MADELINE CORY WAS SIPPING HER GIN in her late husband's study-room — looking out of the mansion window at the driveway — it was a quiet night — just like that night six weeks ago...

Her coloured maid came in eagerly to notify...

"Mrs Cory, it is in the news, ma'am — the American President just passed away a moment ago. Do you want me to switch on the television for you?"

"No Susanna, please leave — I want to be alone."

*

Madeline continued to look out of the window and called to mind about the night — less than six weeks ago when she drove into that same driveway. She had to be with her circle of friends after an earlier belligerence argument with her husband, Richard that evening — who was forced to pull out of the presidential election after the secret sex-video scandal filmed in a hotel room that went viral — it was later used by Walter Rosewood, to abdicate him from the race.

Madeline was drunk when she reached home that very night...

She opened the front door, heard the CNN aloud in the living room with the old man, Rosewood talking to reporters about Richard's sex scandal with the young pop star — who performed in one of his fund-raiser campaigns. She switched off the television and tossed the remote aside...

She walked up the stairs — reached the top floor, she saw her Puerto Rican maid, Susanna, kneeling in front of the opened door of her husband's study room. The maid was looking up and reciting prayers aloud in Spanish...

Madeline walked over towards the genuflected maid — saw the sight of her husband hanging stiffly on a beam in the middle of the study room horrified her.

*

Madeline looked up at the beam where her husband had once hung dead — the abrasion of the struggling of the dying man's rope had peeled the paint slightly.

She drank up her gin and bitterly celebrated the present death of the old man Rosewood, who once openly muckraked her husband's scandal — that barred her fading dreams of stepping into the White House, to be the First Lady...

"Die, Mr President — Die!"