Madam President ✓

88. I Was So Close

Walter

   I try to keep my mouth closed with my tongue pressed against the roof. It's been hours since they've offered me water- which I understand isn't long, but I've gotten so used to downing a sixteen ounce glass every hour of my entire life I don't know how else to live.

I try to take my mind away from everything- the dried blood matting my armpit hair and pulling it out every time I move- by forcing the good memories  to take over.

  Five months ago, Tanya went back to New York to visit local officials and discuss the flawed housing bill Congressman Rogers wrote so long ago. The image alone of her talking to them- and the business owners and citizens from a place she'd lived most of her life, was enough for congress to pay attention. A month later the country had a more comprehensive bill: Unlike the original it included apartment buildings as part of a government insurance policy to provide building owners with money for repairs in case of a natural disaster and the tenants with money to replace items they had proof of owning. It broadened the definition of a business to include people who ran theirs from home and increased the FEMA budget, gave cities more wiggle room for how they chose to use federal funds for road cleanup on mostly industrial streets, and explicitly provided decent salaries for the rescue teams that would have previously been volunteer in the immediate aftermath of hurricanes.

  Her approval rating shot up to ninety three percent for a short while in New York, and as the messenger mine went to eighty. The media's still bitter her administration doesn't take shit from them, but the people praise her for that.

  I turn slightly, trying to adjust my sitting position with my waist to knees nearing total numbness and the chair pressing against my tailbone. My restraints press into my arms harder and I grimace. They couldn't have used another method?

The instructors for the required self defense classes tried to teach us pain tolerance but there was only so much they could do without actually torturing us. Think positive thoughts. No matter how much you want to die in that moment- remember there is always somebody who cares about you.

  I'm beginning to think there isn't.

  I would've found me by now if I cared about me. If I was the President, I would be comfortably sitting in the White House bunker, and there would be no more Russia. I guess it's a good thing I'm not then.

  I crack my neck, trying my best to remove the kink I know'll take months to fully leave.

  Last year, we visited a children's cancer center in LA. After talking to the mayor, her and the Vice went on with talking to patients while I stood in front of the main building, getting pummeled with questions to keep cameras out. They didn't want it to be a photo op. Sure, they took pictures- but only when asked to.

  With the exception of  January 20th, 2021- I'd never seen Tanya more defeated. The worst part was knowing even she didn't have enough money in her bank account to pay the bills of every cancer-suffering child in the world- because she did check just hours later. She had about $4b in her accounts, and from our estimates it could have been $7b.

  That was still working under the assumption most would survive- which wasn't the case. In that ward, most were end stages. She commented on how happy they looked despite knowing they were dying- and couldn't sleep for weeks.

  Lynn had to slip a sleeping pill in her tea again. There was a general consensus we wouldn't tell her since she'd grown quite irritable- and as far as I know nobody's told her still.

  There's no way I'd know if they did. I'm completely cut off from the world.

I've only been told the things I've been able to guess myself: There's an "ongoing effort" to retrieve me. The CIA has offered several Russian operatives they took into custody in exchange, the FBI has threatened the prime minister's and president's lives again, and the ICC has said they would drop any potential charges if I'm returned within forty eight hours.