The President Wears a Mullet

Winner of "Invalid Item"  Contest for 03/17/06
Prompt: Write a story in which a government attempts to cover something up.
Word Count: 348



“Right…there!!” Danny pressed the pause button, in tandem with his finger pointing, “Do you see it?! Do you see it?!”

“Calm down,” I managed, actually getting up to walk over to the monitor. I leaned in closer, squinted my eyes, but still couldn’t see what Danny had been desperately trying to show me. I straightened up and sighed. “I can’t see a thing...”

“Are you blind?!” Danny angrily inquired, and stood next to the monitor to touch its glass surface. “It’s right there! Look at his nape! Scales, don’t you see?”

I sighed. “So, you’re telling me that the President is actually…an alien…from outer space…”

“That mullet is by choice!” he screamed at me. “He had to find a way to keep his nape concealed all the time! Obviously, he didn’t think that we’d be filming—”

“Enough!” I heard myself shout, then quickly calmed my approach. “Do you even understand how nuts you sound right now? If I go to the Vice President with this information without irrefutable proof,” I paused, putting emphasis on the last three words I’d just spoken, “I will be the laughing stock at the Pentagon and the darn White House. Do you understand that?”

“But--” Danny began, a look of frustration in his eyes.

“No buts!” I quickly interrupted him, and simply motioned to the door. Dejected, my junior colleague placed the remote control atop the monitor, grabbed his suit jacket, and walked out of my office.

I took a heavy breath, then picked up the phone. “Mr. Vice President, it’s me,” I said calmly. “He just left.” I listened carefully to what was being said to me on the telephone. “Understood. I’ll take care of him.”

I put the receiver down, and sighed again. I felt an uncontrollable itch on the back of my neck, and reached back to scratch it, feeling my own scales. They've certainly gotten brittle in this atmosphere, I pondered. The Commander needs to make his move soon or we’ll all die.