Potus rewrites

I need to get serious about rewriting some parts of Potus, so I'll post them here:

New, during the state of the union address:

“Martin Luther King Junior was a great blurthk man…” (here Potus coughed to cover up his mistake) “…a great man who had a dream. I also have a dream. I actually have two dreams. I’m not saying that my dreams are better than his. But he only had one dream and I have two. Anyway, one of my dreams is to put an end to the great scourge of Daylight Saving. My second dream is to eat a great lunch once in a while. But I digress.”

New dialogue before the first press conference begins.

"No, I mean the press.  We should arrest them all."

Secretary of Defence seemed to have regained his colour and composure.  He joked, "I don't think there's enough room to hold them all."

"Sure there is," snapped Potus.  "Just turn the whole state of Texas into a penitentiary.  We'd have plenty of room for them and all the potheads and kinky freaks who want to have marital relations with a gas tank."

Everyone frowned.

"What?" Potus asked.  "It's just a saying."

Chief of Staff, thinking ahead, said, "Sir, what are you going to say?  We won't have any time to write up some talking points."

Potus answered, "We'll use an old trick from the movies.  I'll just curse a lot and they'll have to bleep me out."

Chief of Staff continued, “But sir, they will still air the curse words live. CNN is particularly bad about that.”

Potus nodded. “You’re right. Tell them I’ll be out in 20 minutes. Then I’ll come out in 15 and they’ll still be in commercials.”

"Genius, Sir," exclaimed Chief of Staff.

"Have you ever heard of a sycophant?" asked Potus.  He strode out, motioning Johnson to follow.

Added scene in the first press conference, during the famous shoe incident:

"Sir, yes, Sir, I am waiting to speak," said a press reporter from the middle row with an accent.

Potus pointed at the young man.  "You, raccoon guy with the accent."

Raccoon guy tried to speak above the clamour.  "Yes thanks to you.  I am Chathuranga Wallaheller Srinivasiani from the Sri Lankan Daily Dinamina and I am pleased to ask you a question."

"Yes, go ahead.  Quiet down!" Potus yelled at the other reporters. "Wally Something wants to speak."

"Chathuranga Wallaheller..." Wally began.

"Yes, yes," waved Potus.  "Charlie So-and-So."

"You may call me by Frank," Charlie said.

Potus said, "There's a great American name, Frank.  Wonderful, go ahead, Frank."

“I don’t understand Racoon,” said Frank.

“Go ahead, Frank.”

“I…” Frank looked behind him, uncertain what was going on.

“Look,” said Potus, “If you don’t understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, then fuck you.”

Frank looked perplexed.

“Calm down,” Potus yelled at the hubbub in the press room. “Frank, you may speak with the Office of the President now. Go ahead.”

"Thank you for the wonderful honour, Mr. President of the United States.  

Revenge of the Seeth

In a small city on Quandara* Billbop was fixing his robots. He cleaned up a spot of oil on one curved metal piece and judged his repairs. The last four attempts to fix the annoying squeaks had met with even more erratic behaviour and general jerkiness on the delivery droid. Billbop was just a peasant, but even peasants need someone to do their hard work. It's turtles and droids all the way down.

Billbop was satisfied with his repairs and wiped his hands with a bleefork skin rag. He called for his mate, Boppinmuffer to prepare some dinner. Boppinmuffer was on the phone with someone and Billbop yelled louder for her so she could hear him.

Boppinmuffer was on the phone speaking with a reporter who had called. This reporter, Mr. Gaffenhorse, was always bothering their family after the huge walffinflap incident. Mr. Gaffenhorse was a good reporter but a bit too tenacious. This was a good quality to have if you were trying to catch hooligans who terrorised the septic droids in the northeast quadrant. But it wasn't good if you happened to be a regular peasant citizen who was just trying to make a living in the backwaters of the town.

Mr. Gaffenhorse was trying to arrange a meeting with Billbop to discuss the latest allegations that Billbop had been unqualified to operate on a a friend's droid when said droid had gone berserk in the town square. The dreadful incident had resulted in Mrs. Flappenfloop (a barber) getting droid poo splashed on her new whites. Most observers of the scene had thought it was amusing but Mrs. Flappenfloop had reported the event and made demands on the police chief to impound the droid. The droid diagnostics had shown that the last worker to operate it had been Billbop.

Boppinmuffer was trying to be polite and decline the interview on behalf of her mate, but he kept yelling at her from the back where he was working on his droid (perhaps illegally, definitely in contravention to the moratorium imposed by the police chief). She excused herself politely and cupped her hand over the mouthpiece while she yelled a string of Ubettan obscenities through the back window to Billbop.

Hearing this coarse language in the back shop, Billbop got enraged and the growling in his stomach only fueled the rage more. He stormed into the house and ripped the receiver from his mate's hand and yelled a fresh round of outrage into Mr. Gaffenhorse's ears, but this time in his native Cowhatten.

Mr. Gaffenhorse spoke perfect Ubettan and Cowhatten, of course, but pretended not to understand. In fact, he was smiling to himself because whenever people were yelling at him, he knew he was onto a really good story. At the very least, he could write about the incident in an indignant tone and sway public opinion. Swaying public opinion is the only thing reporters are good at, anyway.

The question of whether man was alone in the universe was not important because these were not men. The CIO of the newspaper just wanted to expand his reach across the star systems that comprised his audience. He was certain that this story about a peasant who cursed and fixed droids could garner more monetisation across his ad properties.

*Random story generator prompt: This is an epic about vengeance. The story is about a police chief, a barber, a CIO, and a newscaster who is obsessed with a peasant. It starts in a small city in a solar-system-spanning technocracy. The question 'is man alone in the universe' plays a major role.

The Tomb Robber

The tomb robber* dug his grave while trying to keep as quiet as possible. The scrapes of dirt seemed loud to our hero but could scarcely be heard by the night animals that prowled ceaselessly outside the graveyard fence. Grave robbing was a serious offense in East Berlin and could result in a capital offense. Some grave robbers dug their own grave metaphorically and literally if they were caught.

"Fug you," our hero thought to himself. "Fug you and your stupid orders to gather dead specimens."

He was, of course, speaking telepathically with his superior at the laboratory who had handed out the night's job. Swanson from the other division always got a better job detail and our hero was always stuck with the low-end jobs. While our hero was digging in this grave during the pitch black of night, Swanson was over at the Bierhaus drinking and carousing. Ostensibly, Swanson was to extract information on the drinking patterns of the SS and Luftwassen Flurfenhausersnauzers.

A loud metallic clang rang across the graveyard and an owl hooted in the distance.

"Fug!" cursed our hero violently. "Ein Rock haben maken meinen Shovel clangen!"

However, this noise was enough to attract attention and our hero could see some lights in the distance. The guards had heard the shovel hitting the rock and were coming out to investigate.

"Swanson will hear about this," our hero muttered and he ran off, jumping over the graveyard fence and ripping the seat on his trousers.

Approaching the Bierhaus where Swanson was "working", our hero dusted himself off and tried to appear as presentable as possible. This was difficult in the dark and without a mirror, but he tried as valiantly as he could nonetheless. Carying his shovel over his shoulder and sauntering as easily as he might, he opened the door of the Bierhaus.

"Oy, Swanson," called our hero, using a light tone. "I wanna have a talk with ye."

Swanson turned and laughed derisively at our hero. "Who me?" Swanson retorted. "Fix your pants, you peasant!" To this the barmaids and two SS officers laughed and downed large quantities of Bier from their Steins.

Our hero turned bright red under his smudges of dirt and grime. His rage boiled over and he swung his shovel directly on top of Swanson's head. The shovel clanged violently and Swanson turned perfectly white while frozen upright with a look of surprise and wonder on his face. The noise and bustle of the Bierhaus stopped and one could hear the prostitutes upstairs making loud noises, oblivious to the violence below.

Swanson wilted in slow motion and fell to the floor where his Stein crashed on the wooden floor. An SS guard jumped up and yelled, "You have caused some fresh Bier to be spilled on this floor. I arrest you in the name of the former Fuhrer and shall take you to jail now!"

Our hero struggled with the SS officers who subdued him and gave him a few whacks with his own shovel in an effort to instill a sense of calm. Our hero finally yelled "I'll stop resisting!" and was taken into custody.

Swanson was braindead for several years until he woke up from a coma to the sounds of the Berlin wall being torn down. That is a different story for another day.

*Generated by random story generator: "This is a tale about rivalry and beating fate. The story is about a tomb-robber who is stalked by an unremarkable manager. It starts in a port city in Africa. The fallout from World War II plays a major role in this story."

Le Metro

She would ride the bus and correct her children's homework on the way home. Her brats would hang their legs insolently over the sides of the chairs, kicking the sides with rhythmic bangs. She admonishes them to try harder, to no avail. They are clearly skeptical of her status in life when their school commute includes riding a bus to a minimum wage job.

The boyfriend tries to pretend to be engaged although it's clear he's paying more attention to the beats in his skull candy headphones. He could be nodding yes to her statements or he could be bopping to the latest release. They have a long stretch of time unfurling in front of them, the reverse of the road streaming below the bus. The end destination is just as dodgy and just as uncertain.

We are stuck together on this planet in this universe for a long time. We should make it pleasant, is the implication. Instead, it's like hitting a Tibetan prayer wheel and watching it spin. The hand hurts, the wheels spin and slowly stop, a prayer is made or is not, and the whole thing happens again. There's no allegory here, it's just the way that things are. Once you have kids you have to accept that everything will be soaked to fuck in sugary sticky red-coloured water.

If it weren't for the bus ride, they might be the people you see just stopped on the curb, smoking a cigarette butt. You could beg for a few dollars and buy an alcoholic drink in a paper bag. That's all you need, really, smoking butts is free. If you have a cheerful disposition and a joke on your paper cardboard sign you could earn a pretty decent living. Free cigarette butts and a few bottles of liquid in a paper bag, all for a few hours of sitting or standing on the street corner. Plus, you can still ride the bus and get free rides just through sheer force of a funny personality.

She dresses provocatively because that's the only leverage she has. A brown triangle riding high up the rear pelvis bone displays an impossibly thin thong. That's supposed to be sexy, but it stretches and strains way too much over the large bulk presented by her posture. A wide swath of Lycra® barely keeps her abdomen in check. Given the number of small brats in tow whose homework waits to be reviewed, it's possible she has another one or three on the way. She should probably wear whitie-tighties like a boy with the flap in the front instead.

The joke he tells from within the confines of his beats headed nod is so funny she covers her mouth in mirth. The kids rowdily whoop. Then they all settle down and go back to swaying with the motion of the bus. The orgasm has been induced, the high is now over. It's back to the dreary grit and grime of life.