INT: OVAL OFFICE – DAY
The President sits at the desk. The President looks at her hands. People rush in and out, speaking fast, leaving papers on the desk. The President lifts her hands closer to her face to examine them, turning them over and around. An aide presents a pen. The President begins to sign papers, sign papers, sign papers. The aide removes the papers. The President puts down the pen. The President sits. The President stands. The President walks towards the door to the garden. The President stands and looks at the garden as if expecting. The Secret Service open the door. The President stands, looking. The President slowly shifts herself through the open door.
Leave me alone, she says.
INT: BEDROOM – NIGHT
The President is dreaming. There are two winged animals. They ask her to go with them. There is need to speak; they hear her thoughts. Where are we going? The creatures answer in images that fill the President’s mind with such joy she does not hesitate. Take me, she says.
INT: BEDROOM – EARLY MORNING
The President does not answer the phone. The President’s eyes are open, but she is not out of bed. Someone rushes in, speaks and speaks. A doctor arrives, tests and measures, pronounces that there is no cause. The President sits up. The President dresses. An aide is waiting by the door. The President shifts herself into the corridor. Her hands remember the creature’s wings. She shakes her hands, her head. She remembers and she wants to sing.
EXT: GARDEN – LATER THAT SAME DAY
Someone rushes to the podium. The President is introduced. Everyone claps. The President stands at the podium. The prompter begins to scroll the prepared and vetted speech. The President says nothing. An aide rushes up. The President says nothing. The crowd jostles and murmurs.
The President opens her mouth. Leave me alone, she says. The President steps off the podium and onto the grass. She removes one shoe and then the other. She begins to shift herself towards the trees.
The Secret Service are confused. Among the aides, there is muttering and panic. By the time an order is given, the President has reached the tree line. The Secret Service run in formation towards the place The President was last seen, but there is no-one. The Secret Service look towards the sky. There is the whirr of beating wings, and the sound of singing. They aim their guns.