789 Days, 22 Hours, 52 Minutes, 0.6 Seconds

789, the innocent order of those numbers, as in a child's game of Hide and Seek. Counting from one to ten, eyes closed, palms over your eyes, then you open them and all the others are hiding somewhere. Ready or not, here she comes. And comes and comes, running in mock fear around the house that housed a bedroom all her own. With no sisters or brothers, she only remembers playing this game with her mother. The thought of a grown woman crawling under a bed or wedging herself into a closet next to a cannister vacuum cleaner is laughable now. But maybe she only hid behind a door. If only it were that easy to make a president vanish, she thinks, immediately scoffing at her immaturity. Of course it's not, not now. And her mother left her.