The prompt was to write a story that could be told in three minutes or fewer (max 600 words), and the topic was that the story had to revolve around a real or fictional president of the United States. Here is what I wrote for a second attempt:
*Caveat - the following does not fully represent my personal views of the Israeli/Palestinian problem, so please do not get offended.
Child President
President Jimmy Benson sat on the carpet in the oval office.
He wore a
Thomas the Tank Engine T-shirt, and a small pair of jeans. A
set of Star Wars Legos had been emptied on the floor in front of him, and he
was absently sticking and unsticking the same two blocks to each other. One of
his advisors, Mary Thompson, was doing her best to divert Jimmy’s attention from
the blocks to a chalkboard on which she had drawn a very simple diagram.
“Jimmy,
please look at me. Just two minutes,” Mary pleaded.
“No.
I want to play Darth Vader.” The president stuck out his hand in what he thought was the motion that allows someone to use the force.
“Jimmy,
the Israeli Prime Minister cannot wait. Darth Vader, on the other hand, will
still be here when we’re done. I’ll even bring you some ice cream.”
Jimmy
heaved an enormous sigh, weighed his options, and grudgingly decided to listen
to Mary.
“Thank
you, Jimmy. Now,” Mary said, pointing at the simple picture of two houses she
had drawn on the chalk board, “do you remember what I told you before?”
“Some
pistons and raylies want to live somewhere, but they don’t fit.” Jimmy glanced
at the Legos, then back at the chalkboard.
“Very
good, Jimmy! That’s right. Palestinians and Israelis are...” Mary paused,
trying for the millionth time since Jimmy’s inauguration to put a complex topic
into words a five-year-old could understand. “...they’re fighting. They’re
fighting over where they get to live.” Mary erased one of the two houses. “They
can’t each have a house, because there’s only this one.” She pointed at the
single house left on the chalkboard. “What do you think they should do? Who
should get to live in the house?”
“Whose
house is it?” asked Jimmy.
“The
Palestinians believe it’s their house and not the Israeli’s, and the Israelis believe it’s their house and not the
Palestinian’s.”
“Well,”
said Jimmy, his tone signaling that he thought this was the most obvious
question in the world, “who was there first?”
Mary
nearly smiled. “In some ways, they both were. So, I ask again, who
should get the house?”
Jimmy,
in all his five-year-old wisdom, replied, “I guess they’ll have to share it.”
“Jimmy,
you want us to tell the Israeli Prime Minister that the United State’s stance
on the Israeli-Palestinian problem is that, and I quote, “You’ll just have to
learn to share?”
“Yes,”
said Jimmy, with finality. He looked back down to the floor, and began to click
the Legos together one more.
Mary left the oval office. As she strode the length of the hall, her thoughts tread the well-worn path in her mind that weighed the pros and cons of electing a five-year-old to the presidency. On the one hand, immensely complex situations had to be made absurdly simple in order to get an opinion out of Jimmy. On the other, Jimmy had such a clear view of fairness, and such an incorruptible sense of right and wrong, that she constantly wondered who the children in this world truly were. The influence of special interest groups and lobbying had no effect on him. Time had shown that Jimmy’s simple wisdom, the innate intuition of the very young, was all that the problems of the world really needed. “We should have done this years ago,” she said under her breath.
