M. J. Holt
The building stretched as far as he could see. The morning sun glinted off the marble and granite.
“Do you like it, sir?” said a voice behind him.
“It’s beautiful. Even more magnificent than Mar a Lago.”
“Would you like to look around, Mr. President?”
The President felt frumpy beside this man. He had never seen a man as beautiful or as well dressed as his Host. The man’s dark bronze skin and highly styled silver-white hair, ramrod straight back, long slender hands, and sculpted face awed him.
At the entrance, the man held the door, as one should for the President. A Scottish Terrier skittered across the marble floors. “Fala, Fala, come boy, my cousin Teddy is here and he wants to give you treats.”
“This is the FDR wing. Teddy Roosevelt has his own wing with miles of wilderness and horses. I think that FDR and Teddy plan to go riding today.”
Happy sounds and the commotion of many women drinking tea and coffee while sorting papers came from down the hall.
“Here is Eleanor Roosevelt’s wing. They felt it best to be separate. They meet for a martini every so often, and all is good.” The beautiful sound of an operatic call, “Hello everyone,” announced the arrival of a casually dressed woman.
“There are black people here?” asked the President. “She doesn’t look good enough to be a servant.”
“She’s no servant. That’s Marian Anderson. Her wing is huge. Two opera companies and several symphony orchestras have their own wings off of her wing. Marian, Beverly Sills, and Maria Callas hang out there. I cry from the beauty every time I visit them. Their singing—-magnificent.”
The President followed the Host who pointed out wings as they walked down a long hallway into a construction area. Pallets of marble and granite tiles, and the beautiful appointments that would be added upon completion, stretched as far as he could see.
The rest of this political fantasy can be read in Alternative Theologies, a wonderful anthology by B Cubed Press, Edited by Phyllis Irene Radford and Bob Brown. It is available from Amazon.
