An excerpt from the “Hillary Presidency” side of our issue What To Expect When You're Electing!
My Friends,
I am sitting in my leather rolling throne, writing to you now because I don't know what else to do. I am holding back a scream. I am your friend, and I need you, and you aren't here.. I am sick in your absence. I am trying to be strong, but it is hard. We are friends – all of us – and yet you are all together, and I am apart, and I am absolutely sick. If you are reading this, then you should already understand. You know that we are a close-knit circle of many friends, and so you know that I am not just being my usual funny (ahahahahaha!) self when I write to you and tell you that I need you to come to me and help me. Come see me at my address, which is 42 Pennsylvania Way, the White House. Ask for Hillary.
I have many issues that I would like to tell you about, but you have to promise not to tell anybody except for the other friends in our circle. That's a lot of people, and I know we will all enjoy the discussion, except I will not because I have many issues affecting my emotions. You are my friends, and so you know when I'm sad. You know when I'm sad because I will – when I am happy I will – I will finish some sentences with a sound like this! I'll do some of these! Some exclamations. But I can only exclaim one sound right now: a single scream, so low that it only reaches my friends in the oceans and other places down below.
I will get into the problems that I'm having shortly, but first I want to pretend you are with me. I cannot take the time that we are apart from each other. I miss you. I want to ride atop your shoulders. I want to wade amongst your starving masses. It is 1975 and I am suddenly back at the Steely Dan concert. A man has pulled my breast out for a brief taste, but I wish to be devoured whole. Perhaps you know where this is going, perhaps you do not. That's okay. Either way, it is time for the pledge:
I am a Friend. I am a Good Friend, and I will stay this way for as long as I know Her. For as long as She is my Friend, I will take care of Her, just as She has taken care of me. I will hear Her scream and I crawl on bare knees across hot coals to find Her. Am I A Loyal Friend? Am I A Loyal Friend? I pledge to be – for Hillary – a Friend Until the End. Am I A Friend with Heart? Am I A Friend with Heart? I pledge to be – for Hillary – A Friend Who Does Their Part. I'm With Her
Say it out loud now, just as you would if you were here with me. Pretend I am watching, and I will smile my smile steady and wide as if you are living between the cracks of my teeth. I will explain my issues, and so you will know how to help me. Here is what I have to say: Some of the drawers on this desk are very heavy, and I want to say something about it, but some of these people can't be trusted. If you're walking around the inside of my walls, trying to get me to crawl in again, you're probably not somebody I can confide in. I've learned.
I have a tickle in my throat. I would like a glass of water, but the water they put in my house tastes bad. The water in this house has bad minerals in it – toxic minerals. These minerals – the taste in my mouth from them – these minerals are no good. When I lived here before, I had my own bottled water (this was when water was cheap). One night, I was very thirsty and got up for a drink. I went into the big kitchen, but Al was there; it seemed he was always there at night.
“Up for some water?” he asked me, smirking. That was when Al was happiest, before the world got hot.
“I was. But now, I think I will pull out my breast.” I said this back to him, he paused, and I continued pulling out the breast that was once claimed by Daryl Hall, and then later by his friend and partner, John Oates.
This moment of infidelity continues to haunt me. My heart is simply too big to move on from this, my one great mistake. Do any of my friends know hypnotism? Do any of my wonderful friends know the Keys to Forgetting?
I am missing somebody, but I am unsure of how to reach out. E-mail seems impersonal, and the many people who dress me in the morning have told me not to use it. It is hard to always be connecting when time has made looking at each other more difficult, but the sky is far from it's brightest at this moment. It will be much brighter soon. Ideally I would like to hear somebody's voice, but I also do not want to see their lips. Only in my mind would I like to see their lips. In my mind I can always see a smile. I have decided I will use the phone.
What has happened to the man who used to work in this house? He lived near the door and whispered little-known facts to me. He was one of my friends.
“President Eisenhower couldn't swallow liquids,” he would say to me. “Eisenhower knew about the minerals.”
His name was Scott and he was Korean-American. He was born in St. Louis. I would like to call him.
Friends, I know you will help me. I know you will seal your lips in hot wax if I ask. You are all so talented. You are all so important to me, and because I am just like you, I will say to you what I have always wanted to hear from one of my friends:
Your friendship is a blessing. You are loved and you are valued. You are integral to the prosperity of this country. You are funny and you make the people around you forget their bad feelings. You are fashionable. You are self-aware and people admire you for this. When you are not around, all of your friends talk about how impressive you are. When you are not around, everybody misses you. Sometimes we talk about how you might die some day – how you will die some day, eventually – and we get upset, and we talk about what we would say at your funeral. We would discuss your loyalty, and leadership capabilities, and your lifelong battle against the odds to achieve all that you have. We would note how you looked so good for your age, even towards the end, and how your smile never ceased to inspire envy. We would reminisce on your rambunctious attitude – so polarizing and infectious. And the pride you had for your father who was a hard working minister of drapery, as well as a town selectman before he killed that dog with a shovel.
Imagine I am saying this to you and smile together. Stand up, wherever you are, and smile. Don't be shy – you're among friends. You're always among friends now. I am smiling too. I am imagining that you all are saying those kind words to me! You are harmonizing. Scott is there with you, and he has placed me on speaker phone. I am screaming and I am crying, and Scott is crying too. We are all wet with tears, and we are all harmonizing. It sounds good, like a chorus of angels crying over the phone.
I see and hear all of this in my head, a beautiful movie not unlike What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams. Tears are running down my cheeks now, but I am no longer sad. I am thinking of my friends. I am thinking of the people I love and how they love me. My eyes are closing and I must stop writing. I am ready to see you. I am ready to give everything I have to be with you. I am ready to be a part of you now. You need not come to me, friends. I was wrong to ask so much. I was wrong to demand. It is not necessary now; I am on my way to you. To all of you. It's time, Tim. Everything has happened just the way I said it would. This new world will be yours now. This future we dreamed up together – for how long did we dream of this? It seemed impossible and inevitable, and it is both. Enter the codes, Tim. Enter the codes and deliver us into a beautiful tomorrow.