Nightmare in the Governor’s Mansion

Nightmare in the Governor’s Mansion

The wind danced across the dreary grass outside the Florida governor’s mansion, as the heavy rain drummed on the tin roof. Shadows cast a eerie feeling as the  shutters banged on the white alabaster walls.

  The fire crackled loudly interrupted with  popping noises. The black cat with the yellow eyes and no tail was enthroned on the dozing governor’s lap. The sounds of pending deep sleep were interspersed  between snorts and deep breathing. The governor’s shiny bald head bobbled up and down in concert with the throaty sleeping noises. He was known for his nodding bald head and was considered to resemble one of those old fashion  shinny Teflon plastic green turtles with the bobbing head and tail.

  The night strolled in quietly and tip-toed across his mind. Suddenly the nightmare flared up, full blast in his mind  and became tangled, with one foot in the web of reality and the other bogged in guilt. The  weathery skelton  with the donor sign hanging around his neck waving the college school banners appeared  and tried to push his way out of the big golden oak door with the title blazed across the front in heavy black print, “State owed scholarship” .  The frame of the door was encased in different school banners. The skelton kept repeating the phrase, “where are the scholarship funds?. S.O.S., Save our Scholarship seem to the theme of the day. 

  The governor awoke  quickly and the sleek black cat landed with a thump on the floor as the governor sprung to his feet. The looming silhouette was tall and thin and ink black as he started to pace back in forth like a man posses. He knew his re-election bid would sink once the  Shadow  broke the story about how he gave the teachers a raise but did not pay back the scholarship money. That bunch of rebel rousing  students would be camped on his door step demanding the money be used for tuitions. He still remember when that group lambasted him and the school  administration for trying to remain their stadium.  If he only  could figure out who was leaking these tidbits to the Shadow. Damn these blogers. It was almost impossible to stop them. His office had plugged a lot of leaks by slowly dismantling the Government in the Sunshine legist ration and if he could just figure out who the tattletale was,  he could batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. The state owed just one university close to ten million dollars and he had nightmares about the total,  which was close to half a billion. A cold hard shiver when down his spine and he started shaking back and forth. His aides kept telling him not to worry that most of those donors were dead and could not complain.

  Get a grip he told himself. They aren’t organized and they aren’t camped on the front lawn yet. Those advisors were as useless as a room full of cats with rockers out in full force.

  He should have gone down to the university when that old lady wrote him and asked him to bring a check for that donors 100th birthday.  Definitely .a missed photo opportunity When this story breaks  it will ignited a full course media storm, it will be a news epidemic. Reporters will never be his friend, he will be the brunt of jokes and he will suffer humiliation unlike anything ever seen again. A new set of  political  cartoons will line the papers, bobbing plastic turtles and all.  He knew they referred to him as Scottie the turtle and mocked him because he was known to hide in his Teflon shell and would offer one of the staffers up for sacrifice  The paranoia began to build and he felt trapped.  He felt a migraine coming on but there was no rest for the weary. Where was that Snowden guy when you needed him? That’s what it would take to figure out how to stop this Shadow. He remembered that  was the ending of a old radio show, Only the Shadow Knows: . How was he going to stop this from setting off a full press expose? His bald head bobbed up and down, thinking, thinking, thinking.