in the glass window, as the truck pulled in front of a towering pile, which at last measurement rose a whopping 5,211.7 meters into the sky. The equivalent of that, the President was told, was about three miles, the distance from the President’s main home in New York City to the skating rink in Central Park. The President had also purchased that several years prior.
“What’s the name?” asked the President, his eyes fixed upon the back of the truck as the helping crew jogged over to lower it into the pile.
The assistant raised his clipboard. “A Miss Jeanie McNeal, from Laramie, Wyoming,” he read, his glasses propped delicately at the tip of his nose. “Caucasian, blonde hair, nearing flaxen. No prior criminal history, arrest records, or medical abnormalities. She has no known accounts on social media that we could find, only a birth certificate found in an online database.”
The assistant lowered his clipboard. “She seems on the up and up, Sir.”
The President turned around, his lips pursed as he stared at his decrepit assistant. “How old?” asked he.
The assistant blinked.
“Nine last April,” said the assistant.
The President’s head nodded slightly. “Send her in,” he instructed, taking a pencil and sticking it behind his ear.
The assistant headed back out into the hallway and the President turned back to his position at the window. At that moment, an assembly of his finest help lowered the back of the dump truck. The President watched in awe as a river of limbs cascaded like a foaming waterfall into the giant, three-mile high pile of bodies that decorated his green yard like the world’s largest, goriest Christmas lawn ornament, one of the final loads needed to complete his extermination plan. That particular shipment had been the final one from overseas that had been personally sent to Mr. President that morning aboard one of his lesser aircraft he didn’t mind scuffing up with stains of bodily fluids and the like. The pile suddenly became much more yellow, in the President’s eyes, as the Asian bodies he’d gathered from several of the continent’s largest nations splattered into the pile like a Jackson Pollock painting, a work of true art that the President himself had created. Dots of black, tan, beige, brown, white, gray, yellow, red, orange, and black rippled across the side of the pile facing the President’s window; he could see the slack-jawed faces of thousands, perhaps millions of strangers hailing from every country on earth that he’d personally met with days before, now staring absently, with rotting eye sockets, into his grand window.
The President took in a heavy, nasal breath into his nostrils as he watched his work of art finally come together, the remnants of his exhale temporarily fogging up the window in front of him. Frowning, he took the palm of his hand and buffed the condensation, so he could see his work crystal clear, the result of his mission to Make The World Great Again.
He was jolted from his dreamy reverie by a knock at the wooden door behind him. Turning around he saw two of his trusty assistants return, two statues clad in black ushering in a small waif with thick, bouncing curly hair. The two statues spread apart to reveal the girl, Jeanie McNeal from Laramie, who wore a recently-ironed white tank top tucked into green camo shorts, which the President guessed must have no doubt been given to her by an older brother or male relative. The little girl looked wide-eyed at the walls filled with books for a moment before returning her gaze to the President - an unreadably stale gaze that revealed no clear indications of fear or worry. Her skin was more tan than fair, very similar to the skin color of the President’s wife and daughters, though hers more than likely resulted naturally from many hours out in the Wyoming sun (The First Lady and First Daughters were daily frequenters of the newly-built White House tanning salon). The President appreciated naturally tan skin, something he could never acquire by natural means, and he especially liked the look on those possessing both X chromosomes.
His thin lips cracked upwards into a smile as he greeted the little one. His assistants walked over to either side as they closed the door of his office, the room filling only with the sound of the occasional cracking of the President’s knuckles.
“Jeanie McNeal, is it?” asked the President, his ears wiring in on the faint beeping of the dump truck outside. “I believe I met with your parents yesterday, is that correct?”
Jeanie McNeal nodded as she continued to stare at the president with big, green eyes.
“Good folks, your parents,” the President said, walking around the side of his desk. “Yolanda and Steve McNeal, I believe their names were. Not very courageous, though, as you can probably tell by the decisions they made.” As if to concur, the engine of the dump truck let out a tremendous roar that caused one of the assistants to twitch, for a brief moment, in response.
The President leaned against his desk, folding his hands in his lap as he stared at little Jeanie McNeal. “Do you know how things work here, Miss McNeal?”
Jeanie McNeal nodded, her eyelashes blinking knowingly as her baby-like eyes stared at her leader.
“Well, in case you’re not completely clear,” the President continued, not missing a chance to again show off his genius plan, “this is going to be a life or death test for you. That means you have one of two options: life, or death. Are you following me?”
Again, Jeanie’s curls bounced in affirmation.
“You see, America didn’t turn out as great as I said it would four years ago,” the President said as he fixed the one stray hair sticking out of his combover. “Many people fought against me, the country became divided, and I didn’t get the money I wanted for the projects I had in mind. People didn’t back me up, you see, which is frustrating, considering I’m the leader of the free world. But you probably remember all of that happening, you were what, two or three when I first got elected?”
One of the assistants coughed. “She would have been five, Sir.”
The President glared at him from the corner of his eye. “Five,” he begrudgingly corrected. “Anyway, you lived during it, you know what happened, and you know why I must do what I’m doing now. You see, I will get the America I want, but even more than that, I will get the world I want. But to do that, I have to get rid of the people who can’t handle the changes I’m bringing, who can’t handle a new world, who can’t handle me.”
The President walked over to little Jeanie McNeal, whose hands were folded politely in front of her, her stomach sticking out, and her giant eyes looking up into the President’s.
“I’m about to tell you some of the worst things you’re ever going to hear, and all of it will be true,” said the President, staring directly into her eyes. “And you will have the choice to kill yourself, as did your parents and the rest of the world upon hearing their worst fears and truths spoken aloud, or you can continue to live knowing your worst fear will haunt you every single day for the rest of your life so long as I’m alive.”
The President lips curled upwards. “Is that clear?”
Jeanie McNeal reciprocated his smile with a cheeky grin of her own, revealing her white smile with one missing tooth smack dab in the front.
“Okay!” she replied, as if she were playing a game.
The President’s smile faded. The muscles in his face resumed their natural position of pulling down with the flow of gravity.
“This isn’t a game, Miss McNeal,” the President said, standing back up. “I’m about to say some of the most horrible things to you, things that will more than likely make you want to kill yourself. And I’ll encourage you to kill yourself. That’s not something to laugh about.”
Jeanie continued to smile as her eyes twinkled.
“I don’t understand why you’re smiling,” he continued, the familiar drench of sweat beginning to form under his armpits. “Your parents are dead, Miss McNeal. They killed themselves, because they’re cowards. I told each of them one cheated on the other - I even told your father I fucked your mother so hard she bled, and still wanted more than what she got from him. Did I do actually that? No. But it did him in pretty quickly, as you can imagine. Nice easy haul out to the corpse pit after that. Your mother was harder - I had to go right for the jugular and tell her I took a knife and slashed your throat in your sleep while she was waiting to meet with me, and that was after I fucked you raw, too. It took about two hours, but I got her body, too.”
His eyes gleamed with a glint like Jeanie’s, but with none of the same innocence.
“How do you like that?” he asked as he haunched onto his tiptoes waiting for her response.
Jeanie McNeal’s eyes shone with a twinkle as her big toothy smile remained untouched on her face.
“Do you ever watch Clifford the Big Red Dog?” she asked. “I watch it every morning before school. I even have a big fluffy stuffed animal of him that I sleep with.”
The President looked back at his assistants, who were looking at each other as if they were watching an alien give birth. For a brief moment before turning back to the girl, the President caught a glimpse of the final truck load coming around the bend.
“I wouldn’t be smiling if I were you,” he said as he licked his teeth. “It highlights your fat cheeks. Unbecoming of a young lady. In fact, now that I get a look at you, you do have quite an impressive stomach, don’t you? Quite healthy your parents kept you. But see, healthiness doesn’t get you a husband, chica. Your never going to find love with a body like that. In fact, how can you even love yourself when you have those cankles and love handles? Why I can practically grab the fat on both of your sides and tie a knot in the back, with some extra baggage left over! Lay off the junk food, fat cow! You’re disgusting, worthless, a glob of absolute nothingness. Why, you’re repulsive to look at any longer.” The President turned around and dabbed at his eyes with his embroidered kerchief. “I feel like I’m holding counsel with Jabba the Hut,” he laughed, gesturing for his assistants to join him. They did, but rather stiffly and unconvincingly.
Jeanie McNeal looked down at her body, but smiled as she pulled the bottom of her tank top out from the top of her pants.
“I made these frills at camp,” she said, twirling around as the frills at the bottom of her shirt bounced up and down. “I made them by cutting little lines into the bottom of my tank top. I tried using the crazy scissors first so that the lines would be squiggly, but it didn’t work with the fabric. But these are just as cool. They look like sun rays, don’t you think?” Jeanie continued to swirl in circles, laughing and swinging her tank top tassels around and around.
The President’s heart began to burn with the anger that was all too familiar to him. His palms sweated and the roof of his mouth began to feel dry. This was his last citizen, the last person in the world who wasn’t family or indentured servants, who he had to kill - pardon, convince to kill herself - and she wasn’t falling for any of his usual tactics he used to persuade folks onto the side of suicide. All the years he’d convinced rock-solid heads of state to adopt his business plans were for naught as he couldn’t crack the mind of this laughing, slightly nutty youngster. All he wanted to do was head out to lunch with his family, a celebratory feast for which only they would be in attendance. But this girl, a child, was postponing everything and frankly making his job much harder than it had to be.
The President knelt on his knee, his joints cracking, as he came within inches of the youth’s smiling, laughing face.
“Listen here, you cunt.” The President’s teeth curled out from under his top lip. “Your mother is gone, your father is gone, your brother is gone…”
“I didn’t have a brother,” Jeanie sang, tapping the President lightly on his nose before more giggles bubbled into her hands.
The President let out a steaming hot exhale. “Everyone you love deserted you,” he said, grabbing her wrists and pulling her toward him. “And there is not a single soul left in this world who cares for you. Everyone is gone, everyone would rather die than keep living in a world where you’re living and breathing. Nothing in the universe cares about you - not the earth, not the planets, not even the leader of your own country. If I had to, I’d throw you out into the Pacific Ocean right now with a cement block tied to your foot if it meant I didn’t have to be called your leader anymore. The world hates you, Jeanie McNeal, your parents hated you, your country hated you, and I especially, from every deep recess in my body, think you are the scum with which I wipe the scum from my shoes. You are the dumbest human that has ever walked the earth, and the universe wants you to kill yourself. So do it already.”
Jeanie McNeal leaned in closer to the President, so that the tip of her tiny button nose was touching the tip of his gargantuan banana-like one. She stared into his eyes for a moment, looked at the little white lines splaying out from his center pupil. Like sun rays, she thought.
“I have a secret,” she whispered, biting her lower lip to keep herself from giggling. She took the President’s face in her small, rough hands.
“I…have…never…smelled…a…daisy!”
And Jeanie McNeal clutched her puffy little stomach, doubling over to the floor in a fit of the squeakiest, most gleeful hysterics the President or either of the assistants had ever heard.
Just as the President was reaching the end of his limit and preparing another deprecating diatribe against the nine-year-old girl on the floor, everyone in the room felt a quaking beneath their feet. The President quickly turned from Jeanie, who was still sprawled on the floor laughing, and looked wildly at his assistants.
“What’s going on?” he yelled amidst the tremor, but all the assistants could do was look at one another.
The glass of the giant window behind them began to break, and outside the giant three-mile human corpse pile began to shake as well, bodies of all different hues toppling off the tip top and smacking onto the green grass below. The President ran to the window as books began to fly off his shelves, staplers and lamps and his name plaque flying off his desk and nearly hitting him in the gut.
Standing a few feet from the glass that was now morphing into a spiderweb of cracks, he watched as the giant human body pile he’d gathered and created began to slowly move downward, as if being sucked by a giant vacuum from underneath it all. Below the pile, the President could see a giant crack, like an enormous splinter of wood, that was splitting apart quickly to form a cavern. With the weight of the bodies stacked upon it, the ends of the cavern widened further apart with each second that passed, creating a huge, gaping sinkhole.
Needing to lean on a chair for balance atop the quivering floors, the President watched as yards upon yards of bodies fell lifelessly from the sky into the dark, rocky underground. Bodies of the President’s helpers, the truck drivers, blue collared workers, high-end dignitaries, glamorous celebrities, bums off the street, fellow leaders of countries, subjects of those leaders - every kind of person imaginable was heaped somewhere in that enormous, heaping pile, which was now careening at lightning speed into the earth below.
All those who the President convinced to die, now not only dead before their time, but also thrust into a dark expanse cracked into the earth, an expanse whose splinters were slowly creeping their way closer to the grand glass window where the President and his assistants stood.
“The earth couldn’t stand the weight!” one of the assistants shouted over the desks and chairs crashing. “Mr. President, we must get you out of - “
The glass window above them at last shattered with a grand squeal as millions of glass crystals rained down atop the President’s head like snowflakes. The two assistants tackled the President to the floor as the wall where the window once stood was forced open by the breaking of the earth beneath it. The carpeted floor where the three stood moments before burst open like an infected wound, the ground beneath them shaking severely as the cavern slowly slunk its way from outside in.
The assistants scrambled clumsily to their feet as they tried to help the President stand, and all the while Jeanie McNeal was still rolling on the floor and giggling like mad, her cheeks red and her face blue.
“Mr. President, to the door!” one of the assistants shouted before falling and smacking his head hard against the floor. The tip of the cavern was stretching towards the three of them, and the assistant had been careless enough to misplace his foot and accidentally let it slip into the crack. Without thinking, he grabbed the ankle of the other assistant, who himself took a nasty spill to the floor, as the two of them were seemingly being pulled by either gravity or some other cruel force into the cavern. The first assistant to fall was also the first to disappear; the second assistant was smart enough to try to crawl his way out of the cavern, to try to shake his foot free of the first assistant’s grasp, and he managed to hold on for a few seconds before his strength failed him too.
The President, who by now was dangerously out of breath and quite sweaty, propped himself up onto his feet and hobbled himself to the door. Jeanie McNeal was holding her knees to her chest and spinning herself on her butt off in a corner untouched by the cavern, her hair twirling with each spin and hitting her in the face, which made her laugh more.
The President cupped his hands to his mouth: “If I can’t kill you, I’ll let nature do it for me!” He raised his fingers to his forehead in a salute.
“Adios, bitch!” he screamed at the back of Jeanie’s head as she was in mid-spin. He reached the door and turned the knob, opening it about five inches when he felt his right foot buckle a bit. He looked down and noticed the tip of the cavern, which was following him at an alarmingly fast rate, and before he could thrust the door open a few inches more to slink himself out, the doorway itself cracked upwards toward the ceiling. The door came off of the hinges and fell to the floor on the other side. The President heaved his foot out of the cavern to make a run for it, but misjudged the weight he was putting on his left leg, the weaker of the two. Keeping balance for only a few seconds, the President waved his arms frantically as fell backwards and quickly grabbed the edge of the door, which was acting as a plank as it jutted out from the edge of the cavern.
There the President hung, his only means of support a thin wooden door that was slowly losing strength as the edge of the cavern furthered outward, threatening to widen its sides and soon swallow the door as well. The President swung his other hand and tried to propel himself upward. He suddenly saw Jeanie’s little face poke out from the top of the door, her cheeks red from laughing and her eyes still smiling.
“Quick! Miss McNeal!” the President shouted, mustering every bit of strength he could to hold onto the door and not look at the hard, red-rocked earth beneath him. “You must pull me up!”
He stuck out his left hand, letting his stronger right still hold on to the edge of the door. “Please!”
Jeanie McNeal, the nine-year-old girl from Laramie, Wyoming, who had made shirt tassels at summer camp and loved Clifford the Big Red Dog, let out a small giggle as she went towards the end of the door, the end that was not yet falling into the crack of the cavern, and pulled it away from the hole with all of her might, so that the President would be pulled along with her. It took a few minutes, for Jeanie was a small and dainty little girl, but she had a strength within her that gave her some sort of superhuman ability - be it a supernatural outpouring of protein into her muscles, or perhaps just the extra serving of milk she had that morning for breakfast.
After a couple minutes of heaving- and ho-ing, the door was finally pulled safely onto solid ground, with the President dangling on the end of it like a fish chomping on a hook. He lied on the floor back up as he gasped for breath. Soon enough the quaking of the earth simmered to a slight vibration, then into utter stillness. He looked over and saw that the breaking of the earth had halted, the only remnants of the affair being his destroyed former office, and a giant, mile-wide and infinitely deep cavern.
His suit tattered, his tie dusty and ripped, and his combover no longer having any memory of being combed, the President crawled on his knees and leaned his head over the side of the cavern, his chest heaving and wheezing. He saw nothing but darkness beyond the red-rocked earth, the length of the hole spanning much more than three miles.
His office was gone. His assistants were gone. His pile of bodies were gone. He could not see them. He could not see anything. Not in that blackness.
The President was startled to see Jeanie McNeal standing behind him, her hands behind her back and her stomach jutting out from her recently-ironed white tank top. She stared up at him with her big green eyes, her eyelashes batting as she gleamed up at him. He stared back at her, his chest still heaving and his temples dripping with sweat.
Jeanie held out her small hand. The President looked down at it, then back up at her eyes. Jeanie reached down to where the President’s filthy, dusty, bloodied hand rested on his knee and wrapped her fingers around it, pulling him upward so he could stand on his own two feet.
She looked up at him, her eyes especially white with no squiggles around the iris or pupil.
“Do you have any daisies in your garden?” she chirped. “I’ve never smelled a daisy before. I wonder if they smell good?”
The President looked down at her, then over at the doorway to his right. Though his knees hurt - he was sure he’d pulled a few muscles or even sprained one or both of his ankles - he walked forward with Jeanie McNeal’s hand in his toward that door, which led to the back hallway, which led to to the south doorway, which led to the garden in the back, where he knew the flowers were kept. Off to the right of those flowers was a patch of daisies left over from one of the previous presidents, planted long before his term had begun. He’d smelled those daisies before, and they had indeed smelled good.
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
areudirty
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
stormborns
