Inauguration Day
January 20: Day #20 of a Story-a-Day Challenge
Not yet? Wait for it? Next year? And even an extra day, too, in February.
Who can wait? No one to swear in on this January 20?
There's an empty slot! Else, the status quo continues, now in a vacuum. It begs for the solemnity of an oath, somewhere... if not in my own patriotic mind.
So thought Malcolm.
It is up to me, he decided. How can I not?
He rose to the podium in his mind and prepared to deliver his inauguration speech. He waited politely for the civilized convolutions of his brain to swear him in. A hush spread over the massive crowd of hopes and desires who had braved the jingoistic weather of uncertainty this harsh day.
"Do you, Malcolm Bannister," began the executive decisions in his frontal lobes, "solemnly swear..."
"I, Malcolm Mannister, probably swoon..."
"...to iterate, reiterate, and mitigate..."
"...to abrogate, repudiate, and instigate..."
"...the duties and obligations that come with the office of the Resident..."
"...the booties and odd impatience that come from the orifice of Reticence..."
"...of the United States..."
"...of the Untied States..."
"....so help you God?"
"...so help me God!"
Thunderous applause arose from the shifting mob of atheists, agnostics, apologists, Republicans, Rubicons, Democrats, and Hemostats.
"I come before Extremists, as your newly erected fricative repre'tentative and pledge the following:
"To Atheists I pledge that Nothing will stand in my way. To the Agnostics I pledge uncertainty, whether Schrödinger's cat-in-the-hat be alive or dead, mewing or blueing, jackass or big fat elephant in the room.
"To Apologists I pledge remorse, a sorry attitude. But I love you, and that means never having to say it. Sorry about that.
"To Republicans I pledge that each baby will have a vote, but each covicted felon will not have a checking account. To Rubicons I pledge to cross that bridge when I come to it — Hail Caesar! To Democrats I pledge to make sure the babies are only those who are wanted and that conflicted melons want not for lactating bulbosity.
"To Hemostats I pledge to stop the bloodletting, the Blood Bath & Beyond. The fuck stops here.
"So, help me, God!"
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!
Make me rich! https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
My substrack at https://substack.com/@drdileo
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So Many Commemorations, So Few Days
January 19 is National Popcorn Day, National Gun Appreciation Day, and New Friends Day. True, these are the product of self-promotion on the part of, as examples, The Popcornhusker State, PopNebraska; the gun lobby, who feels we should appreciate how guns — VERY easily — put extra holes in people; and — perhaps — your old friends who think it might be time to get some new friends.
By Gerard DiLeo2 years ago in Fiction
Comments (2)
The booties and odd impatience! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I love your sense of humour!
A bit of absurdist writing (which seems to flow so easily) about the state of our nation today. The division, the acrimony, and the only purpose of holding office seeming to be to send the other guy in office to jail. To hurt. To maim. To condemn. We've got maniacs in charge in many places in the world, so why aren't we scared? The whole pro-life, pro-choice debacle between two factions who will never agree on basic definitions. MAGA--for whom? All the geri's running for President. A Vice President who will succeed to be President by the death of the President--didn't we have a revolution to get away from that monarchy type of succession? A guy from Louisiana who's 3rd in line: I'm from Louisiana and I'm creeped out. All factions have within them the salvation of sanity. You can disagree and still be sane, so why come to every fight with Mutually Assured Destruction? Why are the nuclear options the only options in the budget, the debt, or even gender? If my piece is frustrating to those who seek order in rhetoric...good! It's a bungle out there.