You can hardly believe it to be true, but there it is. Signed and dated from the Office of the President of the United States. This is a document from the desk of President Charlotte Poundstone. The revelation forces you to reread the staggering letter, and you only grow more surprised by reaching the president's signature a second time.
President Poundstone is a powerhouse and a loose cannon. Her rise to the office was tumultuous and controversial, but in the end she's been sitting in that seat for almost two years while the cogs kept turning. Charlotte herself is a bold and brash woman, not even middle-aged, only forty years old if you could believe that. It's not only the camera that deceives you, your own eyes would take no less than ten years off that number. She commands a room, standing just over six feet tall. Her red hair is a sweeping wildfire or searing curls of flame depending on the day. Her tongue likewise burns red, never afraid to speak what's on her mind with confidence, though her attitude tends toward insult.
You recall an incident, one of so many countless incidents you tend to blur them together in forgetfulness, but this one was recent in the news rounds. At a press conference last week, a reporter had the nerve to bring up a question straight from the gossip magazines. He asked President Poundstone about the recent evidence that she was not a woman. You might expect coming from the tabloids that he wanted to know what breed of alien she was instead, but no. He wanted comment on the accusations that President Charlotte Poundstone had in fact been a man named Charles Putzenpfeiffer and may still be that man today.
Her curt response was still fresh in your mind, "Absolutely ridiculous. Check my birth certificate. Next."
Even without a name like Putzenpfeiffer, there was not a single drop of honest ink on the page. The matter is already being laughed off the news and forgotten for the next scandal.
From your reading, that scandal could be staring you in the face. Precise details are few, but you know the big pieces. Montana has already shared her size-changing technology with the government, and they're going to put it into action immediately. The letter also thanks her for the private demonstration she presented at the White House. This letter is dated two days ago. When did she find the time for that!
President Poundstone remarked how she is "proud to have such a patriotic scientist working dutifully for the betterment of the nation and for the world at large". You're uncertain of that whole charade. What use might President Poundstone be planning for Montana's size changing invention?
If it's being put into use immediately, you suppose you'll hear about it soon enough, but you know government. It's a slow, grinding machine that hasn't been oiled since before you were born. Odds are, whatever project Poundstone has in mind won't appear before the end of the term. Behind schedule. Over-budget. It's not happening. Not if that letter was addressed just two days back. That's not enough time to put any plan in motion.
But, by the time you make the escape home, you learn how wrong you were with a glance at the lead story online.
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