Midnight, Anna Dove [ebook smartphone .TXT] 📗

press, officials and donors, he rented the Ballroom at McLean Gardens in which to host the event. News of his intentions had circulated through the town and into neighboring states already, and many were eager to hear his announcement and to see the reaction of his political opponent.

The ballroom was full by eight pm, swarmed by journalists, armed to the teeth in pens and notebooks and film cameras, intermingled with many of the remaining senators and congressmen, as well as judges, business executives, lawyers, and most conspicuously, one of the chief aides to Adela Gilman’s campaign, who was a shrimpy fellow with jet black hair and a crisp black suit and a rather protruding jaw. The atmosphere was abuzz with chatter, with expectation so thick one could practically cut it with a knife.

At quarter past eight, the Senator entered, and a hush fell over the crowd, some of whom had seated themselves in the rows of chairs under the ornate ceiling and some of whom stood towards the back of the room. Four pillars, spaced evenly in the room, reached from the ceiling to the floor, and sconces with long white tapering candles burned bright from the walls while candle lit chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

The Senator wore a crisp blue suit with a red tie, and looked very handsome as he stood in front of the crowd. Haley, Elizabeth and Carlos sat in the front row, and Adela  Gilman’s aide sat at the row’s end to their left, with four or five others in between.

“The aide--he’s intimidating,” said Elizabeth quietly to Carlos, motioning her head towards the end of the row. Carlos looked, and the aide turned to meet his glance. Carlos averted his gaze to the front, where the Senator was standing.

“Yep,” he said, under his breath. “I recognize him--he worked in the Eisenhower.”

“Does he know who you are?”

“I don’t know,” Carlos replied tersely, and Elizabeth could sense his sudden apprehension.

The Senator cleared his throat, and all eyes snapped to the front. He stood behind a podium erected for this occasion, and his hands grasped its sides. He looked down for a moment, closed his eyes, and then opening them, raised his face to the room.

“I am announcing today my candidacy for the office of President of the United States,” he began, and his strong, deep voice carried to the very corners of the walls, to the folds in the great gold draping curtains, to the golden crevices of the wall sconces and the crystal droplets of the chandeliers above. “I run because I am convinced that this country has encountered its most perilous time, and I have such strong feelings about what must be done, that I am necessarily obliged to offer my services towards its restitution. I run in order to stop the bloodshed that has occurred and continues to occur following the attack on our soil. I run to repair the torn fabric of our society. I run not as a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor of any other party, but rather as a man who refuses to see his country die. I run so that the United States of America can stand in hope, and defeat despair. I run for the reconciliation of people, for the unification of the country.

“We are at war, and we know not with whom. We are now at our weakest point, weaker than we have ever been. The faceless despots and the wicked both internally and abroad will seek to plunge their knives into our exposed bellies, to gut us and send us backwards into a pit from which we might never recover. They stand ready like an army, poised to strike. Will we take the course of defense and restitution? Upon the course that you, this country’s citizens, decide, depends the fate of our nation. Upon you depends this civilization. Upon you depends this country. Upon you depends the future. And if we fail, if we are unable to win this war against the yet unknown enemy, then we will be lost in the abyss of a true sinister darkness, against which the absence of electric power is only dusk rather than the blackest midnight.

“Which one of you has not lost a father? A mother? A sister or brother? A friend? Which one of you has not felt the crippling agony of despair as you watch the last breath depart the lungs of someone for whom you would yourself die? Which one of you has not felt your heart feel faint with grief as your child cries because their flesh is wasting away in starvation and you can do nothing to stop it? Which one of you has sought for a sacred place to bury your dead, and found none? How will we go forward? Our hearts are stricken with grief, and the air has been robbed of our lungs, and our enemy crouches at the door like a lion, waiting to devour.

“The mighty engines of our society and economy have ground to a halt, our cities are morgues, our rural land cannot bear the weight of all who are fleeing to it. We have been tossed back two hundred years in time, and find ourselves lost. What world will our children inherit? Will they be taught that America was a great land, but that it died young? Will we be known as the greatest failed experiment? Not if I can help it; not while have breath in my lungs and strength in my body! I have the experience and the fortitude to push these levers forward again, full speed ahead so that the engines engage and barrel on like they had never been stopped.

“My fellow citizens! I am running today to offer my leadership in pulling this country back from the brink of the grave over which it totters precariously. I know that we have been dealt a blow. We have been broken, but