Fiction Story #2 ("Former")

1/2/11

Former

The graffiti was emblazoned in illegal fluorescent white spray-paint in tall block capitals, each letter nearly 6 feet tall, sprawling across the face of the black brick building reading, “I KNOW I HAVE LOST.” That they were three stories up was not the most impressive fact. That they were there for more than a few hours shocked even the most conservative citizen. A tall man in ragged clothes caked in dirt and his own filth, merely glanced at the words and smiled an almost famous half-smile. The words were paraphrasing his own life, and like his former accomplishments, they were to be swept away and painted over by the efficiency of the state he had helped create.

Walking down the street, he was indistinguishable from the other homeless. For a man once hailed as the “Bringer of Peace,” this was not the retirement the former president of the Free States of America had in mind. Eating out of trash bins and being ignored by passers-by only added to his revulsion, knowing that only a few years ago he could have had them shot for even sneering in his direction. Now a victim of his self-crafted fascist state, Henry Daniel Cleveland slept most nights in a condemned storage unit along with ten other vagrants who had no idea they slumbered next to the closest thing the Free States of America had to ex-royalty.

The necessity of eating what someone else had thrown away made him sick to his stomach, so that most times Henry didn’t eat much. Having come from a life of privilege and wealth had made him naturally opposed to the thought of scouring garbage for sustenance, yet he had to eat. He could not let himself starve.

Not now. Not after the signs were so clear.

The end of his term had come abruptly and without his consent – almost an entire year before his scheduled departure date. His team had been well into planning his re-election when The Scandal broke. Not even his hand-picked team of high-paid lawyers could save him from the indignity he had to face when the media ran the clips 24/7 on the news. How she had smuggled in a video camera was irrelevant — technology was advancing so quickly now it could have been hidden in anything. By the time his so-called “trial” went to court, every citizen with newsfeed, or god forbid, still had a television, had seen the digitally re-touched, high-definition, quality-enhanced footage of him sodomizing his Secretary of Treasury. That she was one of the most desirable cabinet members in the history of the country was of as little importance as her former status as a Playboy bunny. All were equal under the Law. It mattered not to America that she was goading the president on, to do even more lascivious things than were shown on the tape—though most feeds showed the footage with the sound muted; not even the First Lady’s famous speech to stand by him in these trying times could keep his career afloat.

But now, for the first time in years, maybe a decade, he saw with perfect clarity exactly what he had to do. The signs had been building up for a while, and now not even he could deny they spoke to him and him alone. They all pointed to one event – he’d have to kill the current president and re-take the White House.