The Disastrous Disappointment of Dictatorship

The teenage assassin runs the length of my office in her stylish-yet-sensible boots, flailing nunchucks overhead. I am disappointed to see her--she isn't exactly the singing telegram I was hoping for--but, as President of Nation, I am unsurprised.

One end of the nunchucks (one nunchuck?) hits the ceiling fan. A fan blade cracks and clatters to the floor, a lightbulb shatters. Glass and sparks rain down on her but she presses on without a flinch.

I gain no satisfaction from what's about to happen, not anymore. There is no longer joy in bricking up the untapped well of potential inside the youth of today. It is no longer fun to know that if only we could have a conversation, perhaps I could change her mind; instead, I must put a speedy end to the underprivileged and indoctrinated sacrifice of the people. There is nothing for it. I throw open a drawer and reach for my gun.

Not fast enough. The girl vaults over my desk, kicking things to the floor. Weaponless, I duck beneath one swing of her weapon, dance away from another, and move briskly to the painting of my late father. His cold blue eyes follow me as if to question my hesitation, to question the strength of my stranglehold on our fair Nation. I swing the painting forward on hidden brass hinges, reaching into the space within the wall.

She screams, a high-pitched battle cry, and kicks the painting-door closed on me. The frame pinches my back. My fingers curl around the rough, cool handle of a handgun, and I roll out from behind the painting as the girl's fist rips through my father.

She stands still, then, tensing her muscles and catching her breath with the muzzle of my gun pressing into her temple. I allow her time to process, use this time to practice the calm-breathing exercises my spiritual adviser taught me after the last assassination attempt.

Her bottom lip quivers. "Do it," she says. "The Beast will come for you soon enough."

I consider her request. Twenty-five years ago, certainly, she would have been dead already. I would have had my gun in my hand as I oversaw trade disputes and district appearances, ready and waiting for her foot to kick in my door. I would have had spies murder her long before her feeble plans came to fruition.

I am a different man than when I ascended to power.

"Why are you here?" I ask.

The possibilities are endless. I am quite certain that every citizen of Nation, regardless of whether or not they are liable to act on it, has a reason or three to want me dead. A great many of my loyal supporters defected to the rebels when I withheld rations until we saw a twenty-five percent population decrease and a five percent productivity rise (which I still find an entirely reasonable expectation, if one were only to think analytically rather than emotionally).

The girl's face hardens. She still looks not much deadlier than a rabbit. "You killed my grandmother. When the Geriatric Gladiator Games began, she was the first to fight the lion. She..." The girl who fancies herself an assassin chokes up, her eyes reddening, her throat bobbing. "She didn't even look human when we identified the body."

A shame. The Geriatric Gladiator Games were not my finest idea, I admit. The birthrate rose as the population mourned their grannies the only way they knew how.

Should I apologize? It won't erase the girl's trauma, nor will she accept it. It won't make what I have to do any easier, never does. But it is the right thing to do. I so rarely get the chance to do the right thing.

With my gun against her head, I say, "My condolences. Tell me, is this what your grandmother would have wanted for you?"

"My grandmother trained me to fight. She told me we had to stick up for the little people, or we were no better than the spineless, pampered, ignorant citizens of Capital." She snorts, tips her head back, and spits a fat green glob of saliva and mucus onto the floor. I am unsure what this is meant to accomplish, but it is decidedly unladylike. "Fuck your condolences," she says.