Satire - Sleepless in Rem-wah-rah.

The slices of cucumber looked deathly gothic as tiny tremors made them vibrate in a precarious balance, resting on Christopher's fleshy eyelids, while just beneath them, his terrified eyeballs darted like hard metallic pin balls, searching for answers, bouncing from suspect to suspect and back in vain to the question, the question, you know the question?

Christopher sat up in his silk bed in his silk pyjamas, gasping for breath as the slices tumbled like forgotten frisbees into nothingness somewhere out of sight.

"Who is the leaker?", he breathed out loud in the darkness, trying to see the answer that his “last to know” brain was concealing from him like a curtain drawn over the truth.

Christopher was sick of being dumb, and he resented this secret threat from within his own circle, because it was about what happens next, and why were they doing this to him?

Bloody Maiki Sherman was talking to someone inside his cabinet and they had stabbed him in the back over Māori Wards.

"Who is it?", whispered Christopher imploring the solution to present itself from out of the hidden fabric of the unknown.

But there was no reply from the black abyss, where Christoper stared wildly, sleepless in Rem-wah-rah, a quivering jelly of racing doubts in his tasteless master bedroom.

A room thankfully invisible in the darkness, concealing such beige horror that lies beyond the imagination of the tasteful.

Poor Christopher, TVNZ One News had told the nation he was no trusted leader of a unified team, but rather a delusional fool so far up his own arse he could not see the treachery under his privileged snout.

Fat, wet, squid like white feet, slipped into fluffy pom pom slippers, as Christopher wrapped the white vanilla dressing gown around his pudgy soft belly.

Tying the sash like a ribbon around a Christmas cake, he looked down at Amanda, still sleeping with headphones on, listening to NickelBack, as if she just did not really care about everything he had to endure now as Prime Minister.

Her brain is the size of pea, he reflected. What would she care about what is leaked next?

Her biggest trouble was what to wear on 20th April in a private garden fund raiser in Dannemora, while Christopher had a leaker, leaking because he did not want those Maori Wards becoming another reason for his popularity to plunge right now.

Penny Simmonds had lost him points. Winston was out of control. Nicola’s numbers were a mess. The nation was miserable and clearly, he was suffering the ire of the nation, way out of his depth as he pretended he disagreed strongly.

There's something cold about a dead marriage where keeping up appearances and working those biceps is all part of the job, and so Christopher, quickly moved on, his fat self centred chin leading him out of the room and into the gloomy hallway.

"Was it Judith?", he pondered, after closing the bedroom door behind him. "She had leaked before but for what purpose now?"

After all Christopher had done for her, would she really carry the failed leader spite anymore after her pathetic attempt at leadership taught her the limits of her talent? Surely the Botox vampire had enough of the sunlight?

In any case Judith’s white pride was insulted when Labour had removed the 5% threshold forcing councils to have expensive referenda back in 2021 - where sure enough - the white supremacy and pakeha colonial domination Christopher bathed in - ensured these “noble savages” had no voice at the table.

“It’s not racism. I believe in localism and devolution, not centralisation”, thought Christopher, ignoring the fact that many councils wanted Maori Wards and objected to the backward racist measures his Cabinet were seeking to revive.

“I can sell anything but not right now. The timing is not right”, said Christopher as he jelly wobbled on down the hallway like a semi soft egg with no hard shell, and his “soap sales” mind asked why the leaker wanted the public to know his cabinet had delayed Act's race based policy to crush Maori Wards?

Was it Act seeking attention? He would not put it past them, but then Maiki would have known this when she confronted Seymour and he blew it all off. So it likely was not Seymour.

Christopher stopped as he approached the end of the hallway near the out of place French Doors.

"What was said in the conversation around the table that could have upset anyone?", he breathed like pure paranoia interrogating his memory.

"Et tu Tama?" breathed Christopher as he placed both hands on the handles to the French Doors and pulled them down, swinging them wide open.

The night air rushed like a cool change as Christopher placed a pom pom slipper outside the grand mansion and stepped out onto the balcony under the Easter stars.

Would Tama Potaka stab him in the back over this?

Tama certainly frowned a great deal but he had been a very useful tool, betraying that eight hundred year history, and pledging his allegiance to National over any of that ancestral nostalgia and sentimentality - thought Christopher as he squinted at the stars above.

Then there was that Costello woman, a former Hobson’s Pledge founder, who may have wanted the culture war to peak too soon out of sheer contempt for her mother’s side. She had messed up badly before and was likely the type to take more out of bounds action. Yet she seemed subservient and embarrassingly acquiesce, as she grovelled at Winston’s feet, so was this really Winston acting up again?

Christopher walked slowly around the moon lit garden, past the garden gnome, the piss boy fountain and the hideous “me too” sundial from some unbearable second hand shop for bottom feeders - the one Amanda had insisted upon buying from.

“Simmonds? Would Simmonds lash out in petty revenge? She had motive to be resentful after the public mortification, or was Nicola making a move?” agonised Christopher as he imagined he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, after all he had tried for three years, seemed like ninety.

“God your will is hard, but you hold every card”, said Christopher to the Universe.

“Show me a sign?”, but the Universe did not care and remained indifferent as if Christopher was a stranger unable to pass through the eye of a needle.

That Maiki Sherman had to be watched, thought Christopher, she may have a Māori agenda and these days she was not behaving like Jessica at all.

Maiki did not want to get to know him and did not seem impressed by his energy levels.

“What if I put a private detective on her case?”, thought Christopher, “Or better still - the state intelligence apparatus?”

A grey cloud skudded across the moon, plunging Christopher into darkness in his private garden…as if the cold wind of Sir John was blowing a corrupt wind in his face and shadowy forces loomed large all around.

Faced with this same dilemma, Soyman Brudges had acted swiftly to set the hounds on the trail and invited in PWC…to study phone records and conclude who was the leaker - as Jamie-Lee Ross drove down a long state highway, pursued by dark monied forces…those were the days.

But where did that all lead to, with those tapes, and the Muller lie down and Pullya Benefit storming off to Real Estate.

“Looks like you’ve got a leaker”, spoke a voice from behind Christopher, who jolted like he’d been hit with a Mr Plod sized taser.

“Better call a whambulance”, said another voice nearby, “Think he may have shat himself”.

“Is that you Sir John?”, stammered Christopher like petrified butter, “Who are you?”.

“This mofo paid Steve Joyce $4,000 per day, to be a consultant, while telling us he was getting rid of consultants”, said the first voice.

“And he wanted that $52,000, said he was entitled as I recall”, added the second voice.

“If it’s money you want, I don’t have any”, blurted Christopher now fearful for his safety, but curious who was there in the foliage?

“Come out and show yourselves!” said Christopher shaking like an accountant in an IRD audit.

“Oh we don’t want your money, you can jam that up your arse.”, said the first voice.

“I mean look at his slippers? He’s not my Prime Minister”, said the second, “He sells soap”.

“He never did those mergers and acquisitions, that was a lie”, said the first voice.

“Everything about him is a lie”, said the second.

Where were the diplomatic protection squad when you needed them, thought Christopher as suddenly a whooping sound and fluttering sound beat the air.

Christopher looked up, and in a split second saw the beak and the claws of the majestical Tui destined for his dome.

“HELP !!!”, screamed Christopher as he was pecked at, running madly in a zig zag across the fake lawn.

Christopher screamed for his life - and lights flicked on…. and security looked at each other out the front, as they turned and dashed to the scene out the back.

“What are you doing?” asked Amanda, standing at the open French Doors, now wide awake watching her husband run around the garden like a traumatised omelette.

“There’s nobody there”, said the Security officers - inspecting the foliage, “It was just a bird”.

“What I am saying to you is clearly there was two of them”, protested Christopher, sure of himself, as Security doubted he was rational.

“You had another bad dream honey”, said Amanda, “He sleep walks a lot” she told Security.

“I strongly disagree”, protested Christopher.

“You’re not at work now”, said Amanda, “I’m going back to bed, he does this all the time”.

“We know”, thought Security as they shook their heads at another false alarm.

So it was that later on Friday morning, Christopher, chuckled to media, how :

“What I would say to you, is I’m not losing any sleep over the leaker, I can understand why the Public Service may be upset but my cabinet is rock solid and we have been working incredibly hard”.

While down in the back of the Rem-wah-rah garden a flax bush looked sideways at an organic punga.

“$4,000 per day”, said the flax bush.

“And people still vote for this”, replied the organic punga.

“The public service are to blame”, warbled a majestical Tui before yelling “YEAH RIGHT” and flying off to peck at some other lying politician.

Satire - Sleepless in Rem-wah-rah.

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