The president’s brain exploded and nobody reacted. They were used to it. People had been trying to kill him for years. It didn’t take. It never did. It only made them love him more. People were more offended by the mess at this point. To see such a powerful man, so handsome, his wife so regal, his car so flash, with his bespoke Brooks Brothers covered in ichor and brain and bits of bone. Death was for people with imperfect hair. It was for you. Not him. Not my president.
He waved through it just like he had the last time. The fleshy purpled matter reached out from his shattered skull. It’s chthonic limbs searching for air, waving just like its host. It shuddered and groped. The true essence of the man revealing itself to his adoring audience. Sucking in the same air as them. As us. What a privilege. What a show.
They surged over the barriers. The Secret Service trying not to panic behind their mirror shades. Knowing how the president treated failure. The people’s love would not be stopped. They would risk anything for the man. For the thing inside him. They wanted the president to know they loved him and that they would do anything for him and all they wanted in return was a small piece of him, a touch of that greatness.
The agent slapped the side of the car. It was time to get out. Bullets were one thing, but love was possessive. If they got ahold of the man, they would never let go. They would kill him with their love. The car plowed through the crowd. It crushed a veteran, it clipped an expectant mother, a fanatic went under the wheel, his teeth embedded in the chrome. The car sped away, leaving the people to charge into the vacuum. Smears of their leader’s head littered the asphalt. They pushed and shoved each other, trying to smear themselves in that vaunted gore. They fell over. Their lips and teeth scraping against the pavement, searching sucker-like for scraps of the great leader’s flesh. His hair. His bone. They died on their stomachs in strange supplication.
He was still waving long after the crowds had thinned. His wife trembled next to him. His guards braced themselves for the next wave of reprisals. It would be a long couple of months and none of it would stop, least of all the people. They were just happy to finally feel good about this country. To see something like that, in this world, to breathe their exhaust: This must be like when God smiles on you. To wave at somebody, to wave back was to know you were alive. Your heart pumping now. Shouting we love you, we love you. God, how we love you.