September 2001
The man with the graying brown hair looked outside his oval shaped office to the hot, humid, Washington D.C. night. His eyes swept over magnificent garden and the beautiful, neatly trimmed lawn and finally rested on the memorial across the street from his house. The Washington Memorial looked so stupendous at night, and President George W. Bush remembered when he first laid eyes on it from this office…. Back when his dad was President. He'd made it all look so easy, so glamorous. It was the title that got him. President George W. Bush… has a nice ring to it. But no, people will always remember that it was under his administration that we'd been unable to stop a terrorist attack on our own soil. Just great. How did Clinton do it? He'd been impeached for lying under oath, he'd cheated on his wife, nice big sex scandal, and he still managed to finish his second term with a nice big surplus. He sighed. Life was so unfair. What in the world had possessed him to want this job in the first place? He should've just let Gore win Florida.
He remembered clearly his first night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, how excited he was. He was finally President of the United States. He had showed his dad he was good enough. And now he was moved in, into the White House. He was in charge now. Not his father, not Clinton, just him. He was in the Oval Office, his office. He was so giddy back then. He had put his feet on that old wooden desk that used belonged to Kennedy or something and he was practicing picking up his presidential phone.
"Hello. George speaking," he cleared his throat. "President speaking… oh, why, hello Mr. Secretary of Interior Affairs how nice of you to call me to discuss important presidential matters at this hour of day… ahem… Hello, this is the President of the United States of America speaking, how may I help you? Oh, yes, Dad, how wonderful of you to have called me directly into my presidential Oval Office telephone, what? Oh, yes, thank you for thinking I'm such a wonderful President even though I only started yesterday… ahem, hello, President Bush here, oh hello Condoleezza, why yes, it was a tight race indeed, yes, that Florida… what, oh you want to carve my face into Mount Rushmore? Oh well… if you insist! Haha, well you know Laura was talking about that very same thing—"
Knock, knock. Someone's at the door. George quickly put his phone (his presidential phone) and his feet down and quickly picked up some papers as if to look busy. He cleared his throat. "Come in."
In walked in a tall man with gray hair and glasses accompanied by several of what George could only assume to be his staff members. It was Donald H. Rumsfeld, his Secretary of Defense. "Hello, Mr. President. I'm so sorry to bother you at this time of night, I'm sure you're very busy—"
"Well, Don, I am President now and as you know this job is very demanding…" said George as pompously as he could.
"I understand, Mr. President. But I assure you this is a very important matter of national security. What I'm about to brief you on is very, very, delicate information that has been classified for years and it it's been on the highest level of concern for previous administrations—"
"It's about Roswell, isn't it?" George jumped up and slammed his fist on his ancient desk. "I knew it! I asked my father about them aliens that landed in New Mexico and he said no such things exist but I just knew. I'm a Texan, and as you may know New Mexico is in very close proximity to the Lone Star State and I'm very concerned about alien abductions there—"
"Mr. President! I assure you, there are no such things as aliens!" yelled the Secretary of Defense, with a look between anger and laughter on his face.
"Well, you can never be sure can you? I mean—"
"We're sure!"
The President settled back down into his chair, looking somewhat deflated. His cheeks were pink with embarrassment. He cleared his throat and shuffled some papers around.
"So, as I was saying, this has been a matter of concern over the past few decades and as Secretary of Defense I am given the task of briefing you." He motioned to one of his staff members and they went outside and after a while, carried in the portrait of George Washington.
"How in tarnation did you get that thing in here?" asked George, now thoroughly confused.
"Mr. President," continued the Secretary, ignoring the question. "This painting is the only original painting from the original White House. Everything else was destroyed in the fire of—"
"Yes, yes, I know the story of the painting!" the President was now angry. Did the Secretary think he could just barge into his office on his first night here just to give him a history lesson? He was the one who appointed him in the first place. He could just as easily un-appoint him….
"Mr. President. I don't know quite how to tell you this as it may be hard for you to understand… So I'll just let him do it."
"Who?" Dear Lord, he had appointed a madman as his Secretary of Defense. The man was too old, but he thought he at least had some marbles left. Damn, now he'd have to spend all night trying to decide on the proper way a president fires his newly appointed Secretary of Defense….
Wait just a minute there. What in the world was that? George blinked. Was craziness contagious because he may of just had caught it from Rumsfeld. He could've sworn the painting of old George Washington moved. But, wait. Oh dear Lord, it did move. It moved. A three hundred year old painting just moved. This was surely a prank, yes, nothing but a prank. They'd replaced it with an, an electrical painting of a moving George Washington. This must be a traditional type of thing, yes, of course, the Secretary of Defense traditionally pranks the president. George Bush had just about convinced himself it was an electrical painting and was about to ask his Secretary if this was some sort of joke when old George moved out of the frame completely. Into the frame came another man, a man with a full head of hair and a nice thick mustache.
The President leaned forward in his chair with his jaw wide open. The man in the painting just raised his foot and had it risen to the frame of the picture when he stuck it through. Then he stuck out his other foot and with a leap landed on the floor of his office, right on top of the great Seal of the United States. President Bush gripped his desk, trying to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. A man that was not George Washington came out of George Washington's Portrait and is now standing in front of me.
The man sighed and looked around the office. He stepped forward and extended his hand, but George could only look at him wide-eyed, as a line of cold sweat erupted on his forehead.
"Well then, I know this is all shocking to you so I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Alec Leisure. And yes, I did come out of that painting just now. Tricky thing to do, too, but I managed. I'm not the President of Magic for nothing." He then chuckled and smiled charmingly.
George Bush gulped and took his index finger and rubbed inside his ear for a while. He was sure he'd heard wrong because he could have sworn he said he was (George cringed) 'President of Magic' and he knew for a fact that there was no magic and that, well, he was the only President of any sorts around here. He then turned to Rumsfeld. He looked dead serious. George gulped again.
The charming man from the painting continued talking again. "I know this is all very hard for you to understand right now but please I urge you not to worry right now. I will not be bothering you at all. You see, I govern my people, which is to say people with magical abilities. In fact, you probably won't ever see me again. I only visit if there's an emergency that concerns Mug— er, you non-magical folks. So, anyway," he walked over to the portrait (that was still being held up by Rumsfeld's assistant) and started to get back in. "I have loads to do. I have to go assemble to find a team to fish out this poor wizard who got lost in the Bermuda Triangle again. I swear, don't people get tired of visiting that place? It seems like there's just always someone who ends up confunded out there." With that he hops back into the frame and simply walks out, leaving poor Mr. Bush completely lost.
The President, still wide-eyed, stumbled to the portrait touched it. His blood ran cold….It was solid! But he just walked in… the man walked into it and it was solid! He turned to Rumsfeld, and pointed at it. "B-But… he just went in!"
Rumsfeld patted his shoulder comfortingly. "I know, George, I know." All of a sudden the room started spinning and he cursed his office for being so… round. He felt nauseous and dizzy and he suddenly wished he hadn't eaten all those Twinkies. He stumbled back and tripped over the foot of Rumsfeld's assistant and fell to the ground. "Mr. President? Are you alright? Someone call a doctor!" The last thing that President George W. Bush remembered before passing out was the sight of a determined looking Donald H. Rumsfeld bending down to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation.
When George Bush woke up he was in his bed and in his red, white, and blue footy pajamas. He turned to his side and saw his wife, First Lady Laura Bush, reading by the bedside. He opened his eyes wide, remembering what had happened. Rumsfeld, the portrait, the man, the passing out… had it all been a dream? He couldn't tell. It was all so strange.
"George, honey, how are you feeling," said the First Lady, looking at her husband curiously.
"I just had the worst dream!" George cried, his hands trembling.
"Oh, George, you just had to go and faint on your first day! Really, if anyone knew that the President of the United States feinted on his first day after a simple meeting with his Secretary we'd be the laughingstock of the international community! Lord, if this gets out I could never show my face at a United Nations conference ever again! Don't you ever think about anyone other than yourself? George? Are you even listening to me?"
George turned his back on his wife and cuddled his pillow. Maybe being President wasn't all it was cracked up to be….
The next morning he walked over to the portrait of George Washington. It was right on the wall, right where it was yesterday morning. George Bush looked around to make sure no one was watching and he touched it… rubbed it. He examined every square inch of it. Of course it had all been a dream. He laughed at his own stupidity. He really was gullible. Oh he was going to really let Rumsfeld have it now! Oh yes, he would find a way to get back at that man!
George Bush sighed. Being President of the United States was a hard, tough job. He wondered if the Prime Minister in England ever had to deal with all that magical nonsense he had to deal with last night. Probably not, he figured, since he was pretty sure Prime Ministers don't have Cabinet Members. Oh those Brits, they have it all so easy….
If he only knew.
