THE FOUNTAIN OF EUPHUISM
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

THE FOUNTAIN OF EUPHUISM

George Done was running for president. He was a man of the people; a catalyst for change, a leader for a new tomorrow and a hundred other accolades that his campaign would tell you describes this great man and fellow humanitarian.

But above it all, George Done was a selfish bastard. He cared nothing for the people, whose heads he would walk on, in order to get to where he wanted to go. He wanted power for his pride and money for his lust and that’s about it.

The campaign had about 18 months to herald the second coming of the next best thing to sinless perfection. He had old pros as his political handlers, including dozens of pundits, media strategists, political strategists, troubleshooters and most importantly, spin-doctors.

It was like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone knew he was lying, but most people pretended that they believed he meant what he said.

You see, if they accepted the fact that he was dishonest, they would have to admit their own dishonesty and then they would be compelled to appease their conscience and do something about it. It was easier to believe other people’s lies, so they would not have to admit their own.

“Let God be true and every man a liar”, the scriptures says. Some people lie less than others, but most lie more. A small number of people in society are convicted by their lies, the rest are just fearful of being found out.

The apathy in society over deception and people in general being to lazy to check out the truth before making important decisions, make them easy prey for the dishonest to feast on.

He made lots of promises…to everyone. He made hundreds of promises to the public that he could care less about fulfilling. More over, he made even greater promises to his large campaign contributors and they were not going to let him forget them. George plans to pay back the donations with favors that will allow companies to legally cheat in the marketplace.

George would fight back against every insinuation that he was making false campaign promises by making even more false promises. He turned accusations back on his accusers, is if his accusers were evil for daring to smear his spotless character. At one point, George’s army of liars were even accusing people they believed might accuse him, just to keep themselves ahead of the game.

Oh he was artful. He was a gifted liar, if you could call being good at lying a gift.

The media projected a very light turn out for the election, which made George’s job a whole lot easier. George was ahead of the pack and unlike the others; he had not submitted one plan to change things for the better. He just lied and defended his lies.

He was an effective liar due to his two great talents; the sound of his voice, which would lull people into a sense of apathy and the flowery language, which sounded so sweet, it made people believe him despite their reservations.

He talked all the time, going from one speaking engagement to another.

He spoke at the National Association of Animal Rights Activists and reassured them that, and I quote, “The furry little creatures that depend on our human species, should be protected from all forms of abuse. When I’m president, the animal farm industry will have to toe the line when dealing with God’s precious creatures. All animals in their care will be pampered and fed and kept in a clean environment, until they are ready to be hacked to death for their meat. That is a promise!

Well there were plenty of accusations flying after his speech, but he just blew them off by saying, “You just can’t please some people”.

Well the election was at hand and George Done was expected to win. But then, the unexpected happened. He won!

For the people who expected justice and fairness to always prevail, this was a big shock. Four years of this man was too much for honest folk to endure. It seemed that this self-consuming, evil man slipped through the cracks and beat the Truth, there by grabbing power and corrupting it into his own image.

But Truth wasn’t finished with him yet, not by a long shot. Sometimes, the worst thing that could happen to those who are evil is to acquire the thing they have lied to get.

Immediately after the election, the big money contributors met with the newly elected president with their hand out. It would be seven weeks before he would be sworn in, but many of his financial backers couldn’t wait. They hounded him day and night, threatening to expose him in various unethical business dealings. Many of the donors, who gave him more than was legally allowed, video taped their meetings with him and were ready to release damaging excerpts from the tapes to the media, if he didn’t comply with their immediate demands.

The predator, in this case George, was now the prey.

Many reporters got wind of this and stalked his every move using long-range recording devices. Detectives were hired to find out everything they could find on this new target, who was now referred to as Mr. President Elect. Lawyers were already preparing briefs against George Done for misappropriation of funds from his campaign treasury.

The late night comedians started ridiculing George for his ethics problems. His wife was threatening divorce, due to her embarrassment over his public troubles.

Weeks before his taking the oath of office, the congress, which was controlled by the opposing party, were talking about first censoring the future president and then a few days later, they subpoenaed him for questioning.

The slow drip…drip…drip of repercussions for his deceitful behavior kept George up nights. It kept him up days to. He started taking pills to calm his edginess, which didn’t mix well with his large consumption of alcohol.

On the night before his swearing in, we find George Done, sitting alone in front of his television set, inside his darkened apartment with an episode of “Gilligan’s Island” on, which he wasn’t watching. He was too busy loading his gun.

Copyright © 2007 Mark Edgemon

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