Installment #1 of the ongoing peek behind the curtain…

Within the intimate confines of his private study the accumulated figment of many others’ imaginations sat in the much used leather-bound chair with a long, shockingly thin right leg draped over one of the deeply scuffed chair arms. His eyes gazed upward at the large flat screen that remained on in 24/7 with the volume alternating between very loud if he was alone, or lowered if someone important came into the second floor study.

This afternoon he was grateful to find himself being left alone.

He squinted at the screen, having forgotten to put in his contacts earlier in the day. He complained often of how the contacts irritated his eyes, but also complained just as often of not wanting to undergo corrective laser surgery. He loathed doctors, a remnant of the extreme discomfort he underwent years earlier to make his appearance more “politically capable” a phrase spoken all those years earlier by Valerie, who even was determined to obtain the seeming impossibility that was the White House. She made it all happen for them though.

Indeed she did.

It had been nearly two years of surgeries to correct his smile, diminish the drooping lids above his eyes, tighten the strangely loosening skin in the front of his neck, and all of the treatments to try and even out his constantly conflicted skin. From there it was voice lessons, fashion consultants, the repeated requests from the growing cadre of advisers and investors that he improve his personal hygiene habits, in particular the demand that he stop smoking.

Without complaint he had complied with nearly every one of those tasks put to him, except for the cigarettes.  Those remained as much an appendage to his own being as his arms and legs. So much had been given up in his private life. Habits, certain physical inclinations he had once enjoyed banished in a newly manufactured life essential to one being aggressively pushed onto the national political stage.

Was it worth it?

He asked that question more often these days. Valerie promised future riches for all of them, perhaps even more power than the presidency itself. He would put his name to a book written for him by others as he had done before, and there would be speaking tours and fundraising appearances that would bring him tens of millions more dollars, and yet, he still remained unconvinced regarding whether the path taken was the path truly meant to be.

How many lives had been sacrificed to have him call the White House home? He stopped counting long ago, not out of any sense of regret, or guilt, but rather from the fact he had never been particularly good at math and the number had grown too big, the faces too many, their disposable lives too difficult to recall. So many lost, disrupted, and sacrificed to make him president of a country he so completely and genuinely despised.

A light knock sounded on the door.

“Mr. President?”

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