by Anna Dove
Somber rain, quiet rain. The faces of the procession are downcast, and muddy tracks from where the shoes shuffle in the dirt and the rain. They proceed slowly. At their front are six men in pressed military uniform, carrying a casket. The uniformed men place their feet carefully so as not to slip, and shoulder the casket bravely as they climb the hill. The mist swirls around them, chilling them to their bones.
They reach the top. There is a deep hole in the ground. Gently the casket is laid near the cavity. A man steps forward, clothed in black. He wears a cross around his neck. He speaks a few ministerial words, and motions with his hands to heaven, and offers a sincere prayer. From dust we come and to dust we return.
The six men step forward, and stretch an American flag taut over the casket. Another line of uniformed men, seven in all, step forward, and raise their rifles into the air, and the discharge sounds with a cruel crack that splits through the quiet, reverent air. A pause, and then again, and a pause, and one final time.
Then a quick drumbeat pattern, taps, plays, and the six men holding the flag fold it into a precise triangle, and one man turns, stepping rigidly towards a small woman in black. He offers it to her.
She hesitates, and then takes the flag, but then steps forward and as all eyes watch, lays the flag on top of the casket, her hand trailing slowly along the side.
The casket is lowered into the ground carefully. It disappears from view. The small woman, whose face is concealed under a long black embroidered veil, steps forward again. She kneels by the grave, apparently unaware that half of her black satin dress is now covered in mud. She reaches her hand to the earth and hesitatingly gathers a handful of wet clumps of dirt. Her hand stretches over the grave as she leans forward, and slowly, she pries her fingers away from her palm, releasing dust to dust.
One by one, the attendees make their way back down the hill, after standing for a while in the rain. They are bedraggled and wet, and each that leaves seems more disheartened than the last. Soon there are four remaining, and then two, and then one. She sits by the grave, as silent and still as the other bodies. The rain slows, becoming a drizzle, and a deep fog reaches over the graveyard, rising from the valleys and ascending the hills, blanketing the land as if to protect it from the winter chill.
30. The Inauguration
“I learned patience, perseverance, and dedication. Now I really know myself, and I know my voice. It's a voice of pain and victory.”
--Anthony Hamilton
Mr. Granger was biting his nails and waiting for the news to come in. It had now been several days since the Supreme Court trial. He had heard rumors that dramatic things had happened in the courtroom, but there were so many conflicting reports that he did not know what to publish. Apparently there had been a shooting and all of the public had been quickly extracted from the building before they could really see anything. Would Mr. Gilman be sentenced to death? Oh, he was so glad he took this job. He would never be out of work with the way things were going.
The telephone rang sharply.
“Hello...hello..yes, it’s me...oh..oh…” and Mr. Granger lapsed into silence. For two whole minutes he listened without speaking, and then with a quiet “thank you” he hung up the phone.
After a minute of leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling, he slowly pulled a pen from his cup of pens and picked up a notepad. On the top he scribbled,
Ex-President Gilman exonerated.
Then, he drew a line through this, and wrote below,
First Lady Adela Gilman murders witness who proves Mr. Gilman’s innocence.
Staring at this headline, he nodded, and then proceeded on, his pen scribbling furiously from left to right across the notepad and then back to the left.
During the Supreme Court hearing of the United States vs. Gilman, Mr. Gilman was presumed guilty by all parties and was about to be announced as such. However, before the verdict could be issued, a man by the name of Jack Hoffman revealed himself as a defense witness, testifying on behalf of Mr. Gilman and accusing Mr. Snyder Reed, who was Mr. Gilman’s Chief of Staff, of orchestrating the entire attack. Barely had Mr. Hoffman finished speaking when a woman by the name of Katrin Van Gorben appeared in the audience, corroborating everything that Mr. Hoffman said. She approached the bench, but before she could take the witness box, Jack Hoffman was shot with a .38 round. The shot punctured an artery close to his heart and within seconds he was dead. The shot was fired by former first lady Mrs. Adela Gilman. After she fired the shot, she was immediately arrested, the weapon confiscated, and she and Mr. Snyder Reed were both questioned using enhanced interrogation techniques in the following days. It was clearly determined that they were the two individuals behind the orchestration of the EMP attack. Further investigation revealed quite a comprehensive list of individuals, from military and international defense departments to intelligence agencies, who were involved in this attack in exchange for promised position in the new government following the attack. All individuals involved have been sentenced to death.
Mr. Granger laid down his pen and leaned back again in his chair.
+
Inauguration Day, 2034. The Capitol Grounds were packed with crowds, waving American flags, as they waited in eager anticipation for President-elect McCraiben to come into view. American flags and patriotic banners hung from the arches and windows and balustrades. Above on the Capitol platform where the microphone and podium stood, the Senators and Congressmen had already seated themselves, after having made their way through the crypt of the Capitol to the entrance.
Haley, having been selected by the President-elect to be his Chief of Staff, stood at the bottom of the stair in the crypt, where each dignitary passed on their way out to the exterior balcony. The procession began with two Marines, who then stationed themselves by the door and assumed the duties of opening and closing the door at appropriate times.
For inaugurations past, both previous presidents and previous first ladies would have walked out first; however, after the attack there remained no one who had served in either of those roles. This was a somber realization as Haley watched the next group of individuals, the minority leaders, walk past her to the door. The door opened, they were announced, and shaking hands left and right made their way to their seats.
As they were seating themselves, James Landon came down the steps and approached Haley, standing next to her.
“I thought I would come join you to watch Joe as he makes his way out.”
“We can’t call him Joe anymore,” said Haley, smiling.
“Why not?”
“Don’t you remember what you said last spring, when we met, and we said hello to the Gilmans? You said that the presidency is an office, and that they can’t be a real person, but an office, that we can’t have a true relationship with them.”
At the top of the steps appeared the Senate and House Majority leaders and the Speaker of the House, led by the Clerk of the House. The Vice President-elect, a good man and friend of the Senator’s, followed. Behind him, walking tall and resolute, came President-elect Joseph Franklin McCraiben.
He was dressed in an immaculate suit and red tie, and his hair was combed professionally away from his temples. His great eyebrows furrowed over the deep set eyes as he stepped down the staircase carefully, the last man in the procession. Haley stood quietly at the foot of the stairs, watching as he descended. How different he looked, how presidential.
He paused as he approached the doors to the exterior balcony, and held up his hand in a motion for the door attendees to wait. He turned back to Haley and stepping to her, stood in front of her without speaking, and there was gratitude in his eyes.
“You’ll be wonderful, sir,” she said softly.
The corners of his mouth turned upwards faintly. He took a deep breath, and then placing his hand for an instant on her shoulder, he turned back to the group. She saw his shoulders straighten. One by one the other members of the group were introduced and made their way out o
nto the balcony, until it was just him, his figure rigid, like a soldier ready for battle.
The band outside changed their tune to the introductory march, bright and cheery and patriotic.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President-elect of the United States of America, Joseph Franklin McCraiben, boomed the loudspeaker.
A roar from the crowd could be heard through the closed door in front of him. She saw him place his right hand briefly over his heart and then bring it back to his side.
The doors opened, and sunlight fell into the room.