TARVISH was at the inaugural. He didn’t have a choice. No one did that day. It was just any other day for a government official. But today it was a circus. His uniform fit him like a ringleader rather than a warmonger. And everyone was here to a record crowd. To celebrate one thing: Trunk won.

Not only did he win, but he claimed an end to the Cold War. How could he pull that off before even taking office?

He invited Pusyn to the inauguration. The man who murdered so many people in the 21st century. The man who was an instrument for destruction, the angel of death… He was the premiere guest at the inaugural.

All the congressmen who didn’t believe in Trunk were absent that day. Every senator, leader, lawyer, lobbyist. They refused to show up.

And Tarvish had to be there because of his government duty as General. The military was always at the President’s affairs and addresses. They were surely always present to hail their new Commander in Chief. This was a travesty. Tarvish was beyond comprehension of the diseased logic of Trunk’s foreign policy.

It did clear up the rumors. Pusyn and Trunk becoming best friends. It was now reality that Trunk was ready to forget Pusyn’s illustrious humanitarian record. He swept them under the rug, like water on a white counter top.

“Remember Barack’s” said Gen. Murphy, “you couldn’t even see the end of the mall”. He muttered almost motionlessly under his breath. Tarvish had a painted ugly face. It was unfazed by chatter. It was unfazed by the cold. It was unfazed by all the American’s present, because at this event, Trunk invited the most heinous man in the world. He invited a communist straight to the White House.

Tarvish’s eyebrows were furrowed. His cheeks contorted so that his full moustache arched downward at right angles. He was now one of the angriest looking men on Capitol Hill, keeping good company with John Lewis. Anyone watching the satellite feed could spot his face. Though he wasn’t terribly known to millennials, he was still a man of world power.

He was under the eye of the camera, every second of the inauguration. If he made the wrong move, We The People would see. Worse off, the regime, the Trunkian regime, might see. He wasn’t sure what his military would look like anymore, but he was invested in preserving it. He imagined in his head riding his tanks all over the White House lawn. Free the people of the tyranny. But, no. Just smile and wave… kind of.

Trunk’s Speech rippled throughout the world. He was ready to kill, he was ready to die, he was ready to live, and now that he had actually won, it came to light how plainly stupid he sounded.

As the speech clattered on, Tarvish was locked on Pusyn. The Russian Rat. The enemy Ruskie. Tarvish had lost men to Pusyn. He had lost them, and he would have killed Pusyn in a heartbeat.

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do anything but shake his hand. And after the speech and the pleasantries, Trunk made the Army introduce itself to Pusyn. Luckily, as Tarvish was moving from outside the cold to inside the stuffy White House, he knew that the cameras wouldn’t cover the transition.

So into his palm, he ever so silently hacked up some phlegm, and spit a great wad from his mouth. He put himself last in the procession. He made sure to be the furthest away from Pusyn. He wanted to be the last hand he shook.

It was all pairing up to work out. Pusyn walked in and was about to shake Murphy’s hand, when suddenly, he moved to shake the hands of the policemen that escorted him in first. A “thanks for your security” gesture. This shifted him, and now, with loogey in hand, Pusyn arrived at Tarvish. With shock and surprise, Tarvish nearly dropped the loogey, but instead, gulped deeply. Here we go.

He shoved his gooey, near-yellow hand at the dictator. As he shook, his silent blank eyes uttered, “May you die violently” right into Pusyn. Pusyn himself, taken by surprise, slowed and shared the same gaze. “The pleasure will be all mine.”

He jerked a quick smile, then moved his gaze to the next head of the military, Silas Everret, Air Force. Pusyn shoved his gooey hand into Everret’s, and let the goo squeeze in between. Every hand he shook down the line he looked back at Tarvish. He was going to make him burn for this one.

Pusyn took a great delight now in shaking all their hands. He was a dictator in a candy shop.

Tarvish’s iron-tight fists could have made diamonds out of the goo residue. Clenching just about every fiber in his body, he watched as Pusyn made his way to Murphy, who would later ask if he too thought Pusyn had sticky hands.

This is how Tarvish started the Trunk presidency. Pusyn 1. America 0.