Thank you for the comments, but please refer to David with they/them pronouns!
.
.
Chapter 298: Have You Added Jazzercise to Your Coping Mechanisms?
.
"This is getting ridiculous," said the president. "Why are we getting blamed for this? This actually, really, truly is out of our hands." He jabbed his finger at the screen. "We don't control the ghosts' press releases! We, quite pointedly, cannot make them do anything because they don't even live on this planet."
"The ones from Amity Park do," someone pointed out, reasonably.
The president waved them off. This was no time to be reasonable. It was, in fact, an unreasonable situation.
"We especially can't do anything about Daniel Fenton. Yes, there's a possibility he's being held hostage against Jasmine – not a theory I ascribe to, by the way, that girl is vicious – but we can't say that. We can't accuse a foreign power of something like that without – without—" The president grasped for words, mostly because when one could and when you could not accuse a foreign power of 'something like that' generally depended on the power difference between oneself and the foreign power, except that given what politics were like, one couldn't actually say that.
Ghosts were essentially magic. Enough said.
The president wished it were enough, anyway.
"Anyway, we can't just demand that he show up. Even rational people would be offended by that, and we have no idea how ghosts would react." He threw his hands up. "What do these people expect me to do? Ask them nicely? Do they think I haven't tried that? Why don't they try that?"
The president was aware he was edging towards hysteria. At this point, that was just fine and dandy. Maybe if he actually lost it, they'd kick him out of office and someone else could take care of this.
Unlikely, given some of his predecessors, but a guy could dream.
Also, none of the people in the room with him were doing all that much better in the sanity department. Maybe ghosts ate sanity. It wouldn't surprise him.
The religious people who'd spoken to Mar were still arguing about what she said and the theological implications. Although, that might have just been because they were clergy. The president had long been of the opinion that everyone in the clergy was a little unstable, and given the afterlife thing… Were there any religious people out there who were happy about this?
.
"Marsha, don't you feel blessed living in a time when so much more of God's creation has been revealed to us?" asked the old priest as he pruned a rosebush. "Why, when I was a child, people believed that we would never see aliens."
"Hm," said Marsha. "I think most people believed that until, you know, a few months ago. But, father… They're really saying they're ghosts."
The priest nodded. "An error in their translators, no doubt. Their past visits to Earth probably inspired ghost stories."
"I'm… not sure that's what's going on."
The priest set aside the garden shears and patted Marsha's arm. "You aren't still worried about them being demons, are you? Have faith, Marsha. One mention of God's holy name and they would be driven off. This country isn't as faithless as all that."
.
Ishiyama took a swallow of her not-tea, grimaced, and took another swallow. Despite ruthless trading of commodities, luxuries, and privileges, she no longer had access to caffeine in any form. She was sure there was more out there, absolutely positive, it just couldn't be had for what she could pay for it.
Hence the… whatever it was she was drinking.
Her son Kwan was lovely, really, but tea substitutes were evidently not his strong suit. At least she could be reasonably certain he didn't give her something poisonous.
Although, even if he did, there was a high chance that it wouldn't really matter. Anxieties aside, Mr. Falluca was the same as he always had been, and the other Dead had integrated nicely into the social structure of Amity Park.
Ishiyama took a couple minutes to wonder what she would be like as a ghost. She wasn't in any hurry to find out, of course. No matter how good her odds were, even the smallest chance of leaving Kwan and, to a lesser extent, the city to fend for themselves was unacceptable.
She put her mug down on the table and went to open the blinds. Maybe Kwan wouldn't be offended if she 'forgot' the drink while doing chores.
"Huh," she said, once she got a good view of the street in front of her house. "Kwan," she called. "Do you know what cult this is?"
There were a few thumps as her (large) (teenage) son made his way from his bedroom. He stood next to her and stared out the window for a few minutes at the people doing… what should she even call it? Occult calisthenics?
"Are you sure it's a cult?" asked Kwan. He scratched at the tiny patch of beard that had grown on his chin over the last month.
"They're all dressed identically and doing incomprehensible things at—" she checked the clock, "—six thirty in the morning. On the first of December. The sun isn't up." It was true. The cultists were mainly illuminated by passing wisps and blobs, glowing vegetation, and the ever-present shield overhead.
"They could be a yoga group. Or jazzercize?"
"We'd hear it if it were jazzercize."
"Welp," said Kwan. Before Ishiyama could stop him, he'd opened the front door. "Hey! What cult're you guys in?"
There was a muffled response, lasting about thirty seconds.
"Thanks!" yelled Kwan. He closed the door. "She said they were the Church of the Encompassed City, and that they're following their mandate to worship under the roof of the temple given to them by Phantom." He paused. "Also, they have pamphlets. I think I might have seen the Robinsons in there…"
Ishiyama sighed and decided to give Kwan's not-tea concoction another go.
.
As per usual, the president's descent into madness was interrupted by news. Sadly, the news being about the ghosts exacerbated the descent, so in total, the event was a wash.
"What is it now?" asked the president, reaching for the envelope which he recognized as containing a photocopy of mail of a ghostly origin. Only a photocopy, because they had decided that if ghosts could turn charm bracelets into longswords, a bit of caution was warranted, even after it was confirmed the envelopes didn't contain anything like, say, anthrax.
Or ghost anthrax.
Was that a thing? Ghostly sewer monsters that went by 'it' existed, so why not?
The president opened the envelope and poured over the sheets of paper.
"They," said the president, vaguely aware that everyone in the room was leaning forward to listen to him. "They're inviting me to a Christmas Party?"
"Ghosts celebrate Christmas?"
"Hey, remember the religious conference?" said an aide as she nudged her fellow. "Apparently, some of them are even Catholic."
"A Christmas party," repeated the president with dawning horror. "Why are they inviting me to a Christmas party? A Christmas party this weekend, or, no…" He scanned down the letter. "Two Christmas parties? Two! One this weekend, one in a few weeks… That's… I didn't even invite them to our Thanksgiving party!"
"Do ghosts celebrate Thanksgiving?"
"Some of them are American," said the aide. "I suppose they would."
"But isn't this whole thing about how they aren't American?"
The president groaned and leaned back in his chair to stare up at the ceiling of the Oval Office. How many presidents had stared up at that ceiling before him? Were there any presidents that were ghosts? Were there ghost Americas floating around in the Ghost Zone, similar to hinted-at ghost Egypts and Britains? Where was this line of thought going?
"I can't go, of course," said the president. It almost went without saying, except that he had gone there before, however unwillingly. Putting himself under the power of ghosts like that would be the security risk to end all security risks.
"Of course you can't," said a sympathetic and technically off-duty secret service agent. The on-duty agent hummed in agreement.
"But I can't just ignore this."
"You could invite them to our Christmas party, instead," said the aide.
The president gave the young woman a look. "If I do that, it would be seen as one-upmanship. Some people take symmetrical hospitality very seriously." Ah, to be a young boy again, watching his mother compete with the other PTA members over whose house the meeting would be at, and how she openly scorned the parents that 'didn't do their part' and step up to host. Listening in on those meetings had prepared him for the cutthroat hills of DC.
Except for the ghost thing. Even his mother couldn't prepare him for that.
"We'll still have to invite them to one of our parties," continued the president. "It just can't be instead, unless we do a really good job of making it look like we had something big planned for those dates, and then we'd still have to send someone…"
"Er," said the hapless courier, holding out another envelope. "This came at the same time. From Amity Park."
The president, almost shaking with trepidation, opened this envelope as well, and viewed the contents. In consequence, he skipped several steps on the spiral staircase of sanity. "They are also inviting me to Christmas parties." He put his head in his hands. "What did I do to deserve this?"
"Run for office?" suggested the aide, who was shooed out.
Morosely, the president looked back at the papers, and he saw something very, very, important. "They're for the same dates," he realized. "Good lord, they're forcing me into a politeness corner."
"What?" asked the off-duty agent.
"Oh, there's a better term for it," said the president, deciding to humor the man since he'd been humoring the president since the end of his shift. "But in essence, I can refuse the ones for this weekend because they're too soon, but the second parties… there's the problem. It's like the false choice, or rejection priming. You're given multiple choices, but one seems much more reasonable that the others – and it is! But that's only in comparison. And refusing four invitations from the ghosts would be… A lot."
"They've made it easy for you to not go to the Ghost Zone, but hard for you not to go to Amity Park."
"Exactly!" exclaimed the president. "Exactly! Do you see what I'm up against here?"
.
"I'm so glad you came up with the idea to invite the president to both things," said Daniel, bobbing a little as he floated down the hallway next to Clockwork. "This way, he can pick the one he feels more comfortable with and not feel obligated to go."
Clockwork didn't make any response, other than patting Daniel on the shoulder, so he couldn't be said to be lying.
The itch on the back of Clockwork's neck indicated that Fright Knight, walking a respectful distance back with his own ward, was gazing at him reproachfully. Clockwork turned, slightly, and raised an eyebrow. If Fright Knight was so concerned about it, he could tell Daniel about the presidents most likely interpretation of the invitations.