He was drinking again.

What did it matter?  Nothing mattered any more.

God had clearly deserted him.   God who had told him what to do all along.   God who had virtually begged him to become Leader; who had let the infidels maul his armies, blow up his cities and permitted hurricanes to make him look like an incompetent fool.  Bloody God!

He hurled an empty vodka bottle at the White House dog.  He’d have to remember to find some gasoline from somewhere to burn it and Laura’s bodies when they were done.   Perhaps Halliburton would come through with a gallon or two after all he’d done for them.  He’d shoot Laura and then take the pills.  It wasn’t that he was a coward, he had just never cared for pain.  Always preferred inflicting it.

Where was Rumsfeld anyway with those regiments?   Phantom regiments,  he had called them last night, when Bush moved them neatly into position on the big map.   Phantom?  What was he talking about.   They were the finest National Guardsmen ever sent abroad to attack others in defense of their country.  Far better than hanging around inAlabama getting drunk.  Or sitting waiting for some local disaster in case they might be useful.   How often did hurricanes hit anyway?  Better to be out there searching the streets of some Arab town for improvised explosives.   So what a lot of them hadn’t come back?  What had they got to lose?  OK , a few neurotic parents had complained about the senseless waste of youth.  But who hadn’t senselessly wasted their youth?  Why some nights in Houston he had been so drunk he could hardly hold the cocaine bottle.  Now Rumsfeld was claiming he had no regiments left.   Well, duh, Herr Rumsfeld, get some new boys.  Stick some twelve year olds in uniform. They like uniforms.  Get them some new automatic weapons and a Hummer and put ‘em out there on the streets of oldBaghdad.  Can’t be more dangerous than dealing with gang wars in Philadelphia.  They wouldn’t mind dying in defense of their country.  He hadn’t particularly cared to do that himself, but then he had much more to lose.  Easy to squander your life when you’re not rich, but his Pappy had always tried to keep him out of the firing line.  His dear Pappy, who had tried to warn him.   “You can’t just ignore everyone.  Even the French can be useful” he had said as he uncorked a Chateau-bottled Saudi, another nice gift from Bandar.

Where was that Rove?  Sniveling coward.  Keeping a low profile as usual, avoiding the paparazzi and trying to figure a way to sneak out of the White House Bunker without being caught.   It was all his fault.   I can make you a great Leader.  Blame it on the left.   Blame it on the media.  Blame it on the Jews.   Just blame somebody and then they’ll all cheer.  Then go to war, and label your enemies traitors.  Been done before a million times.

So what went wrong?   They’d had it made.  Corporate sponsors kissed his ass, billions of tax payers dollars to spend.  The Democrats dull, dim and defeated, and now this.  This ingratitude.   They all deserved to die.  Americans.  They weren’t worthy of him.  Not man enough to stand and let the country die for him?  The fact was they didn’t deserve him.

That god damn rat Cheney had had the gall to ask him if he could slip off toSouth America last night.  Muttered something about a new heart attack medication that he’d heard of in the jungle, but that was bullshit.  He was just running.  As usual. Whenever there was trouble.   It was always me who had to go and stand in front of the troops and say how well we’d done after each disaster.  Not Dick.   Oh no, Dick would be bunkered down in some safe base running the country.  Well fuck Dick.   He was a prick.  A greedy bastard.  Sure, if you’re gonna run a Country like a Company better to have a Company you know run it, but how many billions had he made?   And how much had he really passed along to the poor geek that they had got to speak for them.  Not nearly enough.

A call from Powell. To say goodbye.  Well that was nice of the chap.  He’d never thought much of him.  Too much of a soldier, but still.  Where was Rumsfeld and his regiments?  They’re going to lose me this war, he said, forgetting for a moment.  The war on terror.  His legacy.  Finally a war against a decent noun.  A war that need never stop. Terror?   He’d shown them.  Remember Shock and Awe?   Well that showed thoseBaghdad bastards who was who?   Stupid bleeding heart civilians holding up bloody babies and whimpering to CNN.  Surgical strikes, that’s what his Air Force said.  And only afterwards had the pictures seemed a little less certain.  Perhaps a bit more like surgery, with missing limbs.  He chuckled at his joke.   But those fabulous distant days of good explosions on TV, now they were ratings.   In those days he could do no wrong, looking stern, watching the planes lift off from carrier decks in the dull dawn.  Blair on the phone saying “Yes, yes, we can do it. Go Baby.  Go Baby Bush!” At last the rush he’d not felt since the cocaine days.  Now even the voting machines were turning against him.

He could hear the secretaries crying in the bunker corridor.  What was so bad for them?  He was the one leaving.  He was the one they’d be watching turn to toast in the Rose Garden.

Condi came in to ask him what she should wear for his funeral.   The black or the red?   There’s not going to be a damn funeral.  We’re having a simple family cremation.  The previous night there had been some loose talk about Cheney poisoning his wife and children.  Now wouldn’t that have been nice?  But he had been lying of course.  His jungle retreat apparently was ready.  They had a pool.  Jacuzzi.  Life support machine.   The finest stuff KBR could provide.  Corporate jet standing by.   Bastards!

 

From Bush:  The Last Ten Days.

 

“Ah Harkness, come in.  Happy Holidays.”

 

“Thank you sir.   And you sir.  Might I have a quick word?”

 

“Well Doris asked me to do some shopping on the way home…”

 

“This won’t take a moment sir.  I’ve got some good news.”

 

“Oh good.  Always room for good news.”

 

“Yes, you know the North Korean satellite?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well we’ve shot it down.”

 

“We have?  I didn’t know we could do that.”

 

“No neither did we actually sir , but we gave it a shot and…right between the eyeballs.  First time.  We were shocked,  And happy obviously.”

 

“Well,  well done.”

 

“Thank you sir.  Only one problem.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“The satellite.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“It’s falling.”

 

“Where?”

 

“To the earth. “

 

“Well gravity….”

 

“Quite.  And it probably has a nuclear source on board and it’s plummeting and it’s going to hit in about half an hour.”

 

“Oh dear.  Where?”

 

“Not in America sir.”

 

“Oh good, wow that would be….”

 

“Yes, it would. However, it is going to hit…”

 

“Where?”

 

“Sydney.”

 

“Australia?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh dear.”

 

“Uhm.  Most unfortunate.”

 

“Can we shoot it down?”

 

“Well that’s what we’ve done sir.”

 

“No, can we shoot it down again?”

 

“Chances are about 2 billion to one.  Against.  It’s moving so fast you see.”

 

“I see.”

 

“So we have two choices, we tell them, and there’ll be panic.”

 

“Right.”

 

“And then everybody’ll blame us.”

 

“Or…?”

 

“We don’t tell them.”

 

“Blame the Koreans.”

 
“Exactly.”

 

“How long have we got?”

 

“A few minutes,”

 

“Those bloody Koreans.”

Master Idle newly returned from London to these former Colonies to tell the world by this Express of my most amazing Travels to a distant frozen Land, where the People speak English almost as well as in ye Beverly Hills, and where they celebrate the ancient tradition of Christenmas, whereby they get very drunk and exchange gifts and occasionally blows, and sing a lot about starry nights and little infants, and peace on earth and good will to all men, whereupon they exchange further blows and kick a ball about, which  I was informed was an ancient game with them, called Ye Rugy Foot, whereby thirty men chase up and down a field and endeavor to kick each other, and some were white and roundly cheered and some were called Ye Alle Blacques and were soundly kicked about.   And there was much singing of an ancient anthem “Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Coming for to Carry Me Home” but such a vehicle I could for the life of me not discern and they largely went home in Buses.

Upon my arrival I did find lodgings near to ye ancient Saint James’s Palace, where I might the more easily walk about the Piccadilly gazing at the shop widows, and visiting ye ancient Chop Houses of Ye Caprice, and Mister Sheekey’s Fish Emporium and Ye ancient House of Ivy.   Here indeed the streets were filled with lights and the Shoppes and the Emporiums bursting forth with pretty things and a multitude of passers-by passed up and down the streets at all hours of the day and night, wrapped in great coats, and apple cheeked, searching for ye Apple Shoppes and I passed through some areas that they called Soho, where many pretty girls did call to me to come inside and play with them, and yet I durst not for Fear of God, and Mine own Wife, who has ofttimes warned me of these frolicsome miftresses and the trappes they lay for the innocent voyager to deprive him of his gold and give him Herpef.

Oft-times I visited the Theater where Master Roylance and Master Fry performed the splendors of Master Shakespeare’s exceedingly droll comedy for Twelfe Night, which did bring me much mirth and merriment, for some were men dressed up as women and some were men dressed up as women who then dressed up again as men, and there was much joy and laughter and confusion.  And on another Night I did enjoy ye Master Russell Beale dressed moft amufingly as several diverse women, who did then discourfe on the sad nature of love in song and dance with Ye Privates on Parade, and there was much banging of guns and rushing about.  Thereto I saw the ancient Tragedy of Spamalot as performed by the Ambassadors Men at the Playhouse which was greeted with merriment and always looking on Ye Bright Side, which is an axiom with them whenever things become totally insupportable.

The whole town was dressed for the Season, singing ye Carols in the ftreets and filling the Alehouses with the jollities of  what they call Christenmas, somewhat like our Honiker Festival, where people send each other large Boxes to be returned to the shoppes upon Boxing Day, for the which reason no man might discern.

Indeed I saw many sights and wonders in the ancient British Capitol, the which alike alternately gladdened my heart, and sometime filled me with dread, for the Newspapers of which there are a Multitude on this odd Isle, were filled with Great Tales of Woe that they may in future not be allowed to write whatever they see fit about whomsoever they care to abuse, which is held to be a great freedom for them, and without the which honest right to purfue and print the most amazing made-uppe stories ye Civilifation will crumble and fall into the Thames.

But nothing prepared me for the mysteries of ye Courts, where I attended several days in a row to watch the discussion of a great Mystery.   For there in the Inns of Court I saw a multi headed Python exhibited openly, and some did argue that there were Seven heads and some said nay there were but Six, and yet none could decide for the evidence was exceedingly old and all wore wigs and the Festive Season being pressing the Argument was set down to be continued at some future time for the entertainment of ye Barristers and folicitors, and the ruination of all.

And so I shipped home, marvelling that such a people could exist on so far a frozen platform, and I declare this to be a true and honest account of my recent time spent among ye British.